Another farm under siege article

[Red_Barn]

[QUOTE=ReSomething;8638423]
I disagree about the basic intent, because somehow the tags have it under animal rights, animal cruelty, and veganism, NOT false or misleading advertising.[/QUOTE]Well, of course.

It’s now being marketed to kids and whack jobs and taken to the bank - exactly why Benner should have handled it like a grown up to begin with.

And I think Kwill makes a very good point: even after the fact, there were a lot of things this guy could’ve done to disarm the situation, none of which he actually did.

Definitely not smart, and a clear disservice to real farms everywhere.

[SportArab]

[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8637795]
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.[/QUOTE]

This whole situation is a case of serious cognitive dissonance. The woman who wants to “save” the cow suggests the family buy their meat at the store instead. OY.

[amm2cd]

[QUOTE=Red Barn;8638402]
A person shelling out cold hard cash for a specified service is under no obligation to change his “philosophy” to suit the seller’s random changes of heart.

If the seller advertises rainbow farts and May poles, then this is exactly what he should deliver.

Even Ayn Rand gets this.[/QUOTE]

A business is under no obligation to change its plan if someone doesn’t agree with it. A patron may choose not to be a return customer, but a business is under no obligation every single previous customer happy.
For instance, I will not patronize Hobby Lobby as it’s insurance program does not cover birth control. I feel that a corporation shouldn’t get to dictate it’s employees health. I don’t give them my money. What I don’t do is threaten the owners lives or demand that they give me craft materials for free because I’m offended. That is Adulting 101.

The next issue, the real crux of the problem is advertising and if that constitutes lying.
The complaint :

Minnie has been the resident cow at Benners Farm for over 2 years. She is used as the face of the farm for all their educational programs, birthday parties and festivals…the events are too numerous to name. Updates are posted about her on their instagram account…and with good reason…she is quite personable and has been a wonderful animal ambassador for the “farm”. The public’s impression was to believe that this was a resident cow but now are being advised she is being slated for slaughter. Please support Minnie and support this petition.

So, the Brenner’s use Minnis’s face in their social media and have a ‘met the cow’ moment on tours and birthdays. Let’s step back and analyze what has been advertised when you visit the farm and see Minnie :
Meet a farm animal.
Nowhere on the site is she the official mascot. She is simply a feature of the farm. Nowhere do they promise that she will ALWAYS be there or that she will even be there next year. I really cannot see the lie. He didn’t even lie to the Ignorant Housewife in question, though that sure would have saved some time.

Now if you expect truth in advertising, we would have Prius parked next to the open strip Cobalt mine or the Pure Michigan campaign showing ticks, mosquitos and Detroit poverty. PETA euthanized animals and the racetracks leading the Eight Bells breakdown.
That’s not how advertising works, onviously.

Advertising is a catch, not an dissertation on the product. That is the consumer’s job to do their research.

So… in summation, she’s wrong and misconstrued that her interaction with an animal somehow changed the legal classification of cows from livestock to pet.

[RodeoFTW]

That wasn’t the lady who made the petition who said that. And yes, it was an ignorant statement to make, but that doesn’t do anything to solve the PR crisis that’s happening at Benner’s farm.

[D_BaldStockings]

That poor maypole was once a beautiful tree…

Face it: people in this country are squeamish about death. They especially don’t want their elementary school age or younger children to be ‘exposed’ to the concept.

Apparently cattle rustling is ‘good’ if you don’t intend to eat the cow.

Kowtowing to a minority opinion, no matter how vocally loud they are on the ‘net’ is not a good idea.
Permitting others to manipulate a farming decision or business decision or life decision through intimidation is poor decision making.

Recommending that is giving poor advice.

[amm2cd]

And because it’s relevant:
https://m.reddit.com/r/showerthoughts/comments/35j2fe/its_hard_to_win_an_argument_with_a_smart_person/

Also, slow clap for baldstockings!!!

[D_BaldStockings]

Giving or selling animals to ARTS in hopes they will keep quiet has proven to fail in the past; often to backfire spectacularly.

Doing so under verbal assault from them simply rewards that behavior.
You know: name calling, threatening, picketing, social media attacks, slander and libel, trespass, destruction of physical property, theft…

Not an outcome to be encouraged.

[D_BaldStockings]

[QUOTE=amm2cd;8638554]
A business is under no obligation to change its plan if someone doesn’t agree with it. …

So, the Brenner’s use Minnis’s face in their social media and have a ‘meet the cow’ moment on tours and birthdays. Let’s step back and analyze what has been advertised when you visit the farm and see Minnie :
Meet a farm animal.
…

So… in summation, she’s wrong and misconstrued that her interaction with an animal somehow changed the legal classification of cows from livestock to pet.[/QUOTE]

Thank you, thank you!

[RodeoFTW]

They weren’t advertising that she was going to be eaten, either. Using animals for self-sustainable living can mean lots of things without relating to eating them. They could have thought Minnie was a milk cow and would stay on the farm having babies and entertaining children for the rest of her life. That was probably the impression they got from all their interactions with her.

Honestly, if I went to a ‘fun farm’ and someone wasn’t explicit about ‘hey, this is our beef stock, and we bred her for food’, I’d probably assume to that the animal was there was an ambassador. Especially since they used her in a lot of social media.

Benner’s farm was supposed to be educational but he took advantage of people’s idealism and used it to make a living. It wasn’t honest or right. He could have been so much more forthcoming about Minnie the heifer, but he probably knew that if he said the truth, people couldn’t want to come anymore.

So how is that being honest in business practices?

[roseymare]

And there are other arguments against selling. The Benners would lose money . Not to mention not getting what they want as far as cuts and packaging.

[RodeoFTW]

[QUOTE=roseymare;8638613]
And there are other arguments against selling. The Benners would lose money . Not to mention not getting what they want as far as cuts and packaging.[/QUOTE]

That’s not necessarily true, that’s a lot of big assumptions.

And like posters have said before, it would appease his bad PR issue and give faith back to his community and customers.

There’s no reason to be so pig-headed about a single cow he allowed the public to get too emotionally invested in. Would be completely reasonable for him to be defiant if he wasn’t trying to advertise Minnie as everyone’s favorite ‘bovine best friend’.

That was just a really stupid mistake on his part. Not wise to take advantage of other people’s sentimentality.

[Bluey]

[QUOTE=D_BaldStockings;8638559]
That poor maypole was once a beautiful tree…

Face it: people in this country are squeamish about death. They especially don’t want their elementary school age or younger children to be ‘exposed’ to the concept.

Apparently cattle rustling is ‘good’ if you don’t intend to eat the cow.

Kowtowing to a minority opinion, no matter how vocally loud they are on the ‘net’ is not a good idea.
Permitting others to manipulate a farming decision or business decision or life decision through intimidation is poor decision making.

Recommending that is giving poor advice.[/QUOTE]

Here, beautiful and poetic:

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/a-hauntingly-beautiful-short-film-about-life-and-death/

[amm2cd]

[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8638603]
They weren’t advertising that she was going to be eaten, either. Using animals for self-sustainable living can mean lots of things without relating to eating them. They could have thought Minnie was a milk cow and would stay on the farm having babies and entertaining children for the rest of her life. That was probably the impression they got from all their interactions with her.

Honestly, if I went to a ‘fun farm’ and someone wasn’t explicit about ‘hey, this is our beef stock, and we bred her for food’, I’d probably assume to that the animal was there was an ambassador.

So how is that being honest in business practices?[/QUOTE]

She IS and ambassador. She greets and interacts with kids. The party got to meet the cow, as advertised. Had he killed and eaten her infront of the kids, then yes, the complaint would be valid. Instead she is a farm animal that the kids get to meet and pet.
All promises made in advertising were delivered. Simple.

Of course there will always be the element of society who need to be told not to bathe with their toaster (plugged in), I guess.

[RodeoFTW]

So if I ran a stable and dumped my horses for meat after a time, as long as I did as promised in my lesson program, it’s a-okay for me to do whatever I want and my clientele have no right to be upset about anything I do behind closed doors?

Because that’s what you’re pretty much saying.

[dags]

[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8638620]

There’s no reason to be so pig-headed about a single cow he allowed the public to get too emotionally invested in. [/QUOTE]

What about the 2 years he has personally invested in this cow??? Someone sees an instagram photo, meets the cow for 5 minutes, and now they get to claim the biggest emotional investment in this cow?

This thread baffles me on so many fronts.

If you see a cow on a farm it’s a pretty safe bet “inside of the freezer” is one of the possible answers to the question “Where does moo-moo go next?”

And dollars to donuts that lady knew that, otherwise why ask?

I see zero PR issue here. I see a public that has completely lost touch with reality, and just hope they are not the majority.

[RodeoFTW]

[QUOTE=dags;8638637]
What about the 2 years he has personally invested in this cow??? Someone sees an instagram photo, meets the cow for 5 minutes, and now they get to claim the biggest emotional investment in this cow?

This thread baffles me on so many fronts.

If you see a cow on a farm it’s a pretty safe bet “inside of the freezer” is one of the possible answers to the question “Where does moo-moo go next?”

And dollars to donuts that lady knew that, otherwise why ask?

I see zero PR issue here. I see a public that has completely lost touch with reality, and just hope they are not the majority.[/QUOTE]

They were Instagram photos allowing kids to keep up with her ‘daily adventures’. That’s pretty intimate.

People who grow up in rural areas think that. Not urban/suburban people. I’ve met farm animals before and worked with livestock a lot like this one and we had meat breeds that were kept simply for kids to interact with, not as food.

For clarification. Maybe she, unlike the others, decided not to make a happy assumption based off of the happy picture the farmer was trying to sell them on.

And this entire saga literally is the definition of a PR crisis.

Actually, this is not too unlike what’s going on with SeaWorld, in some ways, but I’m not going to open that huge can of worms here.

[dags]

[QUOTE=RodeoFTW;8638632]
So if I ran a stable and dumped my horses for meat after a time, as long as I did as promised in my lesson program, it’s a-okay for me to do whatever I want and my clientele have no right to be upset about anything I do behind closed doors?

Because that’s what you’re pretty much saying.[/QUOTE]

No, it is not. We don’t eat horses. We don’t swing by MickeyD’s for a horse-burger on the way to our riding lessons.

[RodeoFTW]

[QUOTE=dags;8638647]
No, it is not. We don’t eat horses. We don’t swing by MickeyD’s for a horse-burger on the way to our riding lessons.[/QUOTE]

You don’t eat horses. I certainly do know people who do eat horses and see no problem with it. We’re just Americans, so we don’t culturally (as of very recently) think of horses as a meat animal.

But there are plenty of people who would and do dump their horses for meat rather than treat them as pets, so it’s a very similar situation. You and I just assume that most people wouldn’t do that because of our morales.

Where I bought my current rescue pony, I saw plenty of school horses run through the meat sales.

[amm2cd]

Ok, let’s see how this comparison holds up…

@RodeoFTW;8638632

So if I ran a stable and dumped my horses for meat after a time,

1. the farmer is not dumping the cow. The cow may not ever leave the farm, depending on the processing method. He is not trying to milk the last pennies out of a used up animal. Rather is is allowing people to interact with livestock while she goes up cared for and comfortable.

as long as I did as promised in my lesson program, it’s a-okay for me to do whatever I want and my clientele have no right to be upset about anything I do behind closed doors?

Now you’re getting it! Mr. Brenner offers people the chance to meet farm animals. People pay for that privledgeon the days that the farm is open to the public. Behind closed doors, as long as nothing abusive goes on, it is none of the public’s business what mr. Brenner’s taxes look like, if he’s gay, if he prefers to feed his family home grown beef, or any other myriad issues.

Because that’s what you’re pretty much saying.

Except it wasnt. At all.
A better comparison would be if I ran a lesson program and when the horses could no longer do their job, they were euthanized-let’s just say by bullet, to give the senario a non PC factor- while at home. That is perfectly legal and more humane that buting the horse up when it reaches the point that it cannot walk in a line with a young kid. Quality of life.

To continue with the analogy, this woman would be telling the instructor or Barn owner that they cannot sell lesson horse Dobbin to the person of their choosing. All because her daughter, who might have taken one lesson, has fallen in love with the horse. And Dalton has been prominently featured on the website and social media, so she never knew he might be taken away. So the instructor or Barn owner should just give them the horse. Sounds pretty stupid in this context, doesn’t it?

I happen to own both lesson horses and beef cows, so I guess I know something about it.

[RodeoFTW]

You are not getting it. Probably won’t ever try to get it.

And no, it’s not the same situation.

Although if an instructor was selling a horse, a tactful person would let their students know because hey! what if the student wanted to buy the horse? Or didn’t like the other horses in the program? Or just would have liked to have that in the back of their mind before realizing that their ‘best friend’ is gone and they might never see them again?

You can rationalize stuff all you want, but that doesn’t work with children.

Also, I’m not saying (not once) that Mr. Benner doesn’t right to slaughter his livestock, just that he kept that kind of information from the public so trying to say that he wasn’t being dishonest about his ‘working farm’ is a bunch of garbage. It looks pretty clear from the website and social media he was trying to keep death out of the picture lest he lose business from it.

Not that honest. That’s the only issue I have with it, and many others.