She is frantic. Her baby is missing. She is pacing desperately up and down the paddock, bellowing and crying, and calling for her lost boy, fearing the worst, having her fears confirmed. She is one of the thousands of defenseless females born into a quaint, verdant, organic dairy farm.
She will spend her entire short life grieving the loss of baby after baby.
She will be milked relentlessly through repeated cycles of pregnancies and bereavements.
Her only experience of motherhood will be that of a mother's worst loss.
In the prime of her life, her body will give, her spirit will break, her milk "production" will decline, and she will be sent to a horrifying slaughter, along with other grieving, defeated, "spent" mothers like herself.She is the face of organic milk.
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#35 is a two-days old baby, his umbilical chord is still attached, his coat is still slick with birth fluids, his eyes are unfocused, his legs, wobbly. He is crying pitifully for his mother.
No one answers.
He will live his entire short life an orphan, his only experience of mother love will be one of yearning for it, his only experience of emotional connection, one of absence.
Soon, the memory of his mother, her face, her voice, her scent, will fade, but the painful, irrepressible longing for her warmth will still be there.
At four months old, he and other orphans like himself will be corralled into trucks and hauled to slaughter.
As he will be dragged onto the killing floor, he will still be looking for his mother, still desperately needing her nurturing presence, especially at that dark time when he will be frightened and needing her more than ever in the midst of the terrible sights, and sounds, and scents of death all around him and, in his despair, in his want for a shred of consolation and protection, he, like most baby calves, will try to suckle the fingers of his killers.
He is the face of the "rose" veal we are encouraging "responsible restaurant leaders" to use.
Letters from a vegan
Joanna Lucas
Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113290589223&id=116189118344&ref=nf
