Myth-busting: Calf Cruelty
I don't usually do a post that is mostly other people's words, but this is just amazing and wonderful and gives me hope for the future of agriculture. Also, it's very much true. I grew up on and around small to medium farms, I know what it takes to run one, and it's not easy. It's also not, contrary to what most young folks and city folks seem to think, the province of sociopaths. Animals, even meat animals, are taken care of. These are your livelihood, and the people who farm may seem callous, but they aren't. Farm animals are not pets. I was once accused of cruelty and sadism for butchering a hog. After getting over the indignation that someone would assume that I'd put the animal down 'just because you were mad!' I shrugged and got back to wrapping meat for the freezer, meat that my family would be eating for the next few months. You take care of your food, from baby through maturity through the process of death and food. I wouldn't feed my family animals that had been mistreated. If for no other reason than stressed meat tastes bad - you shoot a deer to drop it in it's tracks because if it panics and runs before dying the meat will taste bad. But also because I'm not a monster, any more than 99.9% of farmers are. We respect the animals, and care for them almost like family.
There is a perverse movement to demonize agriculture at large. You'll see photos like this of the calf which is supposedly being prevented from nursing. The PETA fake sheep supposedly killed for it's wool. My reaction to that is a pure WTF?!!? because anyone who has half a clue knows that sheep are sheared, and if they aren't given what is the human equivalent to a haircut, THAT could kill them after a while. Sheep, at least most modern breed, don't shed. Anyway, those, the memes and articles portraying farmers as evil uncaring earth killers for using fertilizers and pesticides and so on... you'd think these people had absolutely no idea where their food came from. Or that they never wanted to eat again.
Source (at least for part of it)