If You Could Talk to the Animals…

Whether it’s killer whales or chickens, people are concerned about animal welfare – as well they should be. Farmers are no different, though many would make us out to be cruel and uncaring.

Just as our parents taught us, and their parents taught them, we’ve taught our children to treat all of god’s creatures with love and respect. It’s just the right thing to do.

From the food producer’s perspective, we treat our cows, hogs, and chickens in the most humane manner possible. From what they eat to how we care for their health to the environment they live in, we afford these selfless creatures with the dignity they deserve.

As it happens, animal welfare is not only crucial for the good of the animal it is also critical to the production of good food. For example, a stressed animal is not a healthy animal and healthy animals are tantamount to the provision of healthy food.

Fortunately, the beef, chicken, and pork industry all have animal welfare guidelines (which we tend to exceed.) These industries utilize third party audits to ensure excellent animal care. They have clearly documented and communicated the factors that contribute to good and poor animal welfare. This website has everything you could possibly want to know about these standards if you’re interested…

Guidelines include things such as sanitation, stocking density, diets, stress minimization when being transported, even the temperatures of the animals’ environments. All of these are important to be humane and to provide high quality food to you, our customer.

And based on the circles we travel in, most farmers can recite the bulk of these guidelines by heart and go the extra mile to take good care of their animals.

Not that we feel the need to “protect” all farmers, as there are bad apples in every bunch. But we do believe it is important for you to know that we’re not the only ones taking good care of our animals. We also think it is important for consumers to understand that regardless of what organizations like the Humane Society like to print about our industry, many of us, particularly us family farmers, care deeply about our animals and take offense to being lumped with a few bad farms, both large and small, which may not be as concerned about the welfare of their animals as we are.

But don’t take our word for it. See for yourself. Stop by the farm. And though the animals probably won’t have much to say either way if you ask them how they’re treated, just one look will be worth a thousand words.

Or Moos.