Henshaw Incident - USDA Slaughter of Pigs

Yes, I think that article was waaaay over the top in the propaganda department. If you read what the wife wrote, in her own words, she didn't say they were held at home by armed guards. She said the agents wouldn't let them anywhere near the preserve, which makes sense if they were out there with guns hunting the stock. Unfortunately, the high level of overly played dramatics in the first article make it pretty hard to believe. Her own story is more reasonable and believeable.

I can see both sides - Paul, you made very valid points - as does Bob. When the hammer falls though, I'll be on the side that lets me raise food for my family and friends without government interference. We quarantee new stock on the our farm (we learned the hard way after we bought Johnnes positive milk cows from a sale barn). We test for disease during that time. When we are confident in our stock, it is destined for breeding and/or for the freezer.

Does everyone run their operation this way? I doubt it - some have more lax regs, some more strict. But that does mean the govt has the right to come in and tell me how to raise the food I eat??? I don't agree with the way the corporate folks across the field raise their Angus beef or the way homesteaders down the road may raise their hogs - but I'm not eating it, they are! If they are good with the way they're raising their food, then so be it. If our customers are confident in the way we're raising their food - good for us. If they're not, they'll find someone else.

I believe the govt when from ground zero to phase III implementation without notifing the Henshaws. I've seen it happen. It only takes a county official's word.

I don't, in a minute, believe NAIS is about disease control. Most outbreaks in the population's food occur at packaging plants, not at farms. NAIS doesn't do squat for this. Freedom to Farm is becoming a thing of the past.

If you haven't read Lynn Miller's piece about NAIS (available as a PDF from www.smallfarmersjournal.com) in Small Farmer's Journal Winter 2006, maybe you should. He may extend the script a bit long - but I can see most of what he says happening in the near future.

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Cyndi (and sometimes Paul)

Muller's Lane Farm
"Lessons in Homesteading"

But tell the whole story kesoaps. At least 2 of their sheep did test positive for BSE. And they were offered over $2 MILLION (YES MILLION!!) for the animals that were destroyed. That's over $15,000 per head! You should read all sides of the story before you make a judgement on these situations.

No, they tested possibly positive. Not positive. All the other sheep tested tested negative. The government's strong arm tactics are unexcusable. There was no emergency. There was no need to rush in and kill all the sheep. This is not a highly communicable disease. These are people with rights. No need to trample the Constitution.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Strong-arm tactics are definitely not necessary. My point is though that in both these stories, important details are omitted. We need to tell the whole story when discussing these issues and when trying to gain support for the anti-NAIS movement. Stories that talk about government agents as "armed invaders" and compare these events to Waco and Ruby Ridge aren't going to help with NAIS. Honestly, I still can't see why either of these incidences should even be involved in the NAIS discussion. They don't have anything to do with it, since government agencies did these things without NAIS even being inacted yet.

This really will be my last post...my first 2 were ignored...it's amazing how emotional folks get over this story...People see the title, "USDA Slaughters Pigs" and never actually read the story.

Here we go...one more time...The family involved were not raising food for their family...they were raising feral hogs and sheep for HUNTING...Read the article...then read THIS article...

http://www.google.com/search?q=cach...s&ct=clnk&cd=11

If the authorities had not intervened and this spread to commercial lots in the area, the results could have economically decimated the entire area.

Now, feel free to do as you please on your place, but if you're raising diseased animals (as these were) and letting them roam free and wild (as these were), then I think you should be stopped from doing so BEFORE you destroy my livlihood.

Again, the authorities may have been a bit heavy-handed in their techniques, but they were justified in forcibly culling this herd before this herd destroyed the lives of other farmers/ranchers...

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"The most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." - Sir Isaac Newton
(A REAL scientist)

Where can I get me some of them there BSE sheep, if the gubbermint will pay 15K each....

Also...

If you buy produce or meat from someone and your family gets sick or worse... will you be 'glad' that there wasn't any tracking system in place... or 'mad' that there wasn't?

If you sell something to someone personally, and they get sick, they're probably gonna come back and haunt you, in this life with a lawyer, or from the afterlife...

Agree with Boleyz on pretty much everything he said...

I took my tin hat off reading the article...
(Not many folks are more anti-gov than me, but when you start transporting diseased produce onto or off of a farm, it concerns everyone....) If you want to eat diseased carcasses, or feed em to your family...now That Is What Freedom is All About!!!!!! Everybody's got a right to do something really doofus... Just keep the doofusin' on your own place...

Americans have been brought up to believe that our food is safe. Anything that gets in the way of that belief will be crushed... crushed HARD!!! Pity the poor innocent spinach farmers...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

You're missing some key points:

1) There is no proof the pigs being diseased. There is good evidence that they were not diseased with Pseudorabies - all the healthy piglets and the healthy sheep and other animals. Pseudorabies, if it had been present, would have been kiling those other animals outright and causing severe mortalities in the piglets (~100% death rate <1 month of age). The government took the evidence. There isn't independent verficiation.

2) This was not an emergency. There was no need for this sort of brutal, heavy handed assault. The government could have taken its time and gone slowly about doing the right thing. Instead they acted like it was some terror incident that required a immediate armed intrusion.

3) The government did not follow its own procedures for dealing with a disease had it been present.

4) The assualt is a clear Constitutional violation.

5) It does not matter what they were doing with the pigs, game hunting, farming or homesteading. Their rights were being violated. You may be next.

I would suggest you actually read the article, follow the links, read the government's own documents, read the Merck Manual about the disease, etc. This will help you better understand the disease and the situation.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

I also see many posters on here asking advice for animal health problems because they can't afford a vet, don't l ike their local vet, don't believe in veterinary medicine, want to use natural cures, et cetera. Some very serious diseases can masquerade as less serious diseases and only a trained professional can tell the difference between the two before it is too late. That is another reason why the homesteader can be a source of disease. The big guys have vets on staff to find out what is causing the problem and deal with it. They can't afford not to. Don't think I'm an apologist for the big producers, cause I'm not. I think by and large animals have a better life under the small producers and are probably healthier for human consumption. But that doesn't stop me from seeing why there can be just as many problems with the small producers as well.

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‎"We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor" -- MLK Jr., 1964



http://inthekitchenwithdon.blogspot.com/

Highlands,

Not true. My friend hunts wild hogs and there were some cases that his dogs died from pesudo rabies from hunting wild hogs. They weren't sick but were carrying the pesudo rabies virus. It doesn't really make the wild hogs sick...just a slight fever in some cases. The dogs are a dead end host. They're the ones that get sick enough to die. As for baby pigs, I wouldn't know if the pesudo rabies kills them but can tell you right now, they don't kill the adults.

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Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

That is my point. Go read the links in the article:

http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/09/...shaw-incident/

and learn about Pseudorabies and the Henshaw Incident.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Homebirtha, none of their sheep tested positive. Over 400 tests were run first and showed negative. There are three 'legs' to the test, not just one; if one test shows positive (within the three) it's not enough to claim a cow has bse or a sheep has scrapie. The testing that came back as positive was done after all other tests showed negative; was done in a lab that was never inspected; plus the slides could barely be read by other scientists due to the fact they were in such bad condition. On top of which, this test had never been validated and the control test offered differing results. And again...the sheep that tested 'positive' were just 13 months old, which is too young to show signs of any TSE (not to mention they didn't belong to the Faillaces, but someone else.)

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Mustang Diaries

"It's called a lance...hellooo!"

The government documents regarding the Henshaw Incident:

http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/09/...shaw-incident/

are now downloadable at the end of this article:

http://nonais.org/index.php/2006/10/...haw-documents/

Alternative link: http://NoNAIS.org and then look in the right
sidebar under Technical Documents:Henshaw Incident Documents
which leads to this web directory:

http://nonais.org/techdocs/HenshawDocs/

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Yeah but their is something wrond with jack booted thugs destroying someones livlihood and not even offering them a chance to test their herd.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

REALLY? perhaps you will begin to see the correlation when they come for YOUR farm?

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

No, really, I don't see the connection. Was this hunting preserve registered with the NAIS? Is the NAIS even mandatory in Virginia yet? Did they use the NAIS requirements to catch these people? Explain to me how this happened BECAUSE of NAIS in any way.

My point is that the government is ALREADY doing these things, and have been for years... long before NAIS was even an idea. The govt. needs to be held accountable for these actions, if they weren't carried out according to the law. If they were carried out according to the law, then we need to change the law. But saying this somehow shows us that NAIS is bad is making a big leap that I just don't get. And I think trying to tie it in can actually hurt the No NAIS message, unless someone does a better job of showing a link.

Is the link that NAIS will make it easier for the govt. to find these people? They didn't seem to have any problem finding them without NAIS. It just isn't the right argument to make against NAIS. It's not going to work. We need to show that NAIS is going to cause undue hardship and financial burden on small farmers. We need to show that it's going to cost the average consumer more at the grocery store. And we need to show that it isn't going to protect us from food-borne illness. That's the message that should be spread about NAIS. Connecting this story to stopping the NAIS is a red herring.

NAIS is a subset of the fight to protect our traditional rights to farm. There are many threats from animal rights activists to the heavy hand of government intervention. This is very relevant.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

homebirtha
You are correct!! Calling this a NAIS action is not correct in any matter shape or form.
The Only State that has mandatory Premises ID is WI. And maybe a very few others BUT NO State has ANY laws Yet concerning the NAIS so NAIS is Not in effect and Does not have anything to do with this Hog story at all Because it IS NOT IN EFFECT Yet~!. Not until at least 2009 if NOT Longer. I like all these conspiracy theories as to just How this action taken was in any way connected to the NAIS as there is NO NAIS on the books as law in any State... There is WAY to much speculation going on without getting the True facts of it form those that took action and not just from the land owners them self. This was a game preserve after all and Comes Under Many rules and Regs MANY of which Have NOTHING to do with the USDA, BUT Come under the States Own Wild Life Laws.. The DNR etc.

I just interviewed an official on the case at the Virginia Commonwealth. Article to come soon on http://NoNAIS.org

Facts are verified.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Unfortunately, they do have to do with government control over people, which is the point of NAIS. They also have to do with unnecessary strong arm tactics, also a part of this discussion. I am very concerned with NAIS and the probability that it will trigger more of these sorts of attacks against the people of the US by their own government.

EDIT: I WAS WRONG - misread something in the account! (Also, I may be wrong, but I thought that I read in one of the accounts that the Henshaws had just written a book explaining the flaws of NAIS. Please correct me if I am in error, but that is just TOO coincidental.)

Weren't the USDA agents "armed invaders" to these people's house? Didn't they go quite overboard against their livestock and livilihood? Yes, I think we ought to be quite concerned about it.

One problem with the myriads of vague laws we already have on the books is that they leave too much room for interpretation on the part of law enforcers. It leaves openings for a sherrif with a grudge to shut down his neighbor, or whatever. There is not nearly enough control over law enforcement, over the USDA and the various gov't agencies that are pretty much free to do as they will already. Why give them MORE power over our lives?

Because we are being taught to be afraid? I refuse to be moved by fear that my food source isn't clean enough. I'd rather just buy from a local farmer that I know and I know how he raises his cows!

I put in other threads because this is NOT a one off thing, there is a pattern in the actions of the government and in agribusiness that we ought to be aware of. Things like Montsano and their genetically altered seeds and how they are acquiring a monopoly on food in the whole world (a whole NEW thread). Why? because men like power if they can get their hands on it. And the men that love power are not going to use it to make us more free, they are going to use it to consolidate the power they have and add to it.

~ Carol