Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween my pig love'in friends!

Meet the Bride of Frankenswine.

I love costumes and I'll admit I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to Halloween.

Last year was a little gory so this year I went for something cuter.

I also wanted to honor National Pork Month.

I think the pig nose suites me, don't you?

The funniest part about this nose is that is actually moves when I breath.

It's too funny and a little disturbing.

So, what are you going to be for Halloween? I'd love to see pics!

Stay safe this weekend!

      Happy Halloween

10 Reasons to Vote NO on Prop B

I stopped by Veterinary Clinic, Inc. in Mexico, MO the other day to ask why a local vet would have a

"Vote NO on Prop B" sign in their front yard.

Turns out, Don Hudson, DVM didn't have a single reason to oppose Prop B...

He has a list. 



Veterinary Clinic, Inc. Mexico, MO
Don Hudson, DVM
Jeanine Utterback, DVM



PROP B

1. Everyone should visit the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association website.

2. All Licensed kennels are under very strict inspections by state and federal investigators. These inspections are unannounced.

3. HSUS never documents the source of their videos with animals in cages when asking for donations (Hoarders, unlicensed kennels, etc.)

4. Prop B demands solid flooring (concrete) which is very stressful over long term. They are cold, damp, and filthy for non housebroken animals. Many breeders use tenderfoot or fiber glass flooring to keep animals dry, warm, and waste drains into trays underneath the racks.

5. Licensed kennels are inspected by a veterinarian once a year and state and federal inspections twice a year. A written form outlines vaccinations, nutrition, deworming, etc. This must be followed with attending veterinarian and owner.

6. The idea of having only 50 dogs is ridiculous. Who came up with that number? Why not 49 or 51?

7. Many people feel that Prop B opponents are paranoid about this being only the beginning of attacking other aspects of animal production. They have every reason to be paranoid. Just investigate what happened in California, Ohio, Florida, and Arizona. Many supporters actually believe this only affects kennels; however HSUS has a very toxic track record.

8. The very wording of Prop B is misleading and should never have been allowed.

9. The amount of money coming from out of state is disgusting. This alone should make everyone suspicious. Why should out of state people tell us in Missouri what we should do? We don’t try to regulate the number of cars owned by someone in California, or the number of houses a realtor can sell. The latest numbers I have seen were October 23, 2010. At that time, 2.6 million dollars has been donated for Prop B. Of the 2.6 million, 2.37 million came from out of state of which 1.32 million came from HSUS!! In state donations for Prop B amounted to about 8.8%! Follow the money! At the same time, the Missouri Federation of Animal Owners had $44,700.00 to oppose Prop B.

10. If this passes, there will be a tremendous amount of collateral damage, which the proponents will either deny or won’t care. Prop B is wrong financially and ethically because of how misleading HSUS has been, and in the way it does business.

 

This list is from a well-known, respected, and reputable Missouri veterinarian.

Enough said.

 

Vote NO on Prop B.

 



"Pet" Redefined in Prop B--Why?

We're pets!? Since when?

According to dictionary.com pet is defined as followed:

pet--noun, adjective, verb, pet·ted, pet·ting.
–noun
1. any domesticated or tamed animal that is kept as a companion and cared for affectionately.

Note: "...kept as a companion and cared for affectionately."

According to Prop B:
(9) ”Pet” means any domesticated animal normally maintained in or near the household of the owner thereof.

Why would HSUS and ASPCA (the two major groups pushing this onto the ballot) feel the need to alter the definition of the word "Pet"? Note too, why would they omit the section of the definition they claim to care most about? Why would they omit the "companion" and "cared for affectionately" part? Why would they change the meaning of "Pet" to such a vague definition?

Why? I'll tell you why, lines 3 and 4.

3. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person having custody or ownership of more than ten female covered dogs for the purpose of breeding those animals and selling any offspring for use as a pet shall provide each covered dog:
 
(1) Sufficient food and clean water; The way this proposition defines clean water means that we would be in violation because the water and the feed get mixed in the bottom of the feeder pan and farmers that use a lake, pond, or stream to water their cows would be in violation too. 


(2) Necessary veterinary care; Again we would be in violation. Prop B states that a licenced vet must administer meds, treat the sick, and euthanize the lame; however, we work with licenced vets but we, the farmers, administer the meds, treat the sick, and euthanize the lame. We are trained to do these things by licenced vets and certified but certification is not a medical licence. Imagine how much it would cost for a vet or team of vets to come and do these things daily. We'd go out of business and so would every other farmer, not to mention there aren't enough vets to go around. 

(3) Sufficient housing, including protection from the elements; Some cows have barns, some don't. Therefore, those farmers, whether they have a barn or not, are in violation because of the temperature limitations and many barns are open at one end which would violate the "protection from the elements." According to this definition a roof is not enough. The temperature limitations would also kill our piglets because they must be kept warmer than 85 degrees. Furthermore, waste must be removed daily. We have a deep pit for hog waste--which isn't waste at all, it is a priceless commodity called manure--and it would have to be cleaned daily while the hogs are outside. Not possible. 

(4) Sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs; This would increase the amount of space every farm animal across the board would need; forcing farmers to buy more land or use valuable crop land as pasture ground. 

(5) Regular exercise; and This would require farmers to have an outside area twice as large as the inside area!? Not realistic.

(6) Adequate rest between breeding cycles. Again, Prop B's standards are unrealistic. Farmers could only breed their livestock twice in an 18 month period. That alone would kill animal ag and destroy the nation's economy. 

4. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person may have custody of more than fifty covered dogs for the purpose of breeding those animals and selling any offspring for use as a pet. Here's a doozy. Farmers would only be allowed to breed 50 sows, 50 cows, only 50 chickens could lay eggs, etc. Again, this would mean death to animal ag. But, then again, isn't that what HSUS wants.
 
I know, I know. Before you go typing hate mail and claiming I'm an idiot because Prop B is clearly meant for dogs only and has nothing to do with farm animals, consider this. If, according to Prop B, a pet is in fact a "domesticated animal normally maintained in or near the household of the owner" that would mean that cows grazing in a pasture a few yards from their owners' house are "pets," the pigs that live behind my in-law's house only yards away are "pets," sheep, goats, chickens that live in a pasture on the same property which the owner resides are all "pets."
 
By redefining "pet" and creating an incredibly vague description, which in a court of law can be interpreted in the manner I have just described, it creates what is called in the legal profession a "loophole." By creating this "loophole" HSUS has also created an "in." All they would need to do if Prop B passes is file an amendment to change the breed of animal and good bye animal ag, good bye farmers, good bye meat, and hello imported expensive food and the socialist way of life, where big government rules and the little man drools (because he's so hungry).
 

Vote NO on Prop B.

Because this is not a pet.  



Volunteers Needed

I received another email. No, I'm not going to make a habit of sharing my emails but this one is important.


A phone bank has been set up at the Mo Cattlemen’s in Columbia to make phone calls to voters to oppose Prop B. The phone bank will accommodate at least 20 callers and will operate from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm daily through Saturday, noon to 9:00 pm on Sunday and from 9:00 am until noon on Monday. Automatic dialing and a short script are there so now all we need are people. To sign up and help defeat Prop B, contact Jeff Windett at 573-499-9162 or jeff@mocattle.com to coordinate schedules.

I am also getting more information sent to me about setting this up using my home computer. If you have a high-speed connection (not dial up) you can set up your own at-home phone bank. If you'd like more info on doing this at home email me (j.windmann@yahoo.com), as soon as I receive the info I will forward it on to you.

We need your help getting the word out about Prop B.
Please help in anyway you can, November is just around the corner.

Vote NO on Prop B.



Other sites of interest to learn more about Prop B:

Proposition B not the right answer to problem--published in the Missourian

KnowledgeisPower2011--YouTube channel

Using Your Brain to Think Through Prop B--24th State Blog

Law makers want to expose "truth" of Prop B--Brownfield Ag News

Also see the links to the right and my past Prop B blogs for more information. Thank you for your support.

Update:

I wanted to let you know a similar phone bank is also available at Missouri Farm Bureau home office in Jefferson City if that is a closer option– as a fellow producer, we all need to be aware that Proposition B is a critical issue we need to ensure is defeated. MOFB has a call center area set up With a computer program installed to generate the telephone numbers and dial until a live body answers. Callers will have a script to follow so no one will have to “wing it.” Phones will be available beginning at 9:00 a.m. this week. Evening hours are possible if people are available to make calls. Leslie Holloway is the primary contact in the home office and she can be reached at lholloway@mofb.com or 573-893-1410. Jill Fansler can also be contacted; her email is jfansler@mofb.com, or 573-893-1410.



Missouri Cares--Vote NO on Prop B

I would like to share an email I received last week. It caught me by surprise and I thoroughly appreciated it. This email shows the level of dedication Missouri's legitimate pet businesses have and how serious they are about their job. One of the major issues we are having right now with Prop B is that radical groups are trying to paint every puppy breeder as being a "puppy mill." This is the same as labeling our family farm a "factory farm," which just isn't the case. Just because we're big doesn't make us bad, same goes for puppy breeders. Furthermore, people like Tonya, who buy puppies from legitimate breeders, are being chastised as well.

Hi,


My Name is Tonya Thoenen and I own and operate a small pet store outside of Mexico MO. Puppy Love Haven has been in business for 28 years . I love my job providing quality puppies to mid Missouri and providing children with their first pet (best friend) or an elderly person finding companionship after they have lost their loved one. This is better than being Santa Clause! I know in my heart they went home with a good healthy dog that will love them unconditionally.

I purchase puppies from several licensed kennels in Mo. and have first hand knowledge that this is their livelihood also. We don’t do this as a hobby. Its in our blood. The dog breeders I know are passionate about what they do. This is a blessing from God to love what you do. I know for a fact that you will not find one livestock farmer or row cropper or dog breeder that hates their job.

Thank you for coming to the 4 H meeting and all of your well written blogs. I forwarded your site to my Mo. inspector to read. I know she will like it and appreciate it. It took me awhile to figure out how to thank you, I'm over 40 and don't have any children to show me how to respond to a blog. (smile)

So in closing. Thank you for your support, thank your for your information. I had no idea how much I rely on pork products. Where would we be without our pork?

God Bless and have a great day.

Thanks, Tonya Thoenen
Puppy Love Haven
573-581-6433

Missouri has been labeled "the puppy mill capital" by HSUS and ASPCA. These same radical groups have pushed Prop B onto Missouri's ballot claiming it will end puppy mills, claiming it will stop puppy cruelty. But, I'd like to know how? Prop B does nothing to enforce the laws, it does nothing to improve the laws, it basically does nothing but put HSUS's foot in the door to legislate animal businesses out of Missouri.


Thank you Tonya for caring. Thank you to all the legitimate and responsible puppy breeders that provide healthy pets to loving homes. Please help keep these people in business and don't let misleading ads by radical groups stop us from having pets. We don't need more government to protect animals, we need help enforcing the laws that we already have. If HSUS and ASPCA really cared they would have spent the millions they have wasted on this campaign on actually helping animals. They push the ballot but don't pay the bill. Prop B won't help Missouri.
 

Vote NO on Prop B. 

A Barn Called CAFO **Part Five**

How is it possible for these operations to have a small carbon footprint?

All concentrated animal feeding operations are required to have a nutrient management plan not to mention the vast array of permits and regulations. This nutrient management plan is created to follow specific state mandated requirements. It details amounts of waste produced daily and annually for each site and how that waste is to be utilized. The technological advances in farming provide several options, too. Waste can be used the traditional way, as fertilizer, it can be used to create energy from the methane gases, or the waste can go through a treatment system similar to any town or city’s waste water treatment facility.
As far as their carbon footprint, animal agriculture only contributes 2.8 percent of the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) and pork production is even less. Hog farms contribute a mere 0.33 percent. That is only one-third of one percent--people produce more GHG than that. New technology and a greater knowledge of environmental impact can be contributed to this small percentage. Such practices as recycling hog waste as fertilizer and using a smaller land area to raise more pigs is another contributor to making the pork industry a green industry.

The pork industry doesn’t just provide meat and fertilizer, though. There is so much more. An entire world of products come from pork. In fact, over 500 byproducts come from pigs. The plastic that my freezer is made of, the freezer that holds all those frozen hunks of pork, perhaps that came from a pig as well--plastics are pork byproducts. The chewing gum that has become my latest habit/addiction is a pork byproduct. Everything from glass to glue, from rubber to crayons, and if I wore make-up, I could thank a pig for that too. Antifreeze, linoleum, weed killer, insecticide, water filters, the list goes on and on. Yet, people want to rid our country of this vital product, this irreplaceable commodity and for what? For misguided morals, religion, or because someone else told them that’s what they want? Why?

Why would you not want the pork industry to keep up with the demand? Why would you not want pork, period? Pork is one of the healthiest meats next to fish. In fact, according to the Pork Checkoff and National Pork Board pork is even healthier than chicken in fat, calorie, and cholesterol content. With 40 percent of the world’s meat being pork and over 500 byproducts from these amazing animals the demand is astronomical. New technology that allows pork to be produced quickly, efficiently, and safely are necessary especially in these competitive times. That is were CAFOs come in and that is what CAFOs do. They create supply to meet the demand safely, efficiently, and economically while creating jobs and allowing family farmers to stay on the farm.

Finally, after contemplating the importance of animal agriculture and the pork industry then writing about it, I decide tonight is definitely a pork steak night. I reach through the icy fog until my fingers find the heavy thick package with “PORK STEAK” stamped on the top in bold black ink, slightly smudged. Up the stairs I tromp, still pondering our fortunate circumstances, reminded of a time in my life when I had to skip meals to make sure my kids had enough to eat. The time we had so little money that I went without, though I never starved, I did fight hunger pangs on a daily basis.

Unwrapping that pink and white marbled meat, I give thanks to the barn down the road that supplied us with this meat. A barn that houses nearly 5,000 pigs. A barn that helped the local community by the vast amounts of property taxes paid. A barn that stirred so much controversy that a town meeting was called just to settle down the community to little avail. A barn that housed the thousands of  A barn that is called a CAFO.

Well, what did you think of my five part series, A Barn Called CAFO? As always, the comment box is open.

A Barn Called CAFO **Part Four**

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) individual housing has its advantages. By utilizing a stall system large enough for one sow it minimizes aggression and injury, reduces competition for resources, allows individual feeding, which assists in controlling body condition, and provides safety for the workers. The disadvantages, however, are restriction of movement, exercise, and foraging behaviors and it limits social interaction.


Some sow barns utilize group housing. This type of housing allows freedom of movement, exercise, and social interaction; however, gestating sows tend to be aggressive when around others which leads to injuries for both sows and workers. Also, without individual feeding swine have uneven and in some cases unhealthy body conditions. It would be nice to keep pigs in slop-filled pastures, keeping with that 1930’s picturesque farm scene but the acreage just isn’t there.

With a concentration of this many animals in one building waste management is a concern. One small barn of only 1,200 head produces more than 1,500 gallons of waste per day. With more waste than pigs, consumers’ rising concerns for environmental safety, and concerns for reducing our carbon footprint it is obvious why consumers are concerned. These facilities, which store so much waste, must be pollution havens; not to mention, have an enormous carbon footprint. Actually, they don’t.

To Be Continued...

A Barn Called CAFO **Part Three**

So, how do CAFOs work? More importantly, why do we even have them?

To answer these questions you need to consider practicality along with functionality. Because of the increasing demand for pork, the most widely eaten meat in the world, swine farming has had to evolve to a faster, more economic way of production. Despite the deceasing amount of rural property available, hogs are still pasture-raised. However, to keep up with the high demand for pork, another more productive method is being used in the U.S., Canada, and around the world--CAFOs.


One misconception is that these large operations are putting small farmers out of business, quite the contrary. Some companies actually contract small farmers to raise company-owned hogs in farm-owned buildings on farm-owned land. That means small farmers are able to maintain their land, expand their business, and have financial security in an economically insecure time. These buildings not only supply farmers with a steady paycheck, they also supply the farmer with a natural, renewable fertilizer that works toward rebuilding topsoil instead of just injecting more and more petroleum-based chemicals year after year like anhydrous ammonia.

These buildings are also fully automated and climate controlled. That doesn’t mean it’s like your slow cooker, you can’t just set it and forget it. Hogs are a 24-hour a day, 7 days a week occupation. The automation just makes the job somewhat less difficult. The temperature, humidity, lighting, feed, and water are all monitored and automated to maintain the ideal condition for optimal health and comfort of the pigs. CAFOs have automated heating, cooling, and ventilation systems; there is also a security feature in the computer system. If the computer senses a problem with any of the automated functions, an alarm will go off notifying the farmer of the problem via cell phone. The barns even have generators in case of power outages.

There are a few different types of swineherd operations and they range in size from 1,200 head to more than 10,000 head. One type is farrow-to-finish; these operations handle it all from the gestating sows to raising the piglets to market weight. A farrow-to-feeder operation only handles sows and piglets and a feeder-to-finish handles the weaned piglets and raises them to market weight hogs. Once piglets reach feeder size and are weaned they go to an open barn with large pins called group housing. This allows plenty of movement and socialization but that’s not where the concern lies, it’s the farrowing stalls that ruffle feathers.

What does the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) have to say about these stalls?

You'll have to come back tomorrow to find out...

A Barn Called CAFO **Part Two**

So, what is a CAFO?

I’ll be honest, I can only answer that question as it pertains to swine CAFOs because that’s what we have and that’s what I know. Of course, many will brand me a hypocrite because I complain about biased information yet I am advocating the very business that feeds my family but I do have an outside view. You see, I wasn’t raised on a farm; I married into one. I didn’t know much of anything about the pigs until the farm expanded and my husband went to work with the rest of his family. I have the luxury of seeing this from both sides of the fence and I’ll admit, sometimes even I am conflicted.


The conflict doesn’t come from the CAFO as much as it does from the idea farming conjures. Farm life makes you think of red barns, wire fencing, green pastures, tractors, and an assortment of livestock but that was 40 years ago and this in now. Though, one aspect of farming has stayed the same but has been lost in translation--the business of farming. Farming is a way of life, farming gets into your blood, is passed from generation to generation but it is also a business and businesses need to make money. Businesses must also change with the times or face being put out to pasture. CAFOs are a marriage of farm values, business ethics, and modern technology.

So, how do CAFOs work? More importantly, why do we even have them?
 
Read more tomorrow...