I don't want to lecture, that's not what this page is intended to be about so I apologise if it seems as if I am! In fact, believe it or not from this, I am not a hardline vegeterian but am a pescetarian (eat fish) and I do eat mammal meat but only if I have to - and with a conscience.
Why do I eat meat with a conscience or not at all? It's all down to how the animals that produce the meat are kept. So, all I want to do with this page is to raise awareness of the idea of where some of our meat comes from. I say "some" because we do these days have a choice as to the meat we buy. These days there are labelling schemes on food that state whether the animal from which the meat was derived was kept in a "free-range" environment. That just means that the animal was, for example, kept in a field and not huddled together with loads of others in an intensive farm where they never get to see the light of day.
I never used to think about where the food came from that I was selecting from the fridge or deli, etc., sections of the supermarket. I never considered what "free-range" eggs meant either - until I rescued my chickens (Doris, Mabel, Thelma & Louise) from a battery farm and found out how intelligent and character-full chickens really are (mine used to love watching "Neighbours" with me and would come upstairs and sit in my in-tray in my office at home whilst I worked at the computer!)...but that was after a long period of rehabilitation.
Why did they need rehabilitation? Well, when I rescued these chickens, they had lost a lot of their feathers and had various injuries which I learned is due to them pecking one another out of stress at their close confinement. We already see examples of this type of behaviour in our over-populated cities - you bung a load of creatures together in a confined space and fights will break out! However, we humans normally have a choice as to whether we live in close confinement with others (actually it ain't always that simple, but that's a topic for another discussion) but the chickens don't and that is no different to the mammals such as cows, pigs and sheep if they are intensively farmed indoors. If we buy battery produced eggs or intensively farmed meat, we merely encourage such farmers to continue to treat the animals that way because intensive farming is easier and more profitable for them.
Yes, I know that "free-range" meat and eggs cost more than the intensively produced equivalents, but isn't paying an extra few pence worth knowing that the animals suffered less on their journey to your plate?
If you want further convincing, check out the article linked to below that is reproduced courtesy of Hillside Animal Sanctuary - it says it much better than words. Would you like some alien species - or a species that one-day evolves beyond us - to factory-farm your future generations aka "The Matrix"? Food for thought...
If you want to find out more about Hillside Animal Sanctuary and the wonderful work they do looking after our relatives in the animal kingdom, click HERE
