This happened 15 miles from my house at a local hog farm...

seedspreader · #1 12/26/06, 10:14 PM

Please read the article and tell me what you think of this situation.

http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_articl...FVPKrzsgXcY%3D

Quote:

Channel 3 News learned a special prosecutor is investigating allegations of animal abuse on a large hog farm in northeast Ohio.
The investigation was started, after undercover video was taken on the farm. The Humane Farming Association -- a non-profit group that investigates animal abuse provided the video to authorities.

We showed the H.F.A.'s video. The video is very disturbing, but everything contained in it may be legal. That's why we showed it.

The Wayne county farm is part of Ohio's heartland and a reminder Americas backbone, our farmers.

"There was an ad in the paper for farm labor, it said had dirty work, male or female, I answered it," said Ingrid DiMarino.

Soon after DiMarino had her dream job.

"I just thought it was going to be a fun job," she said.

She loves animals, even pigs.

"Never expected to find what was there," DiMarino said.

"I think that's the misunderstanding," Bob Baker said. "People think that there are agencies overseeing this."

Bob baker is a field investigator with the Humane Farming Association.

"It made no sense what so ever."

He travels the country looking into cases of abuse. Ingrid tipped him off about this.

When Joe Wiles, the farmer's son and farm manager was asked, "do you guys abuse these animals? He said, "no"

"I have not, no I never abused them," said Wiles.

More here: http://www.farmanddairy.com/1editori...-token.subpub=

james dilley · #2 12/26/06, 10:28 PM

I knew there were large hog farms in that area. But I think/Hope that the one in Question is A oddity and Not All of the commercial Hog farms are like this.

seedspreader · #3 12/26/06, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by james dilley

I knew there were large hog farms in that area. But I think/Hope that the one in Question is A oddity and Not All of the commercial Hog farms are like this.

Yeah, I think with the auction house being right there (it's a slaughter auction) that there are quite a few in the area of creston and wayne county.

texican · #4 12/26/06, 10:36 PM

Sounds like Ingrid didn't find her dream job. And if her idea of a dream job is nasty dirty hard work...

Mountaineer · #5 12/26/06, 11:06 PM

That's exactly why I don't eat store bought pork. Well that and what is fed to store bought pork.

haypoint · #6 12/26/06, 11:57 PM

What to do with a sick or lame farm animal is a problem for all. Many brag that they raise their animals without antibiotics or other medications, but stand ready to crucify another farmer for not treating his animals. A common situation is with dairy cows. As long as she can breed and produce milk, she is doing her job and stays in production. When her health fails, she is normally put on medication. If she doesn't seem to be getting better, she has to be sent thru an Auction sale and then to a slaughter house. That's the hard truth of the matter. To complicate things, she has to be off medication for a couple weeks before she can be sold for meat. So, she is taken off the medication and her condition worsens. Finally, she is taken to the auction. she walks into the farmer's trailer and walks out of it at the Sale. However, she colapses at the Auction and refuses to get up. What now? She weighs 1600 pounds. You can't shoot her in the Sale Barn. You can't put a chain on her and drag her out back. You sure can't put the skidsteer forks under her and shove her. If she can't walk, she can't be sold. How do you handle this? Put a fence around her and await death? Everything I can think of either looks cruel or is cruel. But, something must be done, right?
I can't think of a way that you could raise pigs and have them not be in regular contact with manure. The article had lots of charges, but nothing saying exactly what was being done. I can't believe a farmer would allow the costly practice of stressing or injuring baby pigs. While sows in farrowing crates are less likely to crush her babies, it does happen. Death is a part of every operation, no matter how hard you try. If you raise a few pigs, expect a few deaths. If you raise thousands of pigs, expect to bury many pigs. Is that sow in the photo alive? Is there a better way to move a dead pig? No excuses for not burying the dead ones.
Mountaineer- Do you feed your pigs pig feed from the local feed mill or do you feed them table scraps?

Lizza · #7 12/26/06, 11:59 PM

There was an article called "hog heaven or hog hell" in Backhome magazine a few months ago. More people should understand how commercial large farm operations are run. I don't understand why americans don't educate themselves about where their food comes from. Very sad. We do eat meat, just not factory farmed meat.

uncle Will in In. · #8 12/27/06, 04:25 AM

When the story is told by PETA and a woman who thinks working on a large hog farm should be fun, it is hard to tell what the true facts might be.

michiganfarmer · #9 12/27/06, 04:56 AM

Im not sure what was going on with the pig on the skid steer. Any time we had a cow who couldnt get up, or any animal for that matter, we either treated them to help them get better, or we shot them. We would never move a live animal in a way that would hurt them.

MorrisonCorner · #10 12/27/06, 05:46 AM

Are we assuming that animal is alive, and not recently deceased or just about?

I'll tell you what I think... and this is based on the observations on my own TINY little farm. As the animals increase in number they cease to be individuals (The Little Red Hen) and start being part of a collective (The Chickens). It is much easier, in fact I barely think about, killing a chicken which is part of the collective.

The same is true of my spring lambs. When we had 3 lambs come in the spring culling a lamb? Seriously traumatic. They all had names to go with their ear tags. But once we started dropping a dozen or more? Lambs became a collective, unnamed, rump roasts. And anyone watching us heave them unceremoniously into the truck to be hauled to the butcher would probably think we "don't take good care of them." In fact, lambs wiggle, kick, and have horns. Heaving is the safest way to handle them.

They rattle around loose in the back of the truck (sideboards and grate on top.. they're not leaping out) but I can hear some activist with a camera saying that they're being transported "unsafely" and in an accident might be "seriously injured."

I can hear an activist freaking out because we shear in October and now the sheep have "no wool, with winter setting in.."

I think it is all in how you twist it. Sure, I think some of the factory farming practices are probably inhumane. So I'm not saying that as a nation which supports these practices at the supermarket we shouldn't be aware of them and consider changing them... but I do understand how someone who handles hundreds of animals a day might go for expediency over "humane," especially when it comes to handling an animal which outweighs them by a considerable margin and could well kill them if it wanted to.

minnikin1 · #11 12/27/06, 08:28 AM

One thing I found interesting was the farmer's attitude about those
"$7 an hour people".
I'm sure most folks don't take a $7 an hour job really seriously. But it sounded to me like he was trying to discredit them based on that fact. As if anyone who would work for $7 an hour has nothing worth while to say...

The article described an incident where Ingrid was screaming about a live pig being hung and they teased her by hugging it...
I kind of enjoy imagining that this guy's public disgrace is the revenge of that pig. Karma is great...
Sound like this is the 15 minutes of fame that he earned.

tinknal · #12 12/27/06, 08:42 AM

It would be economic stupidity to abuse your bread and butter. The fact that this farm has grown and prospered is direct contradictory evidence that these animals are being abused.

tamatik · #13 12/27/06, 09:38 AM

I worked on a 6000 head hog farm(factory)I/we cleaned each pen everyday.When an animal was sick.it was treated,if it did not recover it was put down.It then went into a dumpster in the wintertime.In the summer they went into pits and covered with dirt.The dumpsters in the winter were collected by a rendering plant,unfortunately, the rendering plant often failed to show up, thus leaving overflowing bins and smell.I never used a hammer on small piglets that were to be put down..There was a gun of sorts that was quick and final.There was no fun in killing.Altho we had used loaders to lift a dead animal into a dumpster, I have never seen ,even a dead hog, be lifted by its neck.I hated this job but needed to feed my family.I feel the hogs were treated without cruelty but I would never have any animal of mine in a situation like that.
I was basically a city person who moved to the country so it was a bit of a shock to see so many large animals in the barns.The hogs were always inquisitive and always underfoot..I felt if they were terrified.they would have run away from me each time I stepped into the pen.My biggest concern was,the waste.If an animal was sick it was segregated and medicated.Then given "X" days to get healthy.If it didn,t get better in the alotted time frame it was put down.A lot of times I felt it should have had a few more days but, as stated, I was the city person and didn,t have the knowledge or xperience.Basically it came down to $ and cents.Altho this wasn,t my dream job.It was a job and I tried to do the best I could for the hogs and the employer.I raised my own pigs on my little farm and they DID taste totally different from the ones at work BUT..Mine were raised as pets/freezer meat, not as $$.My mind wanders to raising pigs in feilds, but I wonder if that is feasable on such a large scale.I think not.For some people to see a large # of pigs in an open feild,it would be an abomination to them but to have that same # in an enclosed shiny clean buildings seems acceptable as long as they don,t have to see what is IN the buildings or what goes on inside..Just my opinion.
I think factory farms are terrible,I think a cost effective alternative is not available at this time for such large scale operations, but ANY farm should treat their animals humanely and with adequate feed and care.
I guess thats all I have to say on my experiences and some of you wil not like what I have written but Its the facts as I have seen them.Things may be different in the states but this is how it was at one site in Canada

Silvercreek Farmer · #14 12/27/06, 10:02 AM

I think that the PETA people can get out of control, at the same time I think regular normal people can do terrible things (throwing piglets hard enough to break legs) when the behavior becomes normalized, (the so-called mob mentality), and I also believe this in an attempt to disconnect themselves from a living creature they are about to kill. Both things we have seen in War (Abu-grahib)This being said, I get awful tired the government telling me what to do and would hate to have some USDA guy standing there telling me how to run my operation, so I guess the solution is just for us all to stay aware of animal handling practices and blow the whistle when something is amiss, as it sounds this person did. And of course no one ever admits doing something wrong...

minnikin1 · #15 12/27/06, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinknal

It would be economic stupidity to abuse your bread and butter.

And yet it's done all the time - go figure.

This, from the second link provided, made me believe there is substance to
the claims:
"In a written statement, Dick Isler, director of the Ohio Pork Producers Council, says the practices shown on the undercover video "depicted mistreatment of hogs, including practices not condoned and in fact, abhorred by America's pork producers."
The national and state-level pork producers groups condemn the alleged mistreatment depicted on the video."

If other folks in your own industry are willing to publicly throw you under a bus, you're probably screwing up pretty big...
Otherwise they would have said something like, "we are looking into the allegations and have no comment at this time..." blah blah blah...

dagwood · #16 12/27/06, 02:46 PM

Any farmer that mistreats his animals is not acceptable to me and deserves to have such animals removed from his property.

As farmers we are charged with care of the land and our animals. No exceptions to that charge IMO.....

haypoint · #17 12/27/06, 03:33 PM

Dagwood- How do you feel about people that are accused of doing bad things? Do they lose their livelihood? Do they get their day in Court? Where are all the folks that want less Government inspection/regulation/ oversite? Why aren't you standing up for this guy's freedoms and rights? You want some syrup on that waffle?

papaw · #18 12/27/06, 04:49 PM

Ingrid needs to go back to selling make-up at the mall. It's no wonder people from other countries are taking our jobs from us. They still know where their food comes from and how it's processed.

Like someone said, a hog farm at slaughter is not a "fun" job.

I was a head cutter for Sweet Sue at one time .... now there's a dirty job!

RedHogs · #19 12/27/06, 06:32 PM

I've read accounts of this from less biased sources, this farmer is out of the ordinary in many regards... but i regularly have to kill piglets (steped on or failing) and use a hammer. The sores that referred to are actually hair rubbed off, An outside pig gets a deep furry coat and then is put in a warm farrowing house and rubs on the bars and the hair dropps like nothing you have ever seen... this is common in the winter on even my hogs. I don't support this type of lazy farmer and he will be gone before long. Commercial hog farming is too competitive and he is behind the times.

Boleyz · #20 12/27/06, 06:42 PM

There are sorry Lawyers...

There are sorry Doctors...

There are sorry Rn's in hospitals...

There are sorry Nursing home directors....

There is sorriness in every field of human endeavor...and yes, there are sorry hog farmers.

I used to be a hog farmer, and we "Threw" the pigs from pen to pen...thousands of them...and I can't ever recall an injury.

When a hog needed to be euthenized, it was dragged from the barn and shot in the head.

I raised literally thousands of market hogs and yes, sometimes they hurt themselves...but they were never intentionally hurt by us...like someone said, it was our bread and butter...

We took very good care and treated them very well...most of the time they sang in unison whenever we appeared...They loved us...and we loved them...