Monday, February 28, 2011

I am not a Fraud, I care about my cows & that's the TRUTH!

This past weekend I was shocked to be called a "fruad" on my YouTube channel.  I have been called  a liar and an abuser, but this was the first time that someone had called me a fraud.  Apparently this gentleman thought that I and other dairy farmers misrepresent themselves as people who care for their cows, but instead abuse them.  Oh brother!  If that man only knew how much I care for those cows!  If I could I would have invited him to spend JUST ONE DAY with me on my farm this winter, I would have.  This winter has been particularly trying for us, spending many 12+ hour days working, but everyday we stay committed to my cows, Friday was another example of that...

On Friday we were having one of those days.  It seemed like nothing was going our way.  Milking took longer than it should have.  Jon worked all morning with fresh cows only to find 2 of our girls were feeling severely under the weather.  Some days it doesn't matter how hard and long we work, there are just some cows we can't stop from getting sick.  We needed the veterinarian, so we called in.  Later we learned that both of our cows, Adrian and Dominique, needed surgery, however while Adrian's prognosis was very positive, Dominique's prognosis was less that positive.  Dominique is a 3 year old cow in our herd, who delivered her second calf over a month ago.  She was showing signs of the "flu" a day earlier, and we treated her with probiotics and vitamins, but we were wrong.  Dominique had managed to twist her stomachs in what we call a RDA (right sided displaced abomasum).  She was going to need surgery to fix her stomachs, but because she has been sick for more than a day and had a really low temperature, the veterinarian could not guarantee success.  In fact he asked Jon if we wanted to do the surgery for sure or save the money and euthanize her; she had a 50/50 chance of making it.  We couldn't euthanized her, there was still a chance she could defeat the odds and prove the veterinarian wrong.  We went with chance.  The surgery was a success.  Dominique was slow to recover, but we followed the recommendations of our vet Dr. Smith.  Post surgery, she received fluids, extra vitamins and minerals, protein and fiber and of course LOTS of REST.  She also received antibiotics for her incisions.  We spent Saturday night until midnight with Dominique, giving her much needed TLC.  It paid off.  Today I can confidently say she is on her way to a full recovery.  If we didn't care, we would have euthanized her on Friday and saved our money, but we believe each of our cows deserve our very best EVERY day. 

How many activist understand that?  Instead farmers get tagged as abusers, believers in slavery, liars and frauds.  There's nothing dishonest about a single thing I do everyday for my cows.  We often put their needs above our own.  In know that everyone of the dairy farmers that I have met, whether they have 30 or 3000 cows, cares just as much as I do for our cows.  Go ahead and accuse us of anything you want, but DON'T accuse us of fraudHow much we care for our cows is a FACT, there are no lies about thatTo the gentleman that made this accusation, thank youYou have added to my motivation to work harder to spread the truth about animal agriculture, specifically dairy farming.

6 comments:

  1. great story - a pleasure to read!!! Keep up the good work...

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  2. Robbie: Thanks for reading! I needed to vent a little, but mostly to post an honest example of how we care.

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  3. Oh, that's horrible; calling you a fraud. I guess that shows how much more we have to work on educating people about agriculture!

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  4. Alex: fraud was only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently he has friends and they have decided to try to remove my "false" videos from YouTube. I have since block him from my channel. But yes, this only proves that we have a long way to educate consumers about where their food comes from and why meat & milk are important.

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  5. Great Post!! We operate a dairy farm in Michigan and completely understand the days you have described. Keep getting the message out, we do care!

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  6. Thanks! I hope you are also helping get our message out as well!

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I write this blog to share my passion for my cows and farming, please be respectful of that. I reserve the right to delete those comments which portray hate, call names, and are out right disrespectful. If you have an honest question, I will respond, to explain what we do on our farm, why we do it and how we do it. Please read with an open mind. My time to blog is short, as most of our days are spent caring for our beloved cows. Thank you!