• tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    One of the most depressing sights in my drives across the US was in Nebraska. There was a massive cow farm, you could smell it long before you got close. Hundreds of cattle packed in a tiny area, hardly even room for them to move side to side in their pen. It was a nice day out, we had to roll up the windows because the fumes were absolutely suffocating.

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      7 months ago

      Just south of the Nebraska border there’s a beautiful preserve called Pawnee National Grasslands. It’s open to cattle grazing, which while not as good as buffalo grazing is actually a needed part of that ecosystem which the eradication of bison herds took away so I’m fine with that being a strictly regulated thing. Next to this infinite bounty of grass though are the feed lots and dairies and wool farms. The saddest animals standing in the mud without any space to move, being gorged on nothing but ersatz grain to fatten them, staring at their natural diet through barbed wire and electric fences.

      That’s such an obscene level of cruelty that we would feed that rancher molten gold in a more civilised time.