OUR SPOKE-STEER~ RHETT (BUTLER)!
Each year children across the country raise cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, quail, turkeys and rabbits from babies, some bottle fed, for their annual 4-H "project". The requirements of "project completition" to be in this club require that all animals be terminated by summers end at the county fair. If you enter into a "market project" you can't get to the fair and decide you want to take your once "pet" home with you, this is forbidden. All market animals are sold to the highest bidder in a public auction and are then sent to slaughter. The child cannot turn back even if they choose to. The animal is to be terminated.
We feel that this is an age old barbaric tradition that should end, or at least be made public. Most people do not realize that the little lambs they pet at the fair are not going home to their nice green fields. They don't know that children are required to sell their pets for food to "learn a valuable life lesson". In today's society this lesson need not be taught, the world is much different now than it was 50 years ago.
This is not about vegetarinism. We are not telling people not to eat meat and we are not telling people not to raise their own meat. We are asking that:
#1 The children have the right to turn back. We have spoken to many 4-H kids throughout the years who have been devastated by the harsh reality of what is happening and their hands are legally tied! Their pet must die! Anyone ever faced with the hard decision of having to euthanize a beloved pet knows how hard this choice can be. Some people question for the rest of their lives if they did the right thing. In most cases it is an older pet, expeariancing a lot of pain and in most cases it turns out to be the 'right choice', but it STILL can be hard to accept. With the children involved in the 4-H market project program, this guilt can sometimes be worse! These kids sell HEALTHY, YOUNG animals off to be brutaly slaughtered! Some kids have a very hard time dealing with that!
#2 That ANYONE is allowed to buy a "market animal". If animals must be bought and sold as a "life lesson", then allow the person buying the animal to keep it alive if they choose to! Take out the "rule" or "law" about the animal arriving at your door frozen in a box. OR, give the kids the choice to raise and sell laying hens as opposed to broiler chickens, or a dairy cow to be sold to a hobby farm instead of beef cattle. Each fair has the OPTION to choose weither they are 'terminal', 'partial terminal' or 'non-terminal'. If all fairs choose to opt for 'non-terminal', that would give the buyer and the seller the choice. Ultimately, it should be between these two parties, the fair board should not have a say in what the new owner does with the animal they purchase. ALL fairs share one common 'law', that the Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion animals (but they hold this rule in place for other animals as well) MUST be slaughtered! WHY?! To prevent that animal from being taken to another fair and possibly winning a ribbon there! They also want to exzamine the animals 'carcus' for any drugs that the child might have given it to help in the competition such as growth inhancing hormones, or sedatives to make the animal appear more calm in the show ring. IF these are the two reasons that the buyer/seller looses their say in the transaction, there are simple solutions! Brand or tattoo the animal if they are that affraid it could sneak into another fair! Harsh, sure, but it beats slaughter. Also, a urine or blood test would answer any questions as to the status of drug use. These situations are not worth dying over.
#3 That if these children choose to raise and sell animals for meat, that it is not public entertainment.There is nothing entertaining about scaring something that is about to die. Fairs are loud, there are strange sounds and smells that are unfamiliar to these animals. It is wrong to force these animal to indure one very stressful last week, before the horrors that await them at the slaughter houses. In a civilized society it should no longer be entertainment to watch scared animals be auctioned off at a noisy fair. These animals are not raised on feed-lots and they are probably even more sensitive to loud noises, unfamiliar smells and sights, and all other happenings of a crazy county fair than animals raised purely as food. They are hand raised by children and they are very trusting. Their last week of life before they meet a cruel end should not be the stress and fear that they surely endure at the county fair.
Hershel & Joaquin - 2007's Other Rescues
Animals entered into the fair auction must be terminated, it's frowned upon for them to leave the fair and head anywhere other than a slaughter house, and from what we have experianced this past year, really unacceptable. At the Geauga County Fair in Barton Ohio where we fought and lost to save Bentley, it was a witch hunt. We were out bid by three times the going rate of all the other steer so that we could not take him out alive. WHO was willing to pay $4,850 (most other steer sold for $1,500) to INSURE this sweet animal we all fought so hard to save, met a harsh end? The VICE PRESIDENT of the Geauga County Fair, Howard Bates! Collusion? You decide! When we saved Rhett from the Wayne County Fair in Wooster Ohio, we were much more low key. When our myspace page was spotted, 4-H & Fair officials tried to send the law after us to take our steer back and have him slaughtered! WHY is this organazation so bent upon EVERY ANIMAL DYING!? How does it affect them if occasionally some make it out alive? We don't understand being met with THIS much hostility. They must fear something about what we are doing, otherwise we would not be met with such annomosity. They thrive on desentizing these children early, they are after all the countries 'future farmers'. Our guess is that they fear we will bring change to the way things are done. Any YOUNG child is not OK the first time they take their animal into the auction ring. It is not a natural human instinct to initially be accepting of death. Over time, as Claudia Bentley's owner put it in her letter to us, they "get over it", hence the desentization. BUT, if the first time the child steps into that auction ring and starts to cry (ever sat and watched one of these auctions, some children stand there with tears running down their faces!), if they HAVE the option of changing their mind, they just might! They may not grow up to be a farmer, and our GUESS is that this is WHY the fairs and 4-H are against US, and these other options. One 'future farmer' may change their mind.
We need your help! We can win this! We are not just saving random animals here and changing THEIR lives, but we are putting down the foundations to a new tomorrow! A new thought process about how these 'project' animals should be treated! The more animals we can save from death row, the more people will take notice and see that this CAN be done! Children will see other options open to them. The public will rejoyce in watching an animal grow up before their eyes, an animal that would not have been alive if it weren't for this group trying to make a change. Right now, we are small and grass roots level. But that will not stop us from our mission to educate everyone we meet on the truth about county fairs! You can help assist our movement by donating a few dollars! Unlike other big organazations, EVERY CENT goes straight toward future animal rescues, or supporting curent success stories!
As we continue to save more & more animals, we will need more and more homes! If you or someone you know has a sanctuary or a loving forever home to offer these future rescues, please contact us privately for more information!