The March 19 Mountain Xpress featured summer camps for kids. One camp, Five Farms, takes kids to five different farms. Teaching children how vegetables are grown is laudable, but last year many of the participating farms raise animals for food.
I’m sure campers enjoy getting to know and interact with the goats, chickens and other animals at these farms, but I’m sure the counselors don’t tell campers the truth about what happens when animals are raised for food. They don’t share that male chicks are ground up or suffocated at birth because they don’t produce eggs. Or that male goats are killed for meat because they don’t produce milk. Or that hens and goats are killed when they no longer produce eggs or milk. And I’m sure the campers aren’t exposed to the animals being dragged — kicking and screaming — to the kill site.
Instead of glorifying torture and killing, I suggest parents bring their children to Full Circle Farm Sanctuary, where pigs, goats, chickens and other animals are provided with a loving lifetime home and treated as the sentient beings they are. The kids can meet Ophelia, one of several hens at Full Circle that were carelessly discarded by urban homesteaders who grew bored with their hobby or learned that hens live much longer than they lay eggs. Or Babar, the pig, who was rescued before he was to be sent to a slaughterhouse, where he would have had been killed by having his throat cut or being submerged in boiling water. Or Joshua, a goat who would have suffered the same fate as Babar. Or the other animals who are all loved and protected at Full Circle. Should children’s natural compassion for animals be squashed, or should it be nurtured? For more info, go to fcfsanctuary.org.
— Kayla Worden
Founder/Executive Director
Full Circle Farm Sanctuary
Kayla is exactly right. Children should be taught to respect the sentience of all creatures. Pigs are as smart as dogs! Chickens have relationships! Cows talk to each other and cry when we take their babies away so we can have the milk.
We take their babies away so we can have the milk.
Think about it.
Of all the camps offered in the area, this is the one that your kids should attend. Having a connection to where our food comes from is one of the most important things any of us can do. This camp is offering a valuable experience for youth to visit the farms in this area.
Yes, many of them produce meat from animals. On these farms the animals are being raised consciously unlike factory farms and CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) which practice what Ms. Worden describes. Most children are intelligent enough to look at the situation and decide if they want to eat meat or not.
Our family knows all of our farmers and they have great reverence for the animals they raise for meat. We have even helped to raise our own chickens for food and we pay respect and give thanks to the animal that is giving it’s life for our nourishment.
We live in a diverse area with many opinions when it comes to this subject and I know many will disagree with my position, however, I feel that Ms. Worden’s public attack on the 5 Farms Camp in this forum is unfair because with the food system currently in place in this country connecting young people to their source of food, be it animal or vegetable or both, in my opinion is a noble mission and one worthy more of praise than criticism.
What if you decided NOT to raise chickens, and so you didn’t order any day-old chicks? Well then those chickens would never have been hatched and they never would have scratched around your yard doing the cluckety-cluck, right? Sure, you’re gonna put them in the soup pot after they’re done laying eggs for you, but without you **ordering the chickens** and letting them enjoy their pecking order and sleepy-time and cock-a-doodle-doo, then it never would have happened to begin with. So therefore because it never would have happened — because you failed to order the chickens in the first place, then isn’t it wrong to deprive them of the sunshine? Isn’t it wrong to deprive them of the blue sky? Isn’t is wrong to kill them before they were even born?