We live in a society where people see little difference between pampered pets and livestock; where social media can generate a firestorm of public outrage about the death of an animal; where people seem more concerned about animals than their fellow man.
Would it sound crazy if I said Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are partially to blame?
Think about it, small children are given the impression that animals are not that different than people. Cartoon animals talk, wear clothes and drive cars. This personification of animals is an idea I often speak about to Farm Bureau and FFA audiences. When the average American child’s only exposure to farm animals is their Old McDonald had a Farm book can we wonder why they grow up to be adults who don’t understand or wish to accept how cattle, hogs and poultry fit into the food chain?
Do livestock exhibitors at state and county fairs realize what’s at stake? Do they realize bridging this gap with the non-farm public is more important than any trophy? I can tell you it’s not happening nearly enough. As I walked through fair livestock barns last summer, few offered to answer questions, have my child pet their animal or even say hello. Instead, I saw two distinct worlds. There’s the farm folks talking only to each other and then there’s everyone else. They have no idea what makes one steer better than the next, why the lambs don’t have tails or why canes are used to move hogs, but I bet they could be convinced that fairs are a bad thing.
Need proof? Two recent headlines show how fanatical some people are about their four-legged and feathered friends.
Millions jumped on social media’s bandwagon about a lion from Zimbabwe named Cecil. What a dentist from Minnesota did was wrong, but it didn’t warrant death threats. It’s troubling that a segment of our society (most of whom cannot find Zimbabwe on a map) can get that worked up over a dead lion during an especially deadly year for police officers and other innocent (human) victims in the United States.
After Cecil came Cecily. That’s the name that Andrea Martin of Massachusetts gave a chicken born with a torn tendon in its right leg. Martin forked over $2,500 for a prosthetic limb. “It was a no-brainer,” Martin told one reporter. “She needs to be able to live a normal life.”
Martin, who performs “chicken rehabilitation,” has splurged before on surgery. Last year one of her hens had a $3,000 hysterectomy.
It gets more ridiculous, but first let me ask a question: How many times have you heard someone say that farmers need to “tell their story” to others?
Martin hopes to write a children’s book about Cicely’s experience.
“She needs to tell her story,” Martin said.
What?!?!
Well I guess I’m going to make that plea again to livestock exhibitors. Let Cecil the lion and Cecily the chicken serve as a warning of the growing divide between those who say that they care for livestock and those who actually provide the care.
After all, what would happen if an animal rights activist decided to pull on society’s heartstrings by pointing out that the sheep, hogs and steers at fairs are not going home again? It seems like a real possibility given our society’s shift in attitudes about animal care.
It’ll do no good to blame Mickey, Donald, Cecil or Cecily if livestock shows go away.
Today’s 4-H and FFA members ought to be concerned whether their own children will have the same opportunity to show animals. Next year, I’m hoping more livestock exhibitors seize the opportunity to speak with the public, before it’s too late.
Casey Langan
In many ways, Casey Langan has spent much of his life working for farmers. What began as a childhood fascination with his grandpa’s herd of cows yielded him a career. Only this farm hand’s plow is usually a pen. Milking cows and working in the tobacco fields of his native Edgerton eventually gave way to reporting for a weekly farm newspaper, working for a farmer legislator and the Farm Bureau.
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