“…it will never go away.”
A very wise butcher once told me that. It was in response to a question I had asked him about whether he had been getting a lot of protest from our area’s animal rights activists. He also included “We’re fighting for the same thing, to have animals treated humanely, but I’m being much more realistic.”
As urban farmers, we raise a variety of livestock to meet our egg, dairy and meat needs. Those of us that raise our own animals are doing so because we no longer want to be part of the industrialized agricultural machine that routinely abuses animals for the sake of the almighty dollar. Instead of thousands of animals being abused for our sake we reduce that amount to zero. We cannot afford to live in a rural area that is close to our work so we have to make do with living in the city. The cost of humanely raised meat, eggs and dairy is far too high for many of us, so raising our own is really our only option. Because we raise our own we also eat a lot less meat now compared to before we started raising our own animals. We honor the animals that gave us their life so as to nourish ours. I find this attitude towards backyard livestock to be quite common among those in our community. We feel we have a responsibility to be active players in the sustainable food movement even if we cannot afford the high cost of it.
On top of that we were finding that getting through the grocery store was such a time waster. Do I want free range, cage free or organic eggs? Do I want grass fed or organic beef? Labels no longer really mean anything. Cage free doesn’t mean the hen has more room. Organic just means they were fed organic feed and weren’t given any medication and has no bearing on their living conditions. Grass fed, organic beef can still be grain finished. It was just easier and cheaper for me to just raise the animals myself. Erica over at Northwest Edible Life summed this all up very succinctly last week.
These guys don't seem all that unhappy
But there’s a very small, yet very vocal group of animal rights activists that want us to no longer be able to raise our own. Nevermind that we’ve never had a complaint (our neighbors actually enjoy what we’re doing and come over regularly to visit our animals), we’ve never made anyone sick (they claim that we are creating a health hazard by having these animals), and our animals are safe, happy, healthy and have a ton of room to run (yes, they have enough to actually run/gallop/jump) around. We take them to the vet if they get sick or injured (yeah, I’m the crazy person that spent $300 on a chicken at the emergency vet) and we make sure they have the best feed available.
One of the activists admitted that they don’t have experience with these animals. They don’t know what urban livestock really entails and they’ve never actually visited an urban farm with livestock. yet they tell people that our animals are living in conditions that are worse than the factory farms. They say we participate in illegal activities such as selling raw milk and meat. It’s hard not to assume that they want to use the government to force us to eat their way. That if they force us to give up our own animals that we’ll just choose to go without meat, milk or eggs.
Unfortunately cheese (and meat and eggs) outweighs my guilt and if I can’t make the best choices by raising my own I’ll just go back to eating the commercial stuff.
 |
Print 
PDF
Well put! At a certain point this behavior is religious extremism, no different than any other brand. The vast majority of vegetarians and vegans I know are thoughtful, caring people. But a very teeny percentage have the same “convert them or kill them” mentality that exists in extremists of every religion. I think these few sometimes give the rest a bad name with omnivores who strive to eat meat in an ethical manner.
Exactly! There is a difference and it’s why I refer to the group as animal rights activists rather than vegans because there are vegans that are just normal people doing the best they can.
Great post, brilliant title. I agree with every word. Even though I live in the country, the scale of my enterprise makes me more akin to the urban homesteaders than to real farmers.
City dwelling even has advantages: no bears demolishing chicken coops. I sincerely believe that the Urban Homesteading movement is one of the bright lights in today’s dark world. Cheers to all of you!
“Well done is better than well said.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Excellent post Rachel. Some times it seems so idiotic that a handful (literally) of animal activist fanatics are raising so much hell and costing our local governments so much money. When I think of the taxpayer dollars spent by El Cerito to respond to their protest – four months of the city attorney and his staffs time as well as a second council meeting plus who knows what else – it just makes me sick. I don’t even want to consider how my local tax dollars are being spent by the Oakland Planning Department and City Council because of these same handful of people. We have so many other issues that are more important. Let’s spend that money on community outreach instead and try to stop LITTLE kids from getting gunned down in our streets.
FYI – When I made an effort and actually engaged one of these folks in a conversation, I openly invited him to visit my homestead and see for himself how my animals were treated. Has he come? Nope. Never heard another word.
Kudos to me for at least TRYING to open a dialog. Their actions since have not only closed the door. It’s been slammed shut, right behind Gretel’s backside when I brought her home. They’ve crossed the line by trespassing on personal property, endangering the lives of the very animals they proclaim to care so much about, and threatening homesteader personal safety and security.
And for the last time (okay, probably not), I’M NOT TRYING TO FEED THE FOOD DESERTS IN OAKLAND! I’m trying to feed myself.
Thanks Rachel. I have been writing a similar post for weeks now and just have not been able to be succinct enough to publish yet. You are an inspiration as always, wish I still lived in the Bay Area just so I could know you. We support you.
Your animals are living in conditions worse than factory farms…
Right.
Are these people daft?
The fringe activists make things harder for those of us who want to improve conditions for animals but who also live in the real world.
I am not against farming–I am against factory farming.
When I was growing up in New Mexico, we had chickens. We used the eggs that the hens laid for our own food, and we sold some at the farmers’ market. Most of the roosters did end up on the table, but we had a couple that we kept as pets. They had a very big coop to roam around in, which protected them from foxes. Unfortunately a fox did manage to get under the fence once and mauled our pet rooster, a big gentle white fellow named Peter. He was fatally injured. We buried him in the back yard.
I do not see how anyone can believe for an instant that conditions in places such as your farm or my family’s chicken coop could be worse than a factory farm.