Yes our cattle are given vaccinations and wormed. We vaccinate with 7 in 1 which vaccinates for 7 disease in once. We inject with dectomax which kills internal and external parasites. What makes you think that we don’t. If we have a sick calf we can give it penicillin.
[QUOTE=Gestalt;8637319]
And I must ask, do you believe that cows are given medications and such? Kept free from parasites? I gotta say I think your post is… 
[/QUOTE]
Yes our cattle are given vaccinations and wormed. We vaccinate with 7 in 1 which vaccinates for 7 disease at once. We inject with dectomax which kills internal and external parasites. If we have a sick calf we can give it penicillin. We have blooded them before, which is injections you can get from the DPI against ticks.
What makes you think that we don’t?
The farm raises strawberries and pumpkins for sale to the public, also is expanding their herb and vegetable gardens for commercial sale.
Animals are raised for family consumption.
Occasionally there is an overage that is sold.
This is a small farm, not a beef operation by any means.
Nowhere on their website or their ATTRA internship page do they propose to teach slaughter or processing of animals.
“…and also raise a variety of farm animals for self-sufficient living.”
-from the Benner farm’s own website
[I]"Many farmers honestly love their work, respect the people who eat their food, and are actually proud and happy to explain exactly what it is they do, and why they struggle so hard to remain independent.
Those people are admirable. "
[/I]-RedBarn
The Benners ARE those people. I’m not seeing them whine at the public tarring and feathering they have been subjected to.
Whining seems to emanate from the opposition.
[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8637413]
I am flabbergasted by your first paragraph alone. Like, do you feel that threatened by someone who might have more education than you?
Experience isn’t everything, although Red Barn also has a farm herself. She’s not all books and no dirt.
Just. Wow.[/QUOTE]
LOL :lol: MistyBlue…I think you’re wasting your keystrokes…
[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8637413]
I am flabbergasted by your first paragraph alone. Like, do you feel that threatened by someone who might have more education than you?
Experience isn’t everything, although Red Barn also has a farm herself. She’s not all books and no dirt.
Just. Wow.[/QUOTE]
‘More education’…
Because living and working on a farm is not educational in the sense of: oooh, a college edjimication?
Perhaps I should ask:
Do you feel threatened because educated people consider those who don’t know that cattle are going to become beef eventually to be divorced from reality and unwilling to look at facts? And that individual A cannot simply intimidate individual B into surrendering his property because A wants to have it?
Phd or not?
Interesting
You’re making a lot of assumptions about people just because they don’t feel the way you do about livestock.
Some people don’t even believe animals should be property. So, moot point.
*moot
Thanks. 
See, that was civil.
moot.
And you are right.
Feel.
Because reality doesn’t matter regarding decisions about livestock that doesn’t belong to you; feelings do.
Why does the farmer have to take your feelings into account (build his farm plan around your sensitivities) if there are plenty of people who ‘get it’ and remain his customers because of his compassion toward his animals and his providing the public with a country experience they enjoy?
Yes, some people do believe that animals should not be property.
That isn’t reality. Go and look.
Even the wildlife is guarded, conserved and its’ interaction with the human population is controlled by whatever country of humans it lives in.
If you fish out of season or hunt out of season or kill an endangered animal, the animals don’t oppose you, agents of the country’s legal system do.
They have claimed the right to those animals.
Only the view is free. And that may be subject to change.
Uhhh why are you turning this about me and my feelings? Stop being so personal about it. I didn’t start the petition, I didn’t sign the petition, I just looked in a little further and could sympathize with why those people got upset. I never once said I was upset myself.
It’s a heifer and I eat meat. Good lord.
Sorry, I didn’t mean it to seem as attack.
I am not being personal. I am trying to be rational - aka thinking, using facts and observation, not nebulous feelings that may or may not have a concrete basis.
Massteria (hysteria of the masses, or groupthink, jumping on the loudest rant) is real and avoidable.
On the other hand I do seem to remember being personally called “Now you’re being silly. Your comparisons were not equal to each other at all.” , and recently that I am making a lot of assumptions…
Apparently that shoe is meant only for my foot.
I didn’t know you spoke for other than yourself, which is why I courteously responded to you as an individual.
Nothing wrong with sticking to your guns.
Just realize you are not allowed to tell other people they can’t shoot back.
Well, I already explained that I didn’t agree with the petition, I just understood why people were upset.
Also, telling someone ‘hey, you’re being/acting silly’ isn’t offensive. You’re comparison was poor and nonsensical. Would you like for me to explain what that word means to you?
We can argue without being rude, personal, or condescending to each other.
You think the farmer has the right to do what he wants with his livestock (never said once he didn’t) which includes slaughtering them and eating them for his use. I said (among other people) he could have been more upfront about his intentions for his animals in his farm attraction because people do get attached to animals, especially when they have names, and everyone has a different culture when it comes to how people keep, treat, and eat animals.
Want to keep going around and around about it some more?
[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8637658]
Also, telling someone ‘hey, you’re being/acting silly’ isn’t offensive. You’re comparison was poor and nonsensical. Would you like for me to explain what that word means to you?
We can argue without being rude, personal, or condescending to each other.[/QUOTE]
Well apparently YOU cannot. Or do you need me to define “condescending”?
Oh and… *your.
[QUOTE=wireweiners;8637273]
To clear up some misconceptions
- McDonald’s and other fast food outlets do not exclusively use bull beef. I believe McDonald’s uses a lot of dairy steers as they tend to be lean. A lot of hamburger is produced from aged bulls and cows. Often fat trimmed from finished cattle is mixed with the leaner beef to up the fat content of hamburger. A lot of older cattle also wind up in cold cuts and hot dogs.[/QUOTE]
To my knowledge Mickey D’s uses old dairy cows as well, as they are lean, and heck, ground up, who can tell how old and tough!
[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8637658]
You think the farmer has the right to do what he wants with his livestock (never said once he didn’t) which includes slaughtering them and eating them for his use. I said (among other people) he could have been more upfront about his intentions for his animals in his farm attraction because people do get attached to animals, especially when they have names, and everyone has a different culture when it comes to how people keep, treat, and eat animals. [/QUOTE]
But he was transparent. When the women asked what happened to the cow he told her. That’s how he got into the mess in the first place - by being honest about his practices.
The perception was that the animals were there for the people who visited, because the farm makes its venue from the public. Minnie the cow was a popular tourist attraction, and when someone did ask what was going to happen to her, people felt that the truth was kept from them.
So while the farmer might have felt he was being honest (because he answered a question), the public thought he was being dishonest (because he was never clear that the animals were for meat on social media, during tours, petting visits, etc).
It was bad communication. They say in the Navy that perception is reality, and the reality of the farm was not what a lot of guests felt comfortable promoting and keeping in business with their money.
Can you substantiate “a lot of guests”? I say this because there is a whole community dedicated to California Chrome, consisting of people who know better than his owners and trainers and have TRULY CONNECTED with America’s Horse. Getting 6,000 people on social media to froth over an extreme view is not really challenging. I could easily believe it was visiting lady, a few of her closest friends, and 5,995 specimens from the dark underbelly of the WWW (worldwide whack jobs).
It’s not really challenging? Because you’ve done it before? Have some kind of personal experience with that?
You can believe whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it the truth.
[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8637816]
It’s not really challenging? Because you’ve done it before? Have some kind of personal experience with that?
You can believe whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it the truth.[/QUOTE]
We need to keep in mind, when pointing a finger, where the other three point to.
Guess we will have to agree to disagree who is believing what makes sense here.
I thought the idea of agri-tourism was to show the way farming works?
Kind of hard to believe visitors to his farm didn’t know animals were raised for their products, including thru slaughter, including the pettable, huggable cute ones with names.
That is part of why agri tourism exist, so visitors get to see first hand what is involved, including the animals used there.
Hard to believe, as some want to make it, he represented himself merely as a petting zoo.
We would not even have domestic animals if we didn’t have all kinds of uses for them.
Those farms as that man’s one showcase that.
Some just make whatever they touch be about them any one way they may, even in absurd ways like wanting to “save” that heifer, that was, as cattle are, intended for that ultimate purpose, to be slaughtered for the natural, renewable resources she is for the humans that so carefully raised her.
I think some people just like to be heard and thrive on the attention this is bringing them in their circles.
[QUOTE=toady123;8637760]
But he was transparent. When the women asked what happened to the cow he told her. That’s how he got into the mess in the first place - by being honest about his practices.[/QUOTE]
Grudgingly admitting something, when specifically pressed and after years of omission, is not “transparency”. (Anybody who’s ever been promised “transparency” by some constantly obfuscating political body will know exactly what I’m talking about here.)
Stand back, objectively look at that Benner website, full of baby birds, Morris dancers and Happy Talk, and then compare this to the website of any real working farm in your area, particularly those with genuinely educational agritourist features.
In the latter case you’ll see words like “grassfed”, “beef”, “pork” and, yes, “MEAT” - clear, honest words that pull no punches. The Benner website is a whole 'nother kettle of beans. All the bad words and straight talk have been carefully left out, and what’s left is basically a Reality Free Zone with some heavily edited rural trappings.
Now, if the Benner’s want to run a farm-themed day camp, that’s their prerogative. If they want to host weddings and parties and play dates with pets - absolutely AOK. I’d imagine there’s a much higher profit margin in this than in actual farming, so who can blame them?
The problem here is that you can’t ethically charge people good money to revel in this harmless, toothless, reality-free version of “farming”, and then suddenly pull the rug out from under them with some random bullshit about being a “working farm”. At that point, any honest person will tell you that you’re no longer a working farm in any meaningful way, and that your actual product is now the fantasy itself.
In a country absolutely steeped in the consumerist ethos, this ought to be obvious to the meanest intelligence.
Minnie the (cash) cow was a farm mascot and internet personality for two years without anybody happening to mention that she’s actually a BEEF animal. That’s not “transparency”, that’s a calculated marketing ploy.
In any other industry, this wouldn’t even be up for debate.
