How Nice To "Meat" You!

---

^{Be sure to click on the image to view full screen!}

---

Observe and know the farmed animals.

And then you suddenly see a photocontest pass in which you are challenged to get to know a 'farmed animal'. To observe how the animals react to each other, how they react to you. To know the animal!

Pay attention to them!

The challenge is of course to get to know the farm animal. Pay attention to the interaction, towards you, but also towards each other. And if you really start to pay attention, then you will be surprised how much interaction there actually is! When I walk with the dogs, I come every day along a pasture where the cows are still doing well. They have space there, they can graze, ruminate ... whatever a cow should do. But they are curious. While lying lazy, grazing a bit, they stay together. But they also keep an eye on me. They really pay attention to what I do, what the dogs do, and if we stay ... they come to us. They walk along with us comfortably. They try to make real contact. They react when I talk to them, and the more often I walk along with the dogs, the more they watch me. And now, they have already walked to the fence before I am there! They recognize me and it's great to see that they just seem happy to see me and have a little contact with me and the dogs walking along the fence.

^{Be sure to click on the image to view full screen!}

---

Spend their entire lives in a stable.

What a difference for the cows in the pasture, with these cows. Who have to spend their entire lives in a stable. Can only look outside. Never feel grass under their hooves. Have to wait for the farmer to bring their feed, and often not even be able to get that food because it is too far away from them. No longer able to fulfill their natural ruminating needs. Wait until they are fertilized by a bull, that they get a calf, which is taken away immediately after birth because otherwise the calf drinks the milk ... and that milk, that is the only reason the cow gets food from the farmer. He doesn't like the cow because he likes the cow. He cares nothing about the cow, the liters of milk she can give and the price the milk yields. That is the only thing that counts. The cow's feelings don't count. That they are inside their whole life is no problem at all. What is that for a life? To me ... it's not a fair life. But who am I?

Of course, cows are not the only farm animals.

Meet Ursula!

^{Be sure to click on the image to view full screen!}

---

The animals were much cleaner than you would expect.

It is often talked about pig-house, in the sense of an unclean space. A pig is associated with being dirty, with not being clean in itself. But I discovered something else. The pig's stables were really clean, as far as a barn can be really clean. The animals were much cleaner than you would expect. Of course they rooted with their noses in the mud. That's what a pig should do. But the pigs look after each other, they really interact with each other, poke each other with their noses, lick each other clean, bump into each other and ... more than that. They also really seek contact with you. They are smart! Very smart! They are affectionate. Ursula for example, she has it in good proportion. A large piece of land to play with her peers, and she loves her. She then ran like a 'dog' behind the owner when he was going to bring food and straw for the night.

^{Be sure to click on the image to view full screen!}

---

They were sensitive, they played nice with each other, they seek interaction with you!

But there is a downside to this story, of course. Ursula may live a 'good' life, but she has to provide her counterpart in the form of piglets. And those little pigs ... they may lead in part the same life as their mother, they have a lot of soil / mud to play, to root, they get food and they can live outside in freedom within the boundaries of the fence. In any case, they do not lie between iron rods and they can stay with their mother as long as they live, and how great it was to see that these pigs, these animals that are often labeled as dirty, that these pigs are so clean on their own and their environment. That they were sensitive, and that they played nice with each other, and seek interaction with you. A wonderful pig life would you think!

But a long life that will unfortunately not be for most ... these living beings, each with their own character, behavior and feelings, will eventually end up on someone's plate.

How Nice To "Meat" You!

^{Be sure to click on the image to view full screen!}

---

Category	That Vegan Whale Photocontest
Camera	NIKON D300S