cows

Here are a few poems I have written about cows. When are we going to learn to live on a plant based diet, not only for the animals’ sake but also for the sake of the planet and our own health? See Dr Michael Greger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30gEiweaAVQ

Let None Escape
I saw her running down the hill that day
Lightning Bessie was her name
From back of Roma she and her friends came
A life of wild freedom gone forever
Now prodded and shoved into a truck.

He said ‘Ah, but she can be tamed
Made to give birth to calves we will steal’
But the farmer was wrong – wild cows, forever wild
The courage to fight for their lives and babies burned into their souls
Fighting destiny with skull and hooves.

Two years on and their time was up
Time for the slaughterhouse, you’ve eaten enough grass
We will weigh you and price you
Collect your value at the saleyard
Our coffers are full but we can never have enough.

She ran from the gate, the farmer standing there
Adrenalin pumping, running for her life
Her legs moving so fast down that hill.
The farmer watched her as I watched him
Would he let her get away?

Tormented by the sight I considered my options
Till my friend and I hatched a plan, returning the next day
Money in hand, would he sell her to us
With maybe some friends
To enjoy her life and be free again?

Alas we were too late – she had already gone
Off to the knackery, where every cow goes.
‘Let none escape’ the farmer said
‘Every blade of grass on those hills is mine
And I decide who eats, who lives and who dies.’

No happy ending for Lightning Bessie
Or her babies, all quartered and sliced
To feed the insatiable hunger of their predators
Who don’t hear the final screams of Bessie and her friends
Or mourn their freedom and life lost.

Menkit Prince
12th June, 2015

Planet of the Lonely Cows

I hear a mother cow in the distance
Crying for her calf

“BABY! COME HOME!
BABY, WHERE ARE YOU?”

Her urgent message carries along soundwaves
Transmitting the pain, the agony
From her heart to mine
And from her heart to every heart
That hears and feels

Tears fall down my face
My throat constricts
My mouth dries

She goes on and on and on
Groaning and moaning
Hour after hour after hour

“BABY! COME HOME!
WHERE ARE YOU?
PLEASE, I AM SAD!
I’M WORRIED! ARE YOU OK?
I NEED TO SEE YOU
WHERE ARE YOU?”

Her calf is all alone
With other calves all alone
All feeling their mothers calling them
Far, far away
Never again to see her face
Smell her sweet body
Taste her sweet nourishing milk
Feel her tongue licking them
And see the love shining from her eyes
She loved me – she was my world!
Gone now – gone forever.

Every day all over the world
Millions and millions of mother cows
Cry in vain for their babies
Ripped away without a thought for their aching heart
By humans well trained to switch off
And feel nothing

The humans drink our milk
Pour it in their tea
Over their cereal
Solidify it into butter, yoghurt and cheese
For their cakes, pies, cookies
Pancakes, soups, spreads,
Pizzas and ice cream

Our milk floods the land
Hidden in cans lining supermarket shelves
In bottles of drinks
Dried into packages of food
Filling human and domestic animal’s bodies
Travelling in their blood
To their cells
Breathing through their pores
Being excreted in their faeces
Down the drain
Vomited into the sea
Making people, the air, the land and the oceans
All sick

The human race is cursed
By their addiction to our milk
Never having been properly weaned themselves
From their own mother

She cries again
A simple cry - a cry of love
A cry of a heart breaking
Into thousands of pieces
Over and over
With each baby
To her grave

Precious baby of mine
So cute so playful and funny
I loved the sound you made
When you tried to moo
Your total devotion to me
Your need brought out the best in me
Taught me how to love and protect you
And how to cherish each moment
You were the sunshine of my life
All I ever wanted was you!

In deep space mystical celestial harmonies reflect
The magnificence of life everywhere
But for one sound,
A sound that shatters the divine matrix
Piercing the core of the Universal Heart
The cries of billions of lonely cows rising up as one sound
A sound so loud it is heard across universes and galaxies
Trapped in a timeless vacuum
For countless aeons
And making angels weep
Buddhas look down with compassion
at the Planet of the Lonely Cows.

By Menkit Prince
April 2008

***********

During the first week of February, 2007, two dairy farmers were brutally slain by cows in separate incidents for the same crime against nature.

In Ohio, one cow killed a farmer after he separated mother from calf shortly after birth. In Australia, a dairywoman died for the very same reason. (Video links unavailable without subscription).

Cows are not usually angry or aggressive creatures. The human act of separating mother from child is the most inhumane act to be found on a dairy farm. Those vegetarians who eat dairy products must take responsibility for this horrible lack of compassion, for that is the nature of the dairying business.

The insult of marketing "Happy Cows" in California is no more than a deceptive lie. To be witness to the angry crying of the mothers, or the pathetically sad moans from the calves is to know and be haunted by an infinite sadness which all mammals share in similar circumstance.

A November 19, 2001 story in Canada's National Post revealed that "dumb farm animals" are smarter than they look and that they actually feel pain. According to the Post:
"Cows have the ability to reason. Sheep have remarkable memories. Pigs have sensitive feelings."

Editor comment: The address for this citation does not work.
http://www.canadapost.com

Canadian researchers have demonstrated that dairy cows are more sophisticated than farmers realize.

Recipes for a dairy-free diet can be found free at http://www.goveg.com and http://features.peta.org/how-to-go-vegan/

Some light relief: http://cowswithguns.com/cowmovie.html

On Tuesday, 8 February 2011, Member for the Victorian Opposition, Martin Pakula (ALP) pointed to the effective cartel which a supermarket may form in its own right, in a bad situation for farmers which, to me is a danger signal that cows will suffer even more (although Mr Pakula did not mention the suffering of cows).


"Anyone who has been to Coles or Woolworths in the last few weeks would know of the decision by the retailers to slash the price of their home brand dairy products, and it seems more of this is on the way in regard to baked goods. This has been described in some circles as a win for consumers, but in the longer term I am not sure that will be the case," said Mr Pakula.

Rising prices, falling standards

Like other people I have noticed that prices are rising in supermarkets. The prices for dairy rose markedly during the long period of drought which has only recently been broken by floods. At the same time, I noticed that supermarket brands were far cheaper than other brands of cheese and milk. It was very tempting to buy, for instance, Coles cheddar cheese, because it was several dollars cheaper than something like Crackerbarrel.

The bottom line

I wrestled with my conscience because I knew that the 'bottom line' in the case of dairy products was cows. The cheaper the cheese the worse for the cow. Cows are so badly treated that any worse treatment seems inconceivable, yet there seem no real limits to how badly commerce will treat the creatures it relies on for its bounty. Only government can legislate and enforce better standards for animals, but unfortunately they seem to do the opposite in this country because they focus on so-called efficiency over the meanest standard of decency. Only the other day we published an article on candobetter.net about how industry and government want to change laws to give permission to treat bobby calves so badly that they have a good chance of dying before they even get to market.

The way down

Prices for milk and agricultural product began to rise quickly as population began to grow in Australia and, in Victoria, as the Labor Government joined forces with corporate interests to take over farmland, using strategies like removing control of water from family farms and repackaging it at different prices according to opaque measurements of industry values. Corporate bidding pushed up land-prices and this eroded profit margins for farmers. If the price of land goes up, everything else does. Who pays - besides the farmer? Livestock do. Only the big corporate agricultural holdings can survive and then only in the short-term, but the corporates are only there for the short-term, to make a killing.

Prices continue to rise as widespread damages to agriculture surface with Australia's massive floods.

How low can you go?

I know it can get even worse for cows because in the US they are sometimes milked as frequently as four times a day, causing their skeletons to break down[1] and they die or are killed around the age of four. Imagine the arthritic pain of constantly breaking bones.

Something better

In Australia cows often live to be eight. A very old cow may reach twelve. Some cows, however, have lived to be over 30. (Here is a lovely story about one in Australia who was saved by a livestock agent and resides with an abattoir owner.) Search and you will find the same for many other species. Such discrepancies in life-expectancy are an indication of how bad the effect of our industrial 'efficiencies' is for non-humans (and not so great for humans either.)

Below is Mr Paluka's statement, which describes a big problem in the centralisation of markets where individual farmers are disempowered by the more easily self-organising retailers.

In the end, supermarkets remove choice

On Tuesday, 8 February 2011, Member for the Victorian Opposition, Martin Pakula (ALP) pointed to the effective cartel which a supermarket may form in its own right, in a bad situation for farmers which, to me is a danger signal that cows will suffer even more (although Mr Pakula did not mention the suffering of cows).

"Anyone who has been to Coles or Woolworths in the last few weeks would know of the decision by the retailers to slash the price of their home brand dairy products, and it seems more of this is on the way in regard to baked goods. This has been described in some circles as a win for consumers, but in the longer term I am not sure that will be the case.

The retailers have enormous market power, far more than the multinationals that Coles CEO Ian McLeod talks about, and they use it ruthlessly. Many of the manufacturers who supply branded products — like Pauls, Pura, Devondale, Western Star and the like — also supply Coles and Woolies home brand products.

So the retailers saying they will not cut the price paid to suppliers for branded products is hardly the point. As supply contracts expire, the substitution to home brand products will inevitably impact on the price paid to manufacturers, the security of hundreds of Victorian jobs and the viability of primary producers as well. If the dairy suppliers got together and agreed not to sell to the retailers at a price below X, they would almost certainly be prosecuted by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for collusion and would more than likely be convicted. But the behaviour of the retailers looks a little bit like predatory pricing, and perhaps it is time the ACCC took a look at that as well."

Martin Pakula (ALP) was appointed Minister for Industry and Trade and Industrial Relations in 2008. In January 2010, he became Minister for Public Transport. He is currently in the opposition.

MEMBERS STATEMENTS, Legislative Council, Victoria,
Tuesday, 8 February 2011, Hansardp.93, http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/daily-hansard/Council_2011/Council_Dec_2010-Jun_2011_Weekly_Book_2.pdf

NOTES

[1] "Nutritional Disorders
Numerous diseases and conditions can occur within a cow’s skeletal system if the cow’s immune system is weak or if the cow is malnourished. Milk fever is one condition that affects cows when calcium leaves the bloodstream to support milk production faster than calcium is put back into the bloodstream through eating. The result is a muscular and skeletal breakdown, resulting in the cow being weak and unable to stand. Ketosis is another disorder that affects female cows in early lactation. By drawing body fat to help meet the energy needs of milk production, central nervous systems can become dysfunctional, causing cows to stumble, lose their appetite and become weak."

Source: Alicia Howe, "Skeletal System of a Cow"