Hi all

Thanks for the insight, PF. She happened to be the only student I've had who had worked at McDonald's - she was very convincing in explaining the process too. She was also a very intelligent girl funding her uni studies and had no apparent reason to lie.

I just don't remember Temple Grandin visiting any Australian slaughterhouses involved with McDonald's though - Another insight I must've missed.

Congratulations on getting the free range survey up here too. Have you any idea at all of what the responses have been like yet? I'm still not sure whether it would have been better for your purposes if I had appeared to be a bit more clueless in the survey. Any ideas on how to deal with supermarket meat managers on this would be really good too.

I don't buy supermarket meat at all, as it happens - I buy bones and other stuff for my dogs at butchers' shops, as much as I find the smell awful. I also avoid (the major) supermarkets wherever possible as well.

Cheers
Nicky

*I buy bones and other stuff for my dogs at butchers' shops, as much as I find the smell awful.*

I read somewhere today that Aussies eat around 36 kg of beef each
a year, plus of course other meats. Thats beef sales alone of
6.8 billion $. No doubt the industry will somehow survive without
you Nicky :)

Nicky, It's a bit of a problem that you raised ,

Farm animals are born ,have a look around, most in free range conditions ; many have sex, appear to be happy and live to a ripe old age before they are knocked on the head - I would not like to think you and so many other vegetarians were party poopers and don't like them about ?? .

Has anybody asked them??

Nicky , my apologies if you are a meat eater , cheers , Jim .

Hi Yabby and Jim
Clearly the meat industry survives extremely well without me! Others in my household do eat meat, as it happens. Jim, what do you regard as a "ripe old age"? And Yabby, I have a serious question for you that I need an answer to - how old is the animal that is described as "lamb" in the Middle East? And what is a "two tooth"? Much as I hate not being able to be a total know-all, I haven't been able to find something that tells me that. Is there a difference between what Australians regard as "lamb" and what they regard as "lamb" in the Middle East? (Someone once told me that they saw 8-12 week old lambs being loaded onto a ship, but I'm not sure about that)

I happened to be in a Coles supermarket tonight, and I had a look at the meat refrigerators - nothing was "marked down".

Interestingly though - what my partner used to buy as "pork bones" - they are just smallish rib bones, with nothing on them, for $1.99 p/kg for the "slaves" in both Coles and Woolworths. They are now being sold as "barbecue pork ribs" - for $10.99p/kg.

I keep telling him not to complain about the behaviours of Coles and Woolworths if he keeps shopping there. If I buy bones I go to a butchers. Coles and Woolworths also flog bags of "lamb offcuts" which are nothing more than lumps of fat.

On a US animal program on telly tonight they said you shouldn't give your dogs bones because they are "bad for their teeth" - I wouldn't have thought so.

Cheers
Nicky

Kartiya Jim

What do you mean most animals in Australia live free range?
Dont you know that many free range farmers have been pushed out over the years and products from intensive have increased.
I find it a bit hard to believe that you would care less about what any animal thought to be honest Jim.
Did you enquire what the cattle thought before you hit them over the head with the back of an axe as you described on the WA farmers thread?
I mean did you go up to him and ask him if he prefered a clean bullet or you knocking him over the head with the back of an axe?

When your dealing with a large beaste like that its near impossible to straight out kill him with a knock on the head with the back of a tool.
Of course you describe the handling of stock in this manner as all part of the fun.
Fun for whom You or the animal.
I will answer your question re not wanting animals to live or be born Jim.
I would far prefer to see no animals at all to save them from what we so called humane beings put them through.

The world would be healthier and farmers would do better if they grew more vegetables.
No Jim I am not a veggie but thats a simple fact of life.
Re prices at coles Woolworths. Its simply really. We are made to compete with the fact that live exports send all our best supply and meat exports off shore. There is a shortage.
Instead of the Government allocating a number of Australian farmers to supply fresh fruit meat and vegtables to the public [who would be happy to have their taxes sub it=]

They give it to promote our best stock beef vegatables overseas along with our value adding and jobs while we pay dearly and fight for the scapes.

Perhaps its time woman ran this country. We could then put the `tools` where they belong.