> >When it rains, turkeys look up to see where all the water is coming from and drown. In my book, that is not the action of a creature capable of thought.
> > winter"we're each entitled to our own opinions."mute
>
> My favorite story from the turkey ranchers (don't ask) goes like this:
>
> There was a drought one year when a local worked on his neighbor's turkey ranch, and they needed to find a way to get water in the turkeys. Across the field, there was a small stream, but it was too low and there was no chance of irrigating with it, so the workers decided to herd the turkeys down to the stream. As it happened, a fence was between them and the stream, and the turkeys decided to be spooked by the fence. They absolutely refused to walk under it. After some consternation, the men decided just to throw the stupid turkeys over the fence. All twelve hundred of them. [...]
>
> After too long at this absurd task, the turkeys were all on the other side of the fence. All twelve hundred walked over into the stream and drowned.
>

It's not that turkeys are sooooo stupid that they'd drown while looking up in the sky with their mouths open when it rains. (Okay, it's true that they *aren't* exactly the brightest chips in the yard.)

Due to the Western predilection for white breast meat, I look at farm turkeys (Broad Breasted White) as birds who have been overdomesticated to the point of helplessness. Their body shape is so ungainly that on a commercial scale, they need to be artificially inseminated in order to breed at all. Stuffing them full of mash and feed grain the way we do, until they steer like boats on land, doesn't help either. For turkeys (and for that matter, chickens) enclosed in stressful crowded conditions, debeaking is sometimes used to prevent "peck cannibalism"... although to be fair, the person I know who raises a dozen turkeys at a time never has done this particular practice.

I also find that turkeys can have a substantial body odour problem. You can't really do anything about it, because they have to be kept relatively warm and dry. Young turkey pullets who get too wet in the rain will die of hypothermia. Cows and young piglets also have this hypothermia problem if they get their legs mired in mud during a flood.*

When you think about it, the animals that we eat -- and who we take for granted -- are made much too dependant upon us humans, which isn't good because it opens them up to all sorts of opportunistic diseases and general misery, from problems due to their heavily inbred anatomy. I do eat meat... but since I'm growing rather conscious of where it comes from, this makes me a hypocrite. The question is not, Are animals sentient? The question should be: Can they feel pain. If on a mass scale their short lives are being filled with an undue degree of torture, then we are failing indeed in our stewardship of this planet.

Oh yeah, I fully agree we're higher up on the food chain, and humans are omnivores.** That's a given. But the more civilized among us also claim to be able to think and feel for others. So why don't we ACT like we do?


* That was the same flood which put my lab underwater (still located in an agricultural zone).

** Pure vegan vegetarianism largely remains a luxury, for those who are economically able to afford the full range of complete plant proteins, and minerals and vitamins, all year round. The staple diet for the majority of people on the planet is plant-based starches and greens -- but only because developing countries have no choice in the matter. Whenever meat or meat byproducts become available, such provisions are eagerly consumed. Pound for pound, of course, a diet which is primarily vegetarian feeds more people with much less waste of natural resources. The individual chicken, goat, or pig raised by a family, for its meat or its byproducts, tends to experience conditions far closer to free-range than those found inside a mass feed-lot. Not to mention that there are mountains of nutritional data showing that the "high plant-fibre/ moderately-high starches/ low meat" diet is far healthier overall.


> gab"Turkey sandwiches, turkey pasta, turkey pie, fried turkey, baked turkey, salted turkey, turkey beer, turkey jerky, turkey with potatoes, turkey with rice, ..."by

Wolf "Erm, guess your ranch friend was a never-ending source of Turkey Delight :-(" spirit