Request To Indian People From Vegetarians Of World

Author(s): Young Indian Vegetarians
Publisher: Young Indian Vegetarians

Page 41

Rearers are still limited by certain physiological constraints, among them choice of the sex of the off-spring, the dam's complement of teats - from 2 on a ewe to 14 on a sow - and the capacity of her organs: for instance farmers overriding the ewe's natural birth-control may so overload her womb that her digestive tract becomes too compressed to meet the consequent nutritional demands. Many calves are snatched from their dams a few days old, barely having had time to suck their fill of colostrum, to be pitched into harsh markets. Stress and disease are rife, farmers and vets ply drugs recklessly, resistance develops, and serious risks spread into the human community as the nemesis wrought by such sick methods of farming.
Vets and scientists have won acclaim by intensifying the reproductive processes further, with the aim of lessioning the intervals between birth and a new pregnancy and of overcoming the restraints imposed by the slow process of gestation. "Cheap" cows lend themselves to this, while "aristocratic" mothers, stimulated by drugs into synchronized estrus and superovulation, can be kept as suppliers of embryos. One plan of this kind subjected an animal to 15 "surgical interferences" and 4 natural pregnancies during a period of 51/2 years. Cystic ovaries developed in some animals so mutilated and abused. Poultry have been specially for the battery-cage and the broiler-unit. Wild turkeys fly, but today's farm animal can barely walk without suffering arthritis, for it has to meet the demand for breastmeat, so extreme that the animals are unable to copulate; artificial insemination is therefore essential. Extremes of breeding to satisfy disparate requirements in beef and dairy farming, which are closely integrated in the U.K., result in broad-beamed offspring, with consequent difficulties in calving. Mutilations on farm animals may be performed by stockmen using methods that would be illegal if a vet applied them to a dog or cat. Male farm animals are emasculated to make them more manageable end to produce beef of the type the customer demands. Painful procedures such as disbudding and dehorning are carried out on the farm. The pressure of intensive rearing induces vices in the stock, so the teeth and tails of pigs are clipped and the beaks of poultry are "trimmed". Crude methods of cautery are applied, with litle reason, except to induce scarring for 'firming' the tendons of overworked horses. Hormones are implanted in many animals in partial restoration of the growth promotion that castration might curtail or to beef up cull-cows or to facilitate the handling of bulls being reared for beef. As a final indignity cattle going for slaughter may be injected with enzyme preparations that tenderize the flesh and thus improve the value of otherwise cheap cuts needing prolonged cooking. Such procedures have been condemned by the British Government's Farm Animal Welfare Council as unacceptably cruel. Some organs, such as the liver, may thus be rendered unsalable, but the butcher's loss on this count is small, as he can sell such-offals for petfood. Cold shortening and toughening of the muscles post mortem are prevented by pasing heavy electric pulses through the carcase. Shortcoming in the salughter of food animals by various methods are legion and occupy several reports receiving tardy action. The euphemistic concept of "humane" killing is a cruel delusion. The abuses implicit in modern livestock rearing condemn it as a sick perversion of husbandry.
DR. ALAN LONG, VEGETARIAN SOCIETY OF U.K.