Did You Hear What Happened on That CAFO Farm?

This gets really good at paragraph six.

First of all CAFO stands for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.

This particular greedy farmer increased his farm size in order to support his three sons who wanted to continue to farm side by side.

This farm chose to have their cows inside so that in the fall and winter they would be sheltered from rain, snow and freezing temperatures. In the summer the open sided barns with fans and water misting them would keep them cool and comfortable. And, of all things, they have beds to lie in that are made of soft rubber cushions and fed a special diet just for them. I know, horrible aren’t they?

Well, this type of incident has happened twice on this farm – at least what we know, maybe more that hasn’t been brought to light. We’ll just highlight these two.

This is the paragraph where it gets good. Last winter a heifer calf was born premature. She was so tiny and helpless. One of the owners took this calf away from his mother – such a horrible crime. 

They brought her into their home and wrapped her in warm towels that they reheated every so often. They did nasty things like allowing their 10 year old daughter to sit with her and read stories. Their Golden Retriever lay beside it. The calf was fed with a lamb’s bottle and the warm towels were changed frequently. All through the night every 3-4 hours for two days this disgusting behavior happened. They even named her Katniss after the hunger games character because they thought the calf was a fighter. 

Even after all this horrendous exhausting behavior the calf died. Needless to say the family that stole the calf away from the mother was crushed.

This latest incident started June 30. This little Angus-Heifer calf was born one and a half months premature. He weighed in around 25 pounds and looked like a little fawn. And he had a spot on his forehead where the skin hadn’t full grown.

The larger calf is a few hours old and the little brown one is a day old. This shows how tiny he was.

The owners and the herdsman treated the spot on his head and then proceeded of all things to try to keep this animal alive. Throughout the week they fed him with a lamb’s bottle, moved him to the horrible hot box to help keep his body temperature up, treated him with a few various medical products, tried to tube him but he was too small so they fed him with a syringe. Every few hours someone was taking their time to attend him. 

One of the owners, the female one even prayed over him, massaged him trying to stimulate him. Pretty disgusting.

Well, this horrible treatment went on for a few days until one day he started to get a little spunky and the farmer and another worker actually helped him stand up. He seemed to be responding and the dehydration they were fighting looked like it was losing the battle.

The female owner was so nosey that she could never leave or return to the farm without stopping in to caress, talk to and love on this calf.

Last night on her routine trip back to the farm she stopped in to bother the calf with her concern and found him dead.

Unbelievably the owner’s heart was sickened and the tears came.

This is being reported so that you as consumers could know that with all this horrible, caring attempts and the hours and dollars thrown at this calf, it was a wasted effort. This money grubbing, mean, despicable CAFO owners who operate with nothing but greed failed their quest.

I hope this sarcastic reporting of our efforts show you the true heart of farmers. CAFO doesn’t mean bad, greedy, and disgusting as the media and special interests groups want you to think.

We just happen to be large enough and choose to farm with this method to do the best we can.

Please don’t swallow the Kool-Aid these groups are feeding you. They have an agenda all their own and it isn’t as sweet as the drink.

Come to us farmers and ask. We are more than willing to show, tell and share the truth.

On face book – Ask The Farmers, Ag Chat, Agriculture Everyday are just a few good sources.

Hang out on my page A Farm Wife – I share all the Ag pages.

www.AskTheFarmers.com and www.AFarmWife.com are a couple of web sites also. You can find more through the face book pages I mentioned.

Please share this so we can bridge the information gap between the farmers and those who we try to feed. Consumers have a tough time sorting through all the fear laden lies out there.