Cows: smart, beautiful, amazing...(a rare repost from me, after 7+ yrs on DU)

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Posted this years ago, and several threads tonight have prompted me to repost it. One on India, where animal life is revered to some extent. One where I even posted I'd have steak tonight. I can't now. But it all brought me to repost something I'd posted a while back, I oblige...





A cow contentedly chewing her cud may look like she doesn’t have a care in the world, but there’s a lot going on behind those big brown eyes. Cows are as diverse as cats, dogs, and people: Some are bright; others are slow learners. Some are bold and adventurous; others are shy and timid. Some are friendly and considerate; others are bossy and devious. According to organic farmer Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Lives of Cows, cows “can be highly intelligent, moderately so, or slow to understand; friendly, considerate, aggressive, docile, inventive, dull, proud, or shy.”1

According to recent research, in addition to having distinct personalities, cows are generally very intelligent animals who can remember things for a long time. Animal behaviorists have found that cows interact in socially complex ways, developing friendships over time, sometimes holding grudges against cows who treat them badly, forming social hierarchies within their herds, and choosing leaders based upon intelligence. They are emotionally complex as well and even have the capacity to worry about the future.2,3

Researchers have found that cows can not only figure out problems, they also, like humans, enjoy the intellectual challenge and get excited when they find a solution. Their big problem, of course, is that they’re being raised for slaughter, and just like all animals, they don’t want to be separated from their families, and they don’t want to die. So cows have been known to use their smarts to perform amazing feats, such as leaping over a six-foot fence to escape from a slaughterhouse, walking seven miles to reunite with a calf after being sold at auction, and swimming across a river to freedom

http://www.goveg.com/f-hiddenlivescows.asp

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Cows are gentle giants, large in size but sweet in nature. They are curious, clever animals who have been known to go to amazing lengths to escape from slaughterhouses. These very social animals prefer to spend their time together, and they form complex relationships, very much like dogs form packs.

Like all animals, cows form strong maternal bonds with their children, and on dairy farms and cattle ranches, mother cows can be heard crying out for their calves for days after they are separated.

In the U.S., more than 41 million of these sensitive animals suffer and die for the meat and dairy industries every year.1 When they are still very young, cows are burned with hot irons (branding), their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), and their horns are cut or burned off—all without painkillers. Once they have grown big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy feedlots to be fattened for slaughter or to dairy farms, where they will be repeatedly impregnated and separated from their calves until their bodies give out and they are sent to die.

Cattle raised for beef are usually born in one state, fattened in another, and slaughtered in yet another. They are transported hundreds of miles in all weather extremes to the slaughterhouse. Many cows die on the way to slaughter, and those who survive are shot in the head with a bolt gun, hung up by their legs, and taken onto the killing floor, where their throats are cut and they are skinned. Some cows remain fully conscious throughout the entire process—according to one slaughterhouse worker, in an interview with the Washington Post, “they die piece by piece.”

http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_cows.asp

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[HipChick]

1. That's one animal I don't mess with..

I don't touch beef..nothing religious..just never cared for it

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2. You know, chickens seem stupid, and I guess that means they are ok to slaughter en masse.

I don't know. I eat chicken. I eat fish. I used to eat cow. I just don't know anymore. When you start to think about them as living creatures huddled together in the tiniest of enclosures, or pulled from their free environments and slaughtered nonetheless, I just don't know.

The only answer, the only way of thinking about any of it and still being able to dine on it is just not to think about it at all. Selective ignorance, if you will.

The cows. They've been shown to have intelligence and personalities - how can I support their mass slaughter? How can anyone?

I'm sure if we move the discussion to chickens or pigs (pork is easier to digest, I guess) or fish, the reasoning transfers. And any thinking, intellectually honest human must eventually land at the repulsive realization that to brutally take an innocent life for his/her dining enjoyment has to be an act that is unkind, and immoral.

I'm not preaching. Hell, I had steak ready for myself tonight. I can't eat it now. And I have a bag of chicken breasts (good God, breasts ripped off of chickens) in my freezer. I'm not preaching. I'm changing, I think. I'm looking an uncomfortable truth in the eye and realizing I don't want to contribute to such a nasty, inhumane cycle anymore.

Well...I still got Jello...

[smalll]

5. Also, chickens, like all birds, are descended from DINOSAURS --

Their velociraptor ancestors would have eaten us if they'd had a chance!

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7. I'm sure we would have found a way to slay them. If for nothing more than self-preservation.

But, to quote a great Alice in Chains song, it ain't like that anymore.

[smalll]

8. Well, maybe. But you've still "got Jello?"

Psst... Jello is made out of BONES!

[RandomThoughts]

3. What an interesting article.

It really is about empathy circles.

If cows are in your empathy circle, then you would think bad treatment of them wrong, if not, they might be a curiosity, but without feeling or caring for them and thought just raised for slaughter.


And you can see the same thing in any part of society. If a group can shrink their empathy circle by anything, then they can first treat people like animals, then use them for there own advantage. That is why most propaganda tries to get people to be thought of as animals. There are many historical examples of that.


And is why pet and livestock doctrine are used so often, because they can create a feeling of submission or inferiority, and if you accept that, then something can treat you like that, but they have to get you to accept that.

So if someone thinks people are just farm animals, or not equal and able to self rule for instance, they tell you that is the way it is, so that you will think it is true. If it was true, they would not try to get you to believe it. Proof that those doctrines are not true is that you hear them.

I have considered vegetarianism, but instead think more in terms of life for life with compassion. Where if some life goes away to maintain a modest existence of something else, and not with concepts of superiority, then things like food chain make sense. Same with things like working and things like that. However from my observations, in human empathy circles not about animals, sometimes it is not life for life, but taking peoples happiness or life for feelings of power or control.

If you look at how the concept occurs, you can see the same analogy in how some people treat other people. And why some people believe in livestock doctrine, or pet doctrine.


Note, their are two sides, that only applies to those that hide, since they would only use doctrines that are not true. Those that do not hide, can be seen, although you have to look, since they do not do to be seen, but for better results. So it also depends on side.

Although the concept of it if was true it would not need to be known, touches on faith. So you have to look at intent, if the intent is to set some advantage for a group, or get someone in despair, then it is not just some seeing of something for some good reason, but is trying to create a doctrine so people will believe it. At the same time that it would not need to be said, it also is not many times said, although those are intent based. In that the creation of despair doctrines both proves the despair doctrines not true, while proving something tries to create despair. Hence it is the function, not what is attempted that is important.

[UndertheOcean]

4. Is empathy real ? phrased in another way : It empathy truth ?

I find that predation being a major tenet of biological life to be deeply disturbing. It is what destroys all hope.

[RandomThoughts]

10. That is such a long concept, so much could be typed about it.

So many things, it is the two sides. Although in an imperfect world somewhere in the middle with modesty seems best. Although it could be that everyone moves one way or the other, till they find a perfect order in either pure empathy with complete connectivity with everything, or completely alone in conflict.

Really deep concept.

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9. I'm coming to believe that the function of slaying those we currently regard as inferior

is repulsive.

No doubt groups of people have been seen to be inferior over the centuries. But in this day, at least in what still passes for the enlightened nations, equality of all people is something that has gained much traction, and is accepted.

Not so for the wonderful and varied and complete in who they are animals we lead to slaughter by the millions world wide daily to feed our blissfully ignorant asses, empathy circles be damned.

[Kali]

6. I really want to address some of that but I am beat

need to go to bed.

Maybe tomorrow.

[Skittles]

11. gentle

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12. +10000

[SwampG8r]

13. the herefords look tasty but that holstein is a milker

im sure he would be good slow cooked though

[Hell Hath No Fury]

14. I (heart) cows!

I have always loved them, ever since I was a little kid. After 20+ years as a vegetarian I am still somewhat stuck on dairy products, which frustrates me. I long for truly humane dairy products -- and in my dreams I envision a setting where I can have a few pet chickens for the occassional egg and a retired cow for a bit of yogurt and cheese. Kmowing exactly how they are treated and that they would have a home and care forever would be fantastic.