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Jun 20, 2011Comments: 1 · Posts: 2709 · Topics: 7
but shoot the fucking dear correctly so it doesnt suffer. Killing an animal attacking you or your family....completely acceptable.
Hunting for sport, well thats your problem. If you can live with the fact that you just killed an animal that was just trying to live its life for your amusement, man, more power to you. I admire you just wouldnt want to be you.
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Jul 19, 2010Comments: 0 · Posts: 2595 · Topics: 52
Cow puncher! Where do you live that you have wild foxes???? Oh my gatto!!!! I want one soooooo bad. They are sooooooooo adorable.
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Jul 19, 2010Comments: 0 · Posts: 2595 · Topics: 52
Why do you say that Ian? They are only illegal to own when they are naturally occurring the area. However, I've done a lot of research and when domesticated (preferably sired by domesticated a few generations down) they make excellent pets!!!!
They are like having a cross between a dog and a cat, sly and playful yet loyal and cuddly. I would just die to have one, but even if I did the vets won't treat them because they are an illegal exotic for this area. So sad.... this girl.
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Jul 19, 2010Comments: 0 · Posts: 2595 · Topics: 52
Ian, that sounds fab! I spent the winters on my family's farm in Missouri(the grandparents would migrate south for the winter) and I always loved it!
I'm truly a city girl at heart, but I do love my days in the country. There's nothing like it..... and country boys are hot! Super sweet and mostly kind hearted with old fashioned values.
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Jul 19, 2010Comments: 0 · Posts: 2595 · Topics: 52
Yummy sounding Ian!
SULTANA!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!
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Jul 19, 2010Comments: 0 · Posts: 2595 · Topics: 52
Yummy sounding Ian!
SULTANA!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!
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Jun 20, 2011Comments: 1 · Posts: 2709 · Topics: 7
--CONT'ED---
The long-standing Federal Meat Inspection Act also requires animals lying down to be removed, but gives discretion to federal inspectors to determine whether the livestock can recover sufficiently and become fit for slaughter and human consumption. That law expressly prohibits any state regulation "in addition to or different from" the federal requirements. It includes cattle, pigs, sheep and goats.
The Supreme Court has long ruled that interstate commerce is under federal jurisdiction, trumping any state efforts to regulate it.
The current case was brought by a meat trade group on behalf of pig farmers in California. The Obama administration sided with pork producers, a move criticized by a number of animal rights groups.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco last year had ruled in favor of the state law, labeling as "hogwash" an earlier judge's decision that favored the industry.
The law's enforcement has been put on hold pending the Supreme Court's decision, now in legal support of the industry.
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Jun 20, 2011Comments: 1 · Posts: 2709 · Topics: 7
--CONT'ED---
Animal defenders blasted the high court's ruling, and urged the federal government to step up its enforcement and monitoring of slaughterhouses.
"This is a deeply troubling decision, preventing a wide range of actions by the states to protect animals and consumers from reckless practices by the meat industry, including the mishandling and slaughter of animals too sick or injured to walk," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. "The fact is, Congress and the USDA have been in the grip of the agribusiness lobby for decades, and that's why our federal animal handling and food safety laws are so anemic. California tried to protect its citizens and the animals at slaughterhouses from acute and extreme abuses, but its effort was cannibalized by the federal government."
Pork producers in their legal brief estimated that about 3% of swine are non-ambulatory when they arrive at the slaughterhouse. Most of the downed beasts, they say, are merely overheated, fatigued or stubborn, and most are soon back on their feet. Animal rights activists challenge that assertion.
The meat industry argued being forced to immediately euthanize all downed animals would hurt its ability to detect and fight one particularly virulent disease: foot-and-mouth, which is highly contagious. The industry says federal inspection is preferred, since pre-slaughter inspections of sick animals are required. The state law would mandate immediate killing and disposal of the lying-down livestock.
California -- backed by animal rights groups -- also contended the two laws were compatible, allowing local conditions to be addressed and ensuring that moral and humane conditions would be part of meat processing rules.
The case is National Meat Association v. Harris (10-224).
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Jun 20, 2011Comments: 1 · Posts: 2709 · Topics: 7
McDonald's phasing out tiny cages for pigs
Feb. 14, 2012
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- McDonald's said it will get its pork suppliers to phase out the use of immobilizing cages for pregnant pigs, a move that was applauded by the Humane Society of the United States, but not the pork industry.
"McDonald's believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future," said the fast food chain in a press release. "There are alternatives that we think are better for the welfare of sows."
Animal activists oppose the use of gestation stalls, which are cages that keep individual sows in close confines while they're pregnant.
"Confining pigs in gestation crates is arguably the cruelest practice in factory farming," said Josh Balk, spokesman for the Humane Society of the U.S. "These are iron maidens that are barely larger than the pigs' own bodies."
Balk said that at the farms that use gestation stalls, sows spend most of their lives in the confining cages, where they have no room to move. He said that a better alternative is the use of large pen areas that "allow pigs to be more like pigs."
Balk added that the European Union and eight U.S. states have already banned the use of gestation stalls.
But the pork industry doesn't see it that way. Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, said that, contrary to popular opinion, pens aren't necessarily better than the stalls.
"Pens have some real problems," he said. "Let's say you put ten pregnant sows in a pen. They get mean."
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The sows often bite each other, resulting in painful injuries, he said. When a farmer enters a pen to care for an injured sow, they'll attack the farmer, too, he added.
"When a worker goes into a pen with ten pregnant sows, there's a worker safety issue," he said.
John McGlone, director of the Pork Industry Institute at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said that scientific studies of pens and stalls have determined that their impact on the pigs' quality of life is essentially the same. But he acknowledged that it doesn't matter, as far as the perception is concerned.
"What we have here is a situation where the science says the two systems are equal, but the public perception is bad," he said. "Some people have an ethical problem with placing a sow in a situation where she can't turn around or socialize with other animals. You cannot convince the majority of people that it's OK to house s