Fun for the whole family... Death for a few unlucky horses.

[kso_wiz]

They should rig the chuck-wagon's so they carry cargo of little baby seals in a giant glass aquarium. Then when the wagon's invariably crash, we can see more carnage.

Jonathan Swift

 

[sevenofnine]

Rodeo's are an absolute disgrace. Amazes me how people think the death of these animals is no big deal. Sick people.

i think people forget that this is what these animals are breed for
and a horse can have a heart attack jumping at spruce meadows. if i remember hicstead ridden by eric lamaze
died after doing a round of jumps
yet do you people call for a ban on show jumping
google hicstead
and like i said whats on your barbi this summer steaks,
as far as things go in the life of animals with the exception of dogs and cats horses are treated the best in most cases there pets working pets.

if your an animal rights activst good for you and i don't have a problem with it, but there are far worse problems in the animal world then people owning horses and using them for competion or pleasure
have you ever been to one of those factory farms where most of your meat is produced
or do you take your gun and go out and kill something wild and natural
horses are for the most part pets, and a big investment, like thousands of dollars and horses for show or competition are fucking like a small fortune.
like you would spend tens of thousands of dollars on something and not take care of it. these horses are so pamperd and taken care of
and like i said, this is what there breed for, do you get so bent out of shape about the chicken on your plate.

 

[kso_wiz]

By no means am I an animal rights activist. Have no problem hunting, fishing, raising livestock for food. Have no problem with racing horses with them running as close to natural conditions. But it is simply idiotic to harness them to a wagon and each other for racing. All that mass compounds the gore and damage. The horse with the ruptured aorta might have had the same thing happen racing, but it would have been a single horse accident. Hopefully, it was out of it by the time it hit the ground. The completely foreseeable carnage that followed is why this 'sport' in particular should be banned.

 

[sevenofnine]

By no means am I an animal rights activist. Have no problem hunting, fishing, raising livestock for food. Have no problem with racing horses with them running as close to natural conditions. But it is simply idiotic to harness them to a wagon and each other for racing. All that mass compounds the gore and damage. The horse with the ruptured aorta might have had the same thing happen racing, but it would have been a single horse accident. Hopefully, it was out of it by the time it hit the ground. The completely foreseeable carnage that followed is why this 'sport' in particular should be banned.

a valid sensible arguement
i am in no way a fan of chuckwagon racing, but think its a fact of life and will attend from time to time that and other rodeo events

i kind of believe its more cruel to hunt and kill something that is wild and free as opposed to using an animal that is breed and owned for this purpose, it might not even be alive if it wasn't for rodeo's
but i don't see hunting banned any time soon, and whats the point of hunting you can go to safeway, yet is there this big hue and cry when hunting season opens

i don't really get why people single out chuck wagons or even bother, there are a lot more cruel things going on in the world.

 

[skiguru]

Rodeo's are an absolute disgrace. Amazes me how people think the death of these animals is no big deal. Sick people.

Nobody said it was no big deal. Did you see the interview with Chad Harden after the race? Watch it and then tell me he thought it was no big deal. He didn't say a word about all the money he'd put into these animals - he was genuinely upset because they died, plain and simple.

Why don't you turn your attention to all the animals that die from true neglect. There are litters of cats being dumped, dogs dying in puppy mills, and plenty of redneck farmers letting their animals starve in the winter. The SPCA could use the help and that would be useful.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Sorry I'm a bit late replying, haven't been around past couple of days...

Here we go... lol

One other thing I've learned from this thread is that Ms Bijou doesn't have her detractors by chance. She works pretty damned hard at cultivating them.

Actually, believe whatever you want - it makes no difference to me - but I think you've got things mixed up. My reaction to Melody is a direct result of her own attitude, in response to me but especially to other sp's. I have no patience for her treating me or any other sp the way she does on this board. I'd say she works pretty damn hard herself at cultivating the kind of reaction she got from me.

I'm sorry if it offends your sensitivities but you might want to consider the fact that perhaps you're missing part of the picture. Hopefully you'll also voice your discontent next time MM deliberately disses or attacks one of the other sp's on this board. When you do, don't forget to remark on how MM is working hard at cultivating her detractors - you might be in for a surprise and notice how dedicated she is at this task...far more dedicated than I could ever be.

I prefer not to use the term "breaking a horse". It has negative connotations and comes from the old cowboy days where in order to make a horse rideable, you literally broke his spirit. Nowadays it's all about thinking like the horse and handling him the way he would expect to be handled by the herd boss. I have a friend who was trying to "break" his horse the old-fashioned cowboy way in a round pen - lot's of yelling and cracking of the whip. I asked him if I could try. I stepped in and after a short time I have his horse walking , trotting, galloping, turning in the other direction and stopping, all without making a sound, using a whip, or coming within 10 feet of the horse; a step forward here, backward there, a slight turn of the shoulders. That's all it takes. He was amazed and is now a convert. I'm glad because now his relationship with his animal is based on trust rather than fear. There's an exceptional movie called "Buck", about horse trainer Buck Brannaman that provides some good insight into this process and I would encourage anyone with an open mind to watch it.

It sounds corny, but it's like the dog whisperer.

Well that's good to hear. It's not corny at all IMO. It's great that so much has been learned about animals and horses. But essentially, what you are describing and the whole concept of dog/horse "whisperer" is no more than being able to communicate in a way the horse/dog understands. Instead of training through domination, force and fear, of training an animal to do things whether it understands what's expected or at a pace its comfortable with, instead of expecting the animal to submit and obey. The way you describe is more about cooperation, about methods that don't conflict with an animal's nature and instincts and since horses don't talk, but are extremely intuitive and sensitive to body language, posture and non-verbal signals, "whispering" is basically based on the understanding, or at least the ability, to communicate in non threatening ways the horse can understand.

When the medical school at the University of Arizona wanted to teach their students more about bedside manner and sensitivity to patients, they didn’t do it in the classroom, a hospital, or a doctor’s office. Instead, for an “introduction to non-verbal interaction,” they took the students to a horse ranch.

Whoa, horses? It might sound unconventional, but the students were challenged to use their posture, eye contact, movement and breathing to calmly encourage the horses to complete simple tasks.

“Horses are gigantic amplifiers for body language, extremely sensitive to it,” said Dr. Allan Hamilton of the medical school. “What we’re actually doing is transmitting a true feeling in a non-verbal way. It’s a wonderful way to teach medical students to become aware of their body language.”

http://www.cpso.on.ca/members/resources/practicepartner/doctalk/default.aspx?id=3412

I think that is great and I think it shows an open mind not to stubbornly hold on to old methods of dominating but instead adopting ways that are more respectful to the animal and give them far more credit for what they are capable of. It's a really useful skill to develop because it can apply to human interactions just as much as it can with animals. We all communicate far, far more than we imagine without saying anything and we tend to put far too much importance on spoken words while ignoring a lot of valuable message that are conveyed in other ways. Animals have no spoken language, and prey animals such as horses are especially adept at picking up and sending out messages that way.


So my next question is: If this is something that you find important, if you choose this way of interacting with horses, are you simply not aware that this is what you are doing and how your horse communicates with you? If you are aware of this communication, then how do you interpret this kind of non subtle non verbal communication (below) and how is it possible for you to dismiss and completely ignore what it is very clearly saying in some of the pictures below?

Most rodeo events involve the use of fear, stress or pain to make animals perform. There is also considerable risk of injury or death for the animals. These risks and the suffering they endure are especially unacceptable, given the unnecessary and frivolous nature of rodeo as entertainment.

Rodeo is not illegal in most places. However, if other animals, such as dogs, were subjected to the same treatment it is likely charges under the Criminal Code of Canada or provincial statutes would apply. For example, if a dog were to be chased at speed, lassoed, jerked backward and slammed to the ground it would likely meet the Criminal Code’s description of cruelty as “wilfully or recklessly caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal…”
Rodeo events are not covered by Canadian animal cruelty laws because historically they are considered “generally accepted practices of animal management” for the treatment of livestock. This de facto exemption, curiously, applies to rodeo even though it is merely an entertainment.

Why is rodeo inhumane?

Fear, pain and stress: Animal protection groups argue that rodeo exploits animals’ reaction to pain, fear and stress. This becomes obvious when one asks questions such as: Why would a calf or bull charge at full speed out of a chute into an arena full of people? (Answer: they are kicked, have their tails twisted or are even given electric shocks.) What makes rodeo horses and bulls buck? (Answer: A device called a flank strap is tied around the animals’ hindquarters, causing irritation and stress until the strap is released.) Were such methods used to motivate dogs at dog agility competitions, there would be a public outcry.

Even without physical coercion, the noise, alien surroundings and stress of being chased can cause extreme fear. The distinguished animal behaviourist, Dr. Temple Grandin (who designs slaughterhouses for the meat industry), has argued that fear is “so bad” for animals that it is worse than pain.

Injuries and deaths: Rodeo animals are injured or killed in rodeos regularly. The death of the calf that prompted changes at the Cloverdale Rodeo in 2006 had been preceded by the death of a steer in 2004 (a cowboy broke its neck during the steer wrestling event). It is difficult to get accurate figures on rodeo deaths and injuries but anti-rodeo activists have compiled a list of deaths and injuries at the Calgary Stampede – July 2009 Final from the Calgary Stampede, which gives a representative picture of rodeos risks to animals’ health and well being. It should also be noted that many painful injuries go unnoticed and unrecorded because bruising and internal bleeding are difficult to see.

Condoning of violence and animal abuse: Aside from what rodeo does to animals, there is also the question of what it does to us. That is, what message does rodeo give to the public, especially children? Most civilized societies rank kindness to animals amongst the highest behavioural values of humankind. From St. Francis of Assisi to Gandhi to the Dalai Lama, great moral figures have cited compassion toward animals as an essential human virtue. No one could argue that rodeo demonstrates kindness or compassion to animals. On the contrary, rodeo explicitly condones and glorifies violence and brutality toward animals.

The only message that rodeo can therefore give to society is that it is acceptable to treat animals brutally. For children, this is surely an undesirable moral lesson.

Specific rodeo events
The criticisms of rodeo (and the defence of rodeo) revolve around the specifics of each event. Following are descriptions of the main rodeo events.

Calf-roping (also called tie-down roping): In this timed event a calf is goaded (often includes tail-twisting, kicking or knocking the calf’s head against the bars; electric shock devices are sometimes used) into the arena, followed by a horse and rider. The calf, which runs at speeds averaging 27 miles per hour, is roped around the neck and jerked to a sudden stop. If the animal struggles to his feet he will be lifted up and thrown down to the ground by the rider, who then ties three of calf’s feet together.

The young age of animal, the in-chute abuse and the impact of the sudden jerking on the calf’s neck make this perhaps the most offensive rodeo event. Cloverdale’s decision to drop roping events followed a calf breaking his leg in this event, which resulted in the calf having to be killed.

Chuckwagon racing: Invented at the Calgary Stampede in 1923, the chuckwagon race involves several teams of horses pulling wagons in a figure eight course and racing down a track at high speed to the finish line. Several other rodeos in Western Canada have adopted this event. Nearly 50 chuckwagon horses have been killed at the Calgary Stampede since 1986, mainly due to crash injuries and heart attacks brought on by stress. The considerable risk of injury and death to horses has made this event highly controversial but it remains one of the main attractions at the Stampede.

Team-roping: In this event two mounted cowboys attempt to rope and immobilize a steer in the least amount of time. The lasso is thrown around the steer’s neck by one rider and the other ropes the hind legs. The steer is then pulled from each end and stretched to bring him to the ground. Sometimes the steer is stretched so violently that all four feet leave the ground and he is suspended in mid-air by the neck and rear legs.

Steer wrestling: Here, a rider jumps from his horse on to the head and neck of a running steer. He then twists the neck of the steer until it falls to the ground. This can result in neck injuries – a steer’s neck was broken at the 2004 Cloverdale Rodeo and the animal had to be killed.

Wild cow milking: This timed event involves three cowboys chasing a roped cow, grabbing and twisting its head to stop it long enough for one cowboy to take milk from the cow’s udder. Extreme stress can be observed amongst the cows as they attempt to escape from the men chasing them.

Bronc-ridingBareback riding/bull riding: Riders compete to see who can stay mounted on a bucking horse for a set time. Despite claims by the rodeo industry, bucking is not a natural activity for a horse. Hence a “flank strap” is tied around the horse’s sensitive hindquarters to make him buck. The horse will buck until the strap is released. The horse is clearly being tormented by the flank strap and the desire to get the rider off. A flank strap is also used in bull riding for the same purpose.


Arguments defending rodeo

A number of arguments have been put forward by the rodeo industry to defend rodeo. Following are some of the most common, with counter arguments:

Rodeo animals are valuable, so they would not be mistreated or put at risk.
This is like saying that race car drivers would not put their valuable cars at risk in motor racing. Of course they do because the financial rewards outweigh the risk. The same is true in professional rodeo, which offers large cash prizes and generates significant revenue for those involved. The animals are valuable because they are put at risk. It is the violent, physical nature of the events that provides sensation and suspense that rodeo fans enjoy.
Rodeo animals are just like athletes in other rough sports.

Except that rodeo animals, unlike human athletes, have no choice in the matter. Is it likely a calf or steer would choose to be roped and thrown to the ground? Would a bull choose to be goaded into an arena of thousands of screaming people with someone on his back and a belt tied around his groin?

Rodeo is a valuable part of our western heritage and tradition.
In fact, most rodeo events bear little or no resemblance to real ranch practices, historic or modern. For example, why would a real cowboy ride a bull? Why would a real cowboy want to make a horse buck with a flank strap? A key issue is that rodeo events are timed, whereas real ranch practices are not. Timing makes these events faster, more stressful and more dangerous to the animals. Real calf-roping on ranches is a far more gentle practice in which calves are roped at slow speeds.

Rodeo animals are big and strong, with thick hides.
Just because an animal is large or has great strength doesn’t mean it can’t suffer. The injuries and deaths sustained by many rodeo animals make it obvious they are subject to violence, which in turn must cause pain. A thick hide, although it might obscure bruising, does little to protect animals against broken limbs, the pain of tail twisting or the hard kick of a cowboy boot. In any case, as has been stated by animal behaviourist Temple Grandin, it is likely that fear may be more stressful for animals than pain.

The animals are going to be slaughtered anyway.
The fact that some animals will eventually be slaughtered for food is not a justification for abusing them before they die. Rodeo has been termed “a cruel detour to the slaughterhouse.” While we slaughter millions of animals every day for food, no one would suggest putting it on show, timing it and awarding a prize to the fastest slaughterhouse worker.
Rodeo is popular and is treated as family entertainment in many places, so how can it be wrong?

Just because an activity is popular does not mean it is morally acceptable. Many activities that were considered popular and socially acceptable in the past are no longer tolerated, such as: circus freak shows featuring disabled and deformed people; black and white minstrel shows; cock-fighting; bear baiting, etc. As society seeks to become more civilized many such activities are banned. It should be remembered that in our own history many people routinely attended public executions.

http://www.vancouverhumanesociety.bc.ca/campaigns/rodeos/

I don't know - but the message seems pretty clear to me.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Saying the horses are well taken care of - except when they get maimed or killed - is like saying a prisoner eats well before his execution - so fucking what?

Saying some horses love to run and are competitive misses major points.

No horse hooks itself up to a chuckwagon, no horse likes to get whipped or kicked, no horse has a say in the activity, no horse would choose to pull something on a crowded track at full speed.

Really, would the world be a worse place if there was no chuckwagon races?

Rodeos in general are archaic and violent, but that's always what people want - death, violence and mayhem.

At least with MMA or kick boxing the participants have voluntarily participated. Animals are forced into cock fighting, dog fighting, bear baiting and rodeos.

:thumb:

Rodeo's are an absolute disgrace. Amazes me how people think the death of these animals is no big deal. Sick people.

Right on.

I think Miss Bijou has a right to her opinion and I respect that, however I think she's being far too radical and closed minded about it. She has a vision in her mind of how she would feel if she were a horse and isn't willing to accept that reality might be a little different. The world is full of bleeding hearts and they serve a purpose in our society, however I have a hard time with those who are unwilling to accept that things might not be what they appear and insist on cramming their hard line views down my throat.

To even suggest that believing and saying so is somehow "radical" is really absurd. There's nothing radical about it. In fact, this opinion is becoming quite widespread. It's more "common sense" than "radical" - by a long shot.


There's a HUGE difference with me having an opinion that I shouldn't ram down your throat if we're talking about how you choose to run personal aspects of your life, what religion or personal beliefs you have. In any of these cases, and as long as your actions don't affect me, other humans or living, breathing animals - then you can reasonably expect that it isn't my place to get involved. However, if your "beliefs" and actions involve cruelty, abuse or violence towards people or animals, you can not claim that no one who disagrees has a right to ask for change. Two very different types of situations.

One of your previous posts mentioned not understanding why people insist on treating non-human animals the same as humans. First that's a very vague statement: when did anyone make this comment and what are you referring to? What treatment should be reserved exclusively to humans and not to animals? This comment could mean a million different things and I have no heard anyone voice this anyway - so I'm not sure what exactly that means.

Incidentally, I wonder what Miss Bijou's thoughts are on the hardliners that feel that all women involved in the sex trade are abused and forced into it and that this industry should be abolished at all costs? Would she expect them to believe her if she told them she enjoys what she's doing?

Honestly... Incidentally I don't see the connection between those two examples. Sorry. Again, the concept that animals don't have a choice or are not able to consent to any of these things really makes the comparison pointless.

there are a number of ‘defence mechanisms’ that human beings are able to deploy in order to deal with potentially painful (or just plain unwanted) ‘knowledge’. This includes the ability to deflect or simply ignore messages altogether while dismissing concerns as utterly unimportant or trivial. Bauman (1990) reveals that there is nothing so utterly disturbing to sedimented knowledge than actually having to think about it. This outlook is not necessarily based on notions that ‘ignorance is bliss’; rather, common sense knowledge is often based on the notion that a given issue has been ‘dealt with’; or that understandings surrounding that issue are largely ‘settled’. Plainly, ‘animal rights’ arguments may have at least the potential to disturb largely settled and long-held understandings of human-nonhuman relations, and evidence already presented suggests that it does just that, even given that the welfarist orthodoxy remains central to the issue. Therefore, many responses to ‘animal rights’ messages are likely to be based an irritation that some issues ‘already largely resolved’ are unnecessarily being ‘stirred up’ again.

Having seen Degrazia’s (1996) suggestion that negating early socialised lessons may take a certain independence of mind, it is further appreciated sociologically that any development of such independence of thinking is subject to, mediated, and controlled by forces of social interactions conditioned by social understandings surrounding any given issue. Sociologists Berger & Berger provide an interesting perspective on this sort of social experience as part of their ‘biographical approach’ to sociology. For example, they state that, “society is our experience with other people around us” (Berger & Berger 1976: 13) and that means that other people constantly mediate and modify human understanding of the social world, systematically imposing and reinforcing many of the norms and values of prevailing society.

There may have been sufficient media coverage, especially in recent years, of various views about human-nonhuman relations for most people to know that continual claims are made about animal agricultural practices. Therefore, even some of the more radical positions have recently had at least the potential to make up part of the social understanding of such relations.[2] However, there is absolutely no reason, apart from appeals for the evolution of ethical thinking, to suggest to people that they must actively engage with, or would want to evaluate, any such potentially disruptive claims. It may be further understood - and it seems essential that animal advocates fully understand this point - that even a vague awareness of claims about the human treatment of other animals is likely to contribute to the belief, and the suspicion, that even a superficial enquiry about the ins and outs of animal farming (or animal experimentation or any other human usage of animals) is at least likely to be psychically painful as well as socially disruptive.

There is growing evidence, to be reviewed in the following pages, that it is extremely common for the vast majority of people to attempt, again ostensibly quite reasonably, to avoid such pain; perhaps especially if new claims may disturb long-held views about the appropriate treatment of other animals by humans. Much of the following section is based on Stanley Cohen’s (2001) intensely disturbing book, States of Denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering, and the work of Kevin Robins (1994).

Cohen’s in-depth exploration of forms of denial, mechanisms of rationalisation, vocabulary of motivations, and justifications and excuses, means that it is apparently clear beyond much doubt that ‘turning a blind eye’ does not have to mean ‘not looking’. Rather, it is more about not registering or actively avoiding what has been seen or what is known. Denial is often about ‘deflecting’, ‘redirecting’, ‘turning aside’, ‘dodging’, and ‘escaping’ from what is essentially ‘known knowledge’.

It would not be surprising to discover that the grim details of human harm contained in States of Denial could potentially spoil someone’s dinner, although it is interesting that Cohen openly admits that he himself is ‘in total denial’ about animal rights issues (ibid.: 289). He states that he is in denial about environmental issues as well, which is a little ironic in that environmentalists such as George Marshall (2001) have begun to use States of Denial as a substantive source in accounts of the psychology of denial about issues such as climate change and global warming.

Cohen’s thesis is that denial can be common, and indeed a normal state of affairs, and he provides an account of his own denial about these two issues. Moreover, and this is something making Cohen’s position even more interesting and particularly relevant to this thesis, he admits that it is not the case that he cannot see the coherence of the arguments presented by environmentalists and animal advocates. In fact he reports that he ‘cannot find strong rational arguments against either set of claims’ (2001: 289). Yet, emotionally, he remains largely unmoved and ‘particularly oblivious’ about animal issues. For example, while accepting that animal experimentation and animal agriculture may involve the treatment of other animals that can be difficult to defend, he resorts to putting his ‘filters’ on. He therefore tells himself that some issues are not really anything to do with him; that there are ‘worse problems’ in a suffering world; that ‘there are plenty of other people looking after this’ (ibid.) In fact, he employs many of the rationalisations and techniques of neutralisation that constitute the substance of his own book. Finally, and animal activists will especially recognise this stratagem, he relies on attack as a form of defence, stating: ‘What do you mean, I’m in denial every time I eat a hamburger?’ (ibid.)

For some people, being reflexive and immediately jumping into defensive mode, engaging in knee jerk arguments seems to be the only way they are able to react when anything concerning animal welfare or animal rights -or any change to the status quo of any of the relationships humans have with various animals- is mentioned. This is not very productive. Conflating different, unrelated and incomparable examples, regurgitating the same old weak and lame arguments, pulling the same diversion and distraction tactics with specific, often cliche arguments or derogatory terms and language - ie. "bleeding heart", "radical", "extreme/ism", "tradition", etc.

The truth is many people are simply not willing to reconsider the whole issue or even various aspects of it (such as the topic of this thread) and this is why such strong, defensive reactions are ALWAYS. Resisting change is normal. In fact, when it involves the potential of one having to acknowledge deeply uncomfortable, difficult or even distressing truths, the human mind is capable of going to great lengths to avoid having to reconsider what they believe and to fight any perceived threat to the safety of keeping things the way they are.

I believe that many people who work in exploitative and inherently cruel and abusive industries genuinely do care for the animals. They find it offensive to have others describe their work/hobby/passion as abusive because they do not believe in abusing animals and cannot help but feel they are being accused of personally taking part in the abuse of animals in their care. But that's just missing the point. You can easily be a very caring person with the animals best interest at heart and the dedication to provide the best care - and do so within an abusive, exploitative industry. You can easily make yourself believe that an abusive industry is not. In fact, if you are a caring person taking part in an abusive industry, you pretty much have to rationalize and explain things in a way that does not view this industry as abusive. Failing to do so would make it impossible to continue and still see yourself as a caring person. So if you want to continue both seeing yourself as a caring person and work within the industry - the only way to do this is finding ways to see the industry as not being abusive. It's called cognitive dissonance and it involves well knows and documented psychological processes that involve different strategies of denial.

If the industry/sport/business itself is abusive, that the animals are "well cared for", "loved" or whatever, doesn't change this in any way. To insist on repeating this and assessing the situation from a personal perspective and not from an overall and honest look at the whole picture is completely pointless. Taking it personally and failing to look any further really defeats the purpose. This isn't about you, your motives, intentions or the way you treat animals. Say what you will about me, but I have my eyes wide open and am not willing to neither stop being a compassionate person who cares about animals, nor find ways to justify cruelty and abuse so I can continue to enjoy things without feeling any guilt. I'm not willing to "tweak" reality for my own benefit.

There are lots of things I would like to respond to, most of them pretty typical and often repeated. And since I've written more than I feel like writing when it's been written many times before in other places, I am just going to give you the quotes and/or links. Most of you are not interested in taking off your blinders so you'll skip it - which is fine. But hopefully a few of you will be honest enough with yourselves to at least take a peek with an open mind.

But I make no apologies for my views. I'm sorry you feel like I'm ramming something down your throat but I'm sure there are a lot of people in history who must have felt that way too but that didn't stop anyone from fighting slave ownership, racial segregation and women's rights. That's not about to stop me from speaking out for animals either.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Also, I deliberately started this thread specifically about the chuckwaggon races and horse deaths. However posters in this thread have stretched the topic all the way from regular horse racing to rodeos in general, to barrel racing, to the entire Stampede event (over reaction, much ) or to just keeping horses! Some have enthusiastically tried to refute imagined arguments I never made myself or applied comments within entirely different contexts than those I explicitly identified when I made them - to only name a few of the tactics and reasoning failures.

I won't address all of them individually but since many insisted on expanding the scope of the thread to include all kinds of "sports" or situations, I won't limit what follows to just chuckwaggon races either so there is no need to imagine arguments or conflate anything to come up with assumptions based on things I never even said in the first place.




Rodeos take place across North America, with the same competitors taking part in rodeos in Canada and the U.S. This video of American rodeos shows what really happens to the animals:


<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tCKXvp1fOCQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



FACT: Rodeos were banned in the United Kingdom in 1934 under the Protection of Animals Act.

Is it really entertainment for people in this day and age to watch someone throw a rope around a calf's neck and slam it to the ground, intentionally or not, causing the baby animal great pain, if not severe bruising or a fractured spine or broken neck, paralysis or death? Is it really fun to watch someone try to sit on a horse or bull that is bucking from severe pain and anxiety because a flank strap has been cinched tightly around its abdomen or genitals, sometimes with burrs, caustic ointments, or other irritants placed under the strap to increase the animal's agitation? Is it fun to watch the would be rider spur the animal, adding to its pain and torment?

Why is it fun to watch a cow or horse that has been shocked with an electric prod, in great pain and very frightened? Animals that have been poked with sharp sticks and the like?

My dad, the rancher, dislikes the Stampede. He roped calves one day a year for branding. He didn’t like that it, or any other part of being cowboy, was turned into a ‘sport.’ He considered bronco riding the worst. He loves his horses and absolutely hated how damaging the event was for them.

“The animals like it” argument. Two things about this: If I can’t ask an animal if s/he likes being prodded into an arena full of screaming fans to be ridden, yanked, goaded and possibly injured at our whim, I’m not going to assume that they like it, and I would therefore not put the animal in that situation. Secondly, the argument is used primarily in reference to the horses. Yes, absolutely horses love to run, but do they like running for humans, with humans on their backs in a ring, or tied into a chuck wagon where they are at risk of injury and death? Again, we can’t assume that they would choose this for themselves, and we should therefore not assume the animals like the situations in which we are jeopardizing their health and safety.

The “we love our animals” argument: I’ve been to many rodeos, met many chuckwagon racers and bull riders. They are sincere when they say they love their animals. In light of this, we need to look deeper at what it means to love. I mean it. What does the word “love” mean if we are willing to profit from and place in injurious situations those we “love”. If that’s love, I hope nobody loves me! Rodeo animals are sent to slaughter, not to retirement and pasture, when they cease to perform at a profit. It would be great to talk about this with rodeo folk but I’ve tried and found this dialogue difficult and often met with anger and defensiveness.

<a title="View Deaths at the Calgary Stampede July 2009 Final on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/100297732/Deaths-at-the-Calgary-Stampede-July-2009-Final" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Deaths at the Calgary Stampede July 2009 Final</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/100297732/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-1pfxhc8ov8403ho9af7u" data-auto-height="false" data-aspect-ratio="0.772727272727273" scrolling="no" id="doc_85143" width="600" height="800" frameborder="0"></iframe>




<a title="View Rodeos A on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/100297712/Rodeos-A" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Rodeos A</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/100297712/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-naxxebaojbl8deb54td" data-auto-height="false" data-aspect-ratio="0.772727272727273" scrolling="no" id="doc_8353" width="400" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Dr. C. G. Haber, a veterinarian with thirty years experience as a meat
inspector for the USDA, says: "The rodeo folks send their animals to the
packing houses where...I have seen cattle so extensively bruised that the
only areas in which the skin was attached was the head, neck, legs, and
belly. I have seen animals with six to eight ribs broken from the spine
and at times puncturing the lungs. I have seen as much as two and three
gallons of free blood accumulated under the detached skin."

1,400,000 + people attended the Calgary Stampede this year for the Centennial and from polls the Stampede got a 96% rating of satisfaction from the populace that participated in the Stampede and that is not counting the Stampede Parade or the other numerous Stampede breakfasts held throughout the city.Bottom line is the Stampede is the greatest outdoor show on earth and the rodeo is not going to be cancelled to make some special interest group happy.It does get modified/changed for safety though,this year each chuckwagon team had only 1 outrider instead of 2 for added safety reasons and that brought down the number of animal fatalities signifigantly.

If you like the Stampede then go an enjoy it.....if you dont like the Stampede because you feel that animals are abused then do go but please STFU whining about it as IT WILL NOT GO AWAY.

SR

Sorry buddy, you may want to STFU about abuse to animals but don't expect everyone else to be this callous as well. And I'll give my opinion about animal abuse if I want, thanks. If you can't handle hearing the truth, then maybe you should just keep your head in the sand and not listen in on actual honest conversations. Not my problem if it upsets you, I'm far more concerned about the animals abused so that you can feel "entertained".

As long as the abuse continues, be assured that the critics WILL NOT GO AWAY either. Get used to it or get out of the way.

a valid sensible arguement
i am in no way a fan of chuckwagon racing, but think its a fact of life and will attend from time to time that and other rodeo events

i kind of believe its more cruel to hunt and kill something that is wild and free as opposed to using an animal that is breed and owned for this purpose, it might not even be alive if it wasn't for rodeo's

What difference does it make when an animal “is bred and owned for this purpose”? What makes it less cruel than when an animal has not been “bred and owned for that purpose”? Are they taught by their mothers at a young age that they’re just bred for cruelty and that’s just their role in life? I don’t quite understand how that works.


It might not be alive if it wasn’t for the rodeo? Well the rodeo isn’t keeping it around for a nice retirement life after the abuse. The rodeo is extending the animals life, most likely by no more than a few month or year, at which point the animal just ends up slaughtered. That’s a silly excuse, I’m sorry.

whats the point of hunting you can go to safeway, yet is there this big hue and cry when hunting season opens

So what you’re saying is that, like most people, you like the convenience of someone else doing the killing for you. That makes it easy to avoid the uncomfortable process of acknowledging reality. Like most people, as long as you don’t have to see it or do it yourself, and your meat conveniently just appears at the grocery store, already packaged for you, it’s easy to deny that the animals that made your meat spent a short, miserable life of extreme cruelty, confinement, stress and ended by a violent and horrifyingly gruesome death, all without ever having set foot on grass, engaged in natural instinctual behaviours.

Because, afterall, “that’s what it was bred and owned for” so how could the animal be bothered by this wretched, disgrace of a life.

There are many problems with this reasoning, one of them being that it is completely out of touch with reality. I’m not singling you out – obviously this is the rationalization strategy of the majority of people who eat meat.

Consider these odd statistics: nine out of ten Americans say they oppose intensive confinement for pigs and hens, yet the same number routinely support intensive confinement by eating pork and eggs. What causes this huge difference between belief and action? One explanation is found in cognitive dissonance, the mental process by which people recognize and reconcile differences between belief and action. When people act inconsistently with a strong belief, the tension can cause discomfort and, with a drive as strong as hunger, compel resolution. The most common response is to engage in denial, a force that psychiatrist Christopher Bollas calls “the need to be innocent of a troubling recognition.”

Knowledge Denial. One common coping method is to deny knowledge of the inhumane treatment of animals. For example, there’s no shortage of information showing or describing how humans produce animals for consumption, but many simply prefer not to know. Thus, an omnivorous friend told me she had to stop reading Skinny Bitch because she feared the graphic discussion of factory farming might make her give up meat. “People do not believe lies because they have to,” said journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, “but because they want to.”

Lack of Choice. Another much-used denial technique is to pretend to have no choice. In one study, divinity students were told the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan and then told to walk to another building to deliver a speech. One group was told they were late for the speech, while another group believed they had ample time. Students in both groups met a man in their path who needed help. Of those not rushing, 63 percent stopped and helped. But only 10 percent of the rushing students stopped. Those who didn’t stop likely felt that since they were late, they had no choice but to hurry past.

Moral Balancing. The denial technique of “moral balancing” involves downplaying unethical behavior and highlighting good behavior. Sociology professor Stanley Cohen narrates the self-message of those who use this technique: “In a moral atlas of our whole lives, this [behavior] is not significant; don’t judge us just by this. In the moral ledger, the overall balance is in our favor.” Cohen tells of Lithuanian villagers who turned over their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis and moved into the empty houses. When questioned later, the villagers downplayed their guilt by saying they had previously treated Jews kindly.

…

Victim Blaming. When all else fails, there’s always “victim blaming.” Because people want to live in what one researcher calls a “just world,” when innocent victims suffer random misfortune, it’s common for observers to rationalize the outcome by denigrating the victim.[7] The idea that there is something wrong with the victim, and that he or she had it coming, helps to make sense of an otherwise unjust situation. Thus, in one study, participants were asked to state their opinions of two stabbing victims. One victim could have avoided the stabbing by not walking alone, while the other victim had no ability to avoid being stabbed. Bizarrely, participants had a higher opinion of the victim who could have avoided the stabbing because he made an unwise choice and deserved to be stabbed, and this outcome fit the criteria for a just world. They denigrated the victim who had no control over his stabbing because believing something was wrong with him was the best way to explain his otherwise undeserved misfortune.

Some use the victim blaming technique to devalue and dismiss animal suffering. Because people want to believe in a just world, they tell themselves stories to explain why animals “deserve” cruel treatment. Animals, they argue, lack intelligence or self-awareness; they were born to be consumed, skinned, or tested on; they are vicious wild animals that would kill us if we didn’t kill them first. These and similar theories are advanced to explain why animals “deserve” ill treatment.

Cognitive dissonance can make people entrenched and unreceptive to alternative theories. “The moment we want to believe something,” said George Bernard Shaw, “we suddenly see all the arguments for it and become blind to the arguments against it.”

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously. In a state of dissonance, people may feel surprise, dread, guilt, anger, or embarrassment. The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by altering existing cognitions, adding new ones to create a consistent belief system, or alternatively by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements.

Self-justification describes how, when a person encounters cognitive dissonance, or a situation in which a person's behavior is inconsistent with their beliefs, that person tends to justify the behavior and deny any negative feedback associated with the behavior.

In psychology and logic, rationalization (also known as making excuses[1]) is an unconscious defense mechanism in which perceived controversial behaviors or feelings are logically justified and explained in a rational or logical manner in order to avoid any true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable – or even admirable and superior – by plausible means.[2] Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly subconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt).

i don't really get why people single out chuck wagons or even bother, there are a lot more cruel things going on in the world.

I doubt that anyone denouncing the chuckwagons is not also doing so about many other cruel things in the world. No one’s really singling out these races at the expense of other types of cruelty, it just happens to be going on right now and to have resulted in deaths (again, like every year), which is why the topic is popular. But it’s not being singled out.

Nobody said it was no big deal.

Uhh, yeah….you did. Along with a few others who are also now suddenly against the race they’ve spent five pages justifying. Go figure.

Did you see the interview with Chad Harden after the race? Watch it and then tell me he thought it was no big deal. He didn't say a word about all the money he'd put into these animals - he was genuinely upset because they died, plain and simple. .

What does that change? See my comments above about cognitive dissonance/denial etc…

Why don't you turn your attention to all the animals that die from true neglect. There are litters of cats being dumped, dogs dying in puppy mills, and plenty of redneck farmers letting their animals starve in the winter. The SPCA could use the help and that would be useful.

How do you know he isn’t or hasn’t? And even if hasn’t, is there a rule that says people can only give their attention to one issue and only one at any given time? And who decides what the “worse” or “most worthy of attention” is? I’m sorry but that’s not an argument.

I'm honestly not a big fan of it for these very reasons. Also I find them quite boring.

Well, again... That sure is a different reply than the one you started with.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

What a bunch of tough men abusing and tormenting animals… And because I just know someone’s going to complain that it’s only a few people, not industry wide, blah blah. Well just look on youtube at the amount of “just a few people”… Or check out: http://www.sharkonline.org



<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9SovZqdA2oA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ALh6IzG2R4g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>





Tormenting animals to make them buck
http://www.vancouverhumanesociety.b...campaign=tormenting-animals-to-make-them-buck




Hubba said it best: SICK!

SICK!

And shame on anyone defending this disgusting abuse of animal for “entertainment” or “fun”.




And LET’S dig even deeper since we’re on the topic.

Horses are BRED for the stupid rodeo. The fate that awaits them is the same, only the timing varies: the ones who don’t make it (ie don’t give a “good show”) are disposed of when still young.


And by disposed of, that doesn’t mean adopted or even humanely euthanized. No, it means sent to slaughter – which is an absolutely horrifying fate. Horse slaughter is actually even worse than other animals. And there is absolutely no aspect of it that can be described as humane.



The horses that do make it to the rodeo are used up until they no longer perform (a few years at most) and then also sent to slaughter. These horses are BRED by the industry, they do not save them from death, they give them life and decide when to end that life, depending on the animal’s profit potential or usefulness to them. If they didn’t breed them, there would be no need to save these horses from death. The reasoning is faulty at best.


And if you want to defend it, then I’m sure you can sit through and watch these videos of where the horses go:


http://defendhorsescanada.org/investigations/pasture-to-plate

http://defendhorsescanada.org/investigations/chambers-of-carnage


Especially if you can’t watch it all, you have no right to offer any defence or justification.

There's really no getting around this obvious interpretation any more. The wagon driver's no doubt sincere on-air tears for his horse, which he described as a pet, won't do it. The Stampede's pathetic excuses certainly won't do it. Nor will the Stampede's meaningless promises to improve its "Fitness to Compete Program."

When a Stampede spokesperson says, "the Calgary Stampede, and the people who bring their animals to the Stampede, care deeply about the welfare and well-being of those animals," you're entitled to laugh out loud. It's all stuff that's found on the floor of the Stampede cattle barn.

This is about money. The money you can generate in substantial amounts by holding exciting events. The money you can make in prizes pushing your horses hard around the tight corners of the chuckwagon races.

And if animals are put in danger to generate the excitement required to make money, well, too bad, Durango. That's the true attitude of everyone involved in this disgrace.

Our sour prime minister goes around telling the world that Calgary's the "greatest city" Canada. Well, I'll give him this: it's a pretty enough town in a suburban sort of way, and the streets are clean. But every year at Stampede, "Canada's greatest embarrassment" would be closer to the truth.

Meanwhile, Calgary City Council is considering a ban on shark fin soup at the city's Chinese restaurants. I'm certainly not saying this isn't a worthy cause if the trade in sharks' fins is endangering the species worldwide. And no one's saying horses are an endangered species -- except every year during the Stampede.

Just the same, Calgary's aldermen -- as they still insist on calling themselves -- would do better if they turned their minds to cleaning up their own back 40 first.

Real men don't kill horses for fun. It's time for the Calgary Stampede to man up and end this practice.


http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djc...ckwagon-carnage-calgary-stampede-blames-horse

 

[ThisEndUp]

I'm gonna say one final thing and then I'm done. Even I won't flog a dead horse.

Have you, personally, ever tried and succeeded in making a horse do something it really didn't want to do? I mean, logistically, they're at least 3 times your size, right? So if it really didn't want to do it, there's no physical way you can make it.

and yet...

 

[sevenofnine]

i talked to an old rodeo guy today and asked him his sentiments.

to sum up as best i can and i guess i have allready stated this but maybe in a different way

his thoughts were if the horse doesnt or didn't find a home in the calgary stampede in the chucks the animal would be shiped to the meat plant, dog food or on a plate he said france i said japan.

i kind of agree i just watched the movie war horse and believe me i have no desire to see an animal suffer,
but the cold hard facts are that people breed and raise horses they either find an owner who is willing to foot the bill and pay for board feed vet bills etc, or they end up being sent to the meat plant.
look at all the dogs and cats the humane society puts down each year because there is no home.
we had a horse last year wasn't ours some guy boarded it at the same place i did then abandoned it, the horse was untrained not broken and was loco, it ended up dog food.
there is another horse about to face the same fate, two years old the owners boarded it at the farm same place i do with all the best of attentions. but has not paid its bill in like three months, its untrained unbroken,
i could have the horse for nothing if im only willing to pay its board. im not, in another month the horse will be put down
the old rodeo guy told me most of the chuckwagon horses are rejects who can't race they were once race horses now if they can't find a home on the chuckwagon circuit its the meat plant.
seriouly i own a horse people i know compete i have no great need to see a horse die but the simple fact of the matter is they find an owner to pay the bills or its the meat plant, same as any homeless dog and cat, the rodeo guy said all you bleeding heart animal rights people don't have a clue what your talking about

 

[sevenofnine]

miss bijou
my rodeo friend would tell you the safest place for an animal to be is at like the calgary stampede or any rodeo,
they have vets and spca just crawling all over the place
but no one is watching what a guy does on his ranch there are no cameras and newspapers and no one really gives a dam they only care what the price of hamburger is

and i read in the news paper today about a steeple chase i think in england some where, you said they banned rodeo;s as cruel
forty horses started the steeple chase fourteen finished. i think three were put down if i remember correctly

my rodeo buddy laughed he said the only thing cruel at a rodeo is the punishment the cowboys take.

i don't know i honestly don't like to see animals hurt, but i know perfectly good horses are put down, simply because no one whats to pay board for them and take the time to break them train them
its a fact, they either find a home or they end up in the meat plant,
there are worse fates for a horse then pulling a wagon at the calgary stampede trust me on that or ask anyone who knows what there talking about.

 

[sevenofnine]

just for fun some one mentioned kfc today and told me do a google search on kfc and peta and pam anderson.

i know something about horses and rodeo's but by no means am i an expert

i however worked on a factory chicken farm at one time and well i followed the chickens from birth to death along time ago mind you.

but honestly pam andersons take on chickens is ridiculous nothing is an out and out lie i suppose but rather a gross exaggeration of how it is
and what do you want i mean she talked about a chickens natural life span of years and there only allowed to live a few short weeks, which is true,
but seriously its stupid we should let a chicken grow and mature and experiance life so we can say this chicken had a life before i ate it.

and all the pictures and stuff, well they might and might not be true but from my experiance its a gross exaggeration of what happnes.
i suppose each state or province has its own poultry board and they set standards of crowding or food etc, so i guess you could find some place where what she talked about is the norm, but from my experiance she if full of it.

talking about chopping of the beaks of chickens, there was twenty thousand chickens in a barn, no one had the time to pick up each chicken by hand put it in a machine and clip its beak, i have never seen it never heard of it, and just of the top of my head it would be impractical, the labour and the cost to do that,

and no one really cared if a chicken pecked another chicken do you think the barns had chicken police this chicken was picked on we had better put a stop to that.
it was just ludicrous and made no sense to me anything she said,
if chickens were produced like pam anderson wants them to be nobody could afford to eat them but someone as rich as her.

to be honest if this is how animal activists think well good for them but no one could afford meat if it was up to them.
and i guess that is the point we should all be vegans

 

[Miss*Bijou]

miss bijou
my rodeo friend would tell you the safest place for an animal to be is at like the calgary stampede...

Wow what a shocking thing for your rodeo friend to say!!! lol

and i read in the news paper today about a steeple chase i think in england some where, you said they banned rodeo;s as cruel
forty horses started the steeple chase fourteen finished. iink three were put down if i remember correctly

Yes, you're absolutely right..it is just as bad. Their fox hunts are also really disgusting.

my rodeo buddy laughed he said the only thing cruel at a rodeo is the punishment the cowboys take.

Well its too bad we can't ask the animals. I wonder what if the calves would say. Hm. Think they'd find it as funny as your rodeo friend does? Maybe then, you could modify the event to replace the animals with humans. Your rodeo buddy can start first and volunteer to replace the calves, ok? Then we can all be sure everyone thinks it's funny and is laughing. Problem solved!

i don't know i honestly don't like to see animals hurt, but perfectly good horses are put down, simply because no one whats to pay board for them and take the time to break them train th

its a fact, they either find a home or they end up in the meat plant,
there are worse fates for a horse then pulling a wagon at the calgary stampede trust me on that or ask anyone who knows what there talking about.

The rodeo breeds them specifically for this purpose. The rodeo will still send the horses to slaughter. The horses will still meet a gruesome fate. That's not a valid argument in support of rodeo abuse. Please go read my comments about that.

No offense, but you're just repeating the same arguments that have already been addressed and debunked. Asking an "insider" really isn't going to get you a very objective perspective in any case.

 

[Flanders]

Holy shit. people were bitching about the amount of scrolling to get past signature pics? Took me 10 minutes to get past MB's links! Back to ignore I gues...

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Holy shit. people were bitching about the amount of scrolling to get past signature pics? Took me 10 minutes to get past MB's links! Back to ignore I gues...

Aww did you get a cramp in your wittle scrolling finger?

It's your problem if information scares you. I mean, seriously, please do go back to ignore.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

just for fun some one mentioned kfc today and told me do a google search on kfc and peta and pam anderson.

i however worked on a factory chicken farm at one time and well i followed the chickens from birth to death along time ago mind you.

but honestly pam andersons take on chickens is ridiculous nothing is an out and out lie i suppose but rather a gross exaggeration of how it is
and what do you want i mean she talked about a chickens natural life span of years and there only allowed to live a few short weeks, which is true,
but seriously its stupid we should let a chicken grow and mature and experiance life so we can say this chicken had a life before i ate it.

and all the pictures and stuff, well they might and might not be true but from my experiance its a gross exaggeration of what happnes.
i suppose each state or province has its own poultry board and they set standards of crowding or food etc, so i guess you could find some place where what she talked about is the norm, but from my experiance she if full of it.

talking about chopping of the beaks of chickens, there was twenty thousand chickens in a barn, no one had the time to pick up each chicken by hand put it in a machine and clip its beak, i have never seen it never heard of it, and just of the top of my head it would be impractical, the labour and the cost to do that,

and no one really cared if a chicken pecked another chicken do you think the barns had chicken police this chicken was picked on we had better put a stop to that.
it was just ludicrous and made no sense to me anything she said,
if chickens were produced like pam anderson wants them to be nobody could afford to eat them but someone as rich as her.

to be honest if this is how animal activists think well good for them but no one could afford meat if it was up to them.
and i guess that is the point we should all be vegans

Exactly how long ago was it, sevenofnine?

Because none of it is made up or exaggerated. It is all true. And no one in the industry is denying it either.

I take it you simply are unaware so perhaps it might be a good idea to look into it. I have a feeling things have changed in major ways.

I'm sorry but the options aren't a)either you're vegan, or b)you just accept and support extreme cruelty to continue to eat meat. There are other options and it's totally false to pretend that there are not so you have no choice in the matter if you want to continue eating meat.




http://www.humanefood.ca/battery.html
http://www.humanefood.ca/pdf links/Broken Wings.pdf

http://www.humanefood.ca/batterycagevideo.html
http://www.humanefood.ca/clarkfarmsvideo.html

http://www.cetfa.com/

Sexing
Sexing is an invasive procedure to sort males from females. This is not done to broiler chickens as they are killed so young that they do not reach sexual maturity. Since the sex organs of the birds are internal, the “sexers” squeeze the bird to find out what sex they are.Management told us sexing did not hurt the birds, but so many of the chicks vomitted from the squeezing that the sexers had to have a cannister in front of them to catch the vomit, which was green in color.


The Chick Grinder
The method most hatcheries use to dispose of the chicks with defects, male chicks or excess hatches (more live-births than the company has orders for) is a Chick Grinder The grinder is a large drum with a high-speed rotating blade in the bottom. The chicks, both chickens and turkeys, are tossed into this grinder alive and fully conscious. The vaccuum force of the grinder sucks the chicks down into the blades and hacks them to pieces. The excess hatched chicks could be up to 3 days old, moved to the back room awaiting further orders. If the orders don't come in, the chicks are ground up alive.

At this plant alone, at least 400 chicks were ground up alive daily.


Detoeing, Desnooding, Dubbing and Debeaking

All of the birds underwent numerous mutilations and invasive procedures without anaesthetics or analgesics
within the first 4 hours of being born. These were done in a separate room from the hatching. The stations were set up with conveyor belts running from machine to machine.

For the poults, the process started with toe microwaving, then a conveyor belt carried them to the sexers. The poults were thrown down separate chutes based on whether they were male or female, where they then had their beaks cut off. Sometimes they were vaccinated and sometimes they had their toes and snoods (the red wattle on a turkey) cut off. Chicks went through the same procedures but they started with the sexing, and instead of having their toes microwaved, they were burned off.


Microwaving
Day old poults had the ends of their toes microwaved off. At this hatchery, the turkeys were dumped onto a conveyor belt. As they passed by, we would each grab a bird, flip them upside down, put their tiny ankles in shackles and press a button. The turkeys were pulled into the machine, their toes were microwaved off and they were dropped onto a slide where they slid down and landed on a conveyor belt to go to the next machine. Sometimes the microwave malfunctioned and burned
their feet. These birds could not be used so were ground up alive.


Detoeing
Detoeing was done to the chicks. The toe-burning was not done by a machine but instead by a hand-operated burner. The chicks were processed one by one. The burning device had hot blades that a worker used to sear each chick's toes off.
Some companies that purchased from the hatchery requested to have the side toes of the turkeys cut off. This was done with a pair of regular household scissors.


Desnooding
Some turkeys had their snoods picked off – this was done by literally pulling them off manually. Whether this was done or not depended on the purchasing company. While microwaving the toes and debeaking were always done on turkeys, the desnooding and cutting of the toes depended on what company they were destined for.


Debeaking
All chicks and poults had partial beak amputation. Debeaking has been shown to be incredibly painful as the beaks of turkeys and chickens contain more nerve endings than our finger tips. The debeaked birds suffer phantom pain and some develop tumours of the beak as the nerve endings attempt to regenerate. Many countries now recognize the cruelty of debeaking and have banned it, but it was still being done at the hatchery where I worked. The birds were debeaked by a machine. Workers picked them up and put them beak-first into the machine. The birds were held into the machine by their
beaks. As the blade rotated, so did the chicks. When the chicks had done almost a full circle, the machine released them and the birds slid down a chute into a crate. There were different colored crates for males and females and they were kept separate.

http://www.cetfa.com/images/stories/Canadas_Cruel_Hatchery_Industry.pdf

Transport and slaughter

In Canada, turkeys and chickens can legally be transported for up to 36 hours without food, water, or rest, and there are no limits as to the length of the journey. These standards are among the worst in the industrialized world.10 They are transported in open-air crates, resulting in high mortality as the birds are exposed to all sorts of weather. Each bird is worth so little, however, that it is cheaper overall for the industry to use open-air crates. Every year in Canada, 2 million broiler chickens and 20,000 turkeys are already dead when they arrive at slaughterhouses. An additional 8 million broiler chickens and 200,000 turkeys arrive so diseased or injured that they are considered "unfit for human consumption".11

The surviving birds are handled roughly at the slaughterhouse, where they are unloaded by forklift and dropped onto a conveyor belt. With thousands of birds to be processed every hour, there is no reason for employees to stop and pick up the individual birds who miss the belt and fall to the ground.

When it comes time to slaughter the birds, they are hung by their feet on a moving rail and dragged through the stunning tank, an electrified water bath meant to stun and immobilize them. These are often set lower than is necessary to truly render the birds unconscious out of concerns that high voltage might damage the carcass and therefore diminish its value.

They are then carried past the tank to have their throats cut either by a mechanical blade or a plant employee. Often, struggling birds are cut improperly. As a result they are moved, fully conscious, to the scalding tank, where they are boiled alive. Estimates place the number of affected birds at about one in twenty; at any rate, this occurrence is so common that the industry has a term for it: “redskins.”12

In an affidavit signed on January 30, 2003, former slaughterhouse worker Virgil Butler wrote that when chickens are scalded alive, they “flop, scream, kick, and their eyeballs pop out of their heads. They often come out of the other end with broken bones and disfigured and missing body parts because they’ve struggled so much in the tank.”13

http://liberationbc.org/issues/factory_farming

http://www.getcrackingcruelty.ca/



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[blazejowski]

This thread is cruel to animals.

Now THAT post made me laugh....

 

[sevenofnine]

how long ago was it well along time in the forty to fifty year range i was just a kid, it was my first job, then i came back latter when i got a drivers license or a class one licnense i should say and drove the chickens to the plant, i was not even old enough to legally work.

but honestly the pictures the vids are the same actually they are old to be honest you, the barns i worked at were more modern and that was like forty or fifty years ago they had modern feeders not buckets on the floor and waters everything automatic on a timer,
baby chicks a day old could not reach into the feeders so it took a week until then you fed them by hand,they had heat lamps to keep them warm the barns were like almost eighty degrees in the winter, it was a great place to work, in the winter, 2o below outside and walk into a barn at 80 or so
as they got older the barns cooled down to like 70 or so,
full grown the barns were crowded but nothing like the pictures we actually worked in them fixing waters and walking through
my job every day was to walk through the barns pick up dead chickens and there wasn't that many and to cull the sick ones,
and there wasn't a lot of them really, if there was then the barn had a disease and anti biotics was put in the water, but only if there was a large amount of dead birds.
the lights were kept on 24 hours the feeders cycled on and off like every twenty mins or so, yeah all that is true,
but so, it was never nearly as crowded as the pictures show and no deformed birds and we never chopped off there beak,
i just laugh at that twenty thousand chickens and your going to pick up every one and clip its beak
and it was never that dusty that you couldnt breath, i worked in them people worked in them fans ran 24 hours, in the summer the doors big wide doors were left open, like i said i was in there worked in there nothing a lie but greatly over exaggerated
but that is how food is produced for like the last forty or so years now in factory farms.
pigs much the same in barns.
it wasn't at all cruel or anything never thought so then or now,
at the plant the chickens were hung upside down and then by hand electrocuted then put in the scalding bath to take the feathers off.

on and off we lived on the farm and to have a chicken for supper we would take and axe and chop off its head. it would flap around with no head.
i dont' know what to say but if your going to eat meat that is the way it is,
sure if you look around hard enough you can find some where some one mistreated an animal. it happens not going to say it doesn't
but all in all no one really has any interest in mistreating animals most people don't any way,

i tend to hang around at horse events and rodeo's i don't compete but i volunteer and help a younger member of the family that does.
and you know it really stands out if some one mistreats an animal. it is not accpeted behaviour sure it happens but
its like a bad parent in the mall, everyone looks and wanders what the hell is going on.

you can actually win and event and be disqualified if you mistreat your animal,
it really is frowned upon to mistreat your animal or animals in general,
but still it is what it is people want to ride horses and compete.
and have a burger and chicken wings,

 

[wilde]

Does anyone really read any of the links she posts or is the general consensus to put her on ignore/ quickly scroll over? Just curious.

To me she seems to be her own worst enemy with her obsessive need to be right all the time and completely discount other peoples opinions as worthless, while burying her detractors in an avalanche of information supposedly supporting her position gleaned from frequently dubious sources on the internet.
The sheer volume results in her opponents eyes glazing over in boredom , loss of the will to respond, and Bijou being able to declare victory on said topic.

But IMHO her tactics rarely gain her any supporters or converts to her opinion, probably the opposite, and detract from any legitimate points she may have made.

Thus if her beginning these threads to convert peoples opinions is her purpose she is a complete failure. If her purpose is just to stir up shit with threads she knows will be controversial because she likes to argue...then its sort of trollish.

There are times that I started out agreeing with her stance on some topics. But by the end of the discussion, I just don't care any more. Her frequent use of links, quotes and videos are suppose to give her credibility. But too much of them just turn people off. I for one, wonder if she is capable of discussing a topic entirely in her own words. The other detracting factor is that she rides on a very high horse. Hate to break it to her that by her simply living on this planet, she is part of the problem. I don't think she is malicious but she really needs to learn how to get her point across without browbeating someone to death...