After the ground is tilled and the seed bed prepared, it’s time to plant! Normally, Alan and Brian don’t start planting corn until April 20, but this year they started on April 6! This field was planted on April 9.
This is a 40-foot long, 16-row planter for corn. Actually, it can be used to plant soybeans, too, but here it’s being used for corn.
Planting started early here in southern Indiana. We’ve had such a strange spring with warm, dry weather that farmers got into the fields much earlier than normal.
One of the things that farmers do to prepare their fields for planting is tilling to break up the soil and prepare the seed bed so the ground is ready to plant.
Alan is using the 25-foot Excelerator tiller to get this field ready for planting corn.
On Tuesday, the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover video from a pig farm in Wyoming. On Wednesday, I gave you my thoughts on some of the terrible things I saw in that video. The Animal Care Review Panel, facilitated by the Center for Food Integrity, released their report about the video on Wednesday.
Here’s some of the highlights of their report.
Dr. Temple Grandin (animal scientist): ”There’s definitely abusive animal handling shown in that video… A well run operation would not be doing these kinds of things.”
Dr. Candace Croney (animal behaviorist): ”This video was an incredibly disturbing, saddening and horrific example of the worst kind of animal handling. What I saw is the antithesis of every professional standard for animal care and handling published in any industry guideline or any certification program.”
Dr. John Deen (veterinarian): ”The actions seen in this video are abusive to the pigs and unacceptable to society as a whole.”
“The experts noted the video was comprised of brief excerpts and that being allowed to view unedited footage might possibly have allowed them to place the case in better context.”
“But there is no context I can think of that would make the egregious handling seen in this video acceptable,” said Dr. Croney.
Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call for the owners of that farm. It’s hard to tell what will happen from here… sometimes these types of things lead to prosecution for animal abuse, but not always. Sometimes the farms are completely shut down, and sometimes they can fire the current group of workers and hire new people, with appropriate training, and start over.
I was going to say that this should be a wake-up call for farmers everywhere… But, frankly, farmers everywhere don’t act like this. And employees of every pig farm don’t act like this. It’s time for this farm, and any others who mis-treat their animals, to clean up their act.
Tagged abuse, animal abuse, animal welfare, farm, hog, HSUS, Humane Society of the United States, pig, swine, undercover video, welfare
Chances are you’ve seen it, or at least heard about it. Yesterday, the Humane Society of the United States released a new undercover video from a pig farm in Wyoming.
I’ve watched it a few times, and it is hard to watch. I wanted to take a few minutes to comment, from a veterinarian’s perspective, about what I saw in that video. As a large animal veterinarian and a cattle farmer, I do have some experience with pigs and pig farms, but to be completely honest with you pigs are not my specialty. But I do know the basics of animal care and handling.
First and foremost, as a veterinarian and a farmer, I don’t condone animal abuse in any fashion. Not to pigs, cats, cows, chickens, or any other animal. As animal owners (of any kind of animals) we have a responsibility to our farm animals and pets to treat them with care and respect.
Unfortunately, that’s not what I saw in this video.
Tagged abuse, animal abuse, animal welfare, farm, hog, HSUS, Humane Society of the United States, pig, swine, undercover video, welfare
Did you know that there are around 40 different cuts of beef, not counting ground beef? And 29 of those cuts are classified as lean? And there are just as many ways to cook beef as there are cuts to cook. Yum!
Some of these are easy to figure out what to do with. Steak? Grill. Ground beef? Brown and mix with anything. Roast? Crock pot. Check.
But ribs, tenderloin, flank steak? Sorry, I’m lost. I know these cuts of beef are good… I’ve had them plenty of times, but I’ve never cooked them. And I didn’t know where to start.
Lucky for me (and maybe for you too), beef cattle farmers have joined together to save the day! Or, to at least save dinner.
My personal blog - so much to do, so little time
