True Trucking Story: Meat Animals

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There was this “feedlot” cattle-raising business just west of Amarillo, Texas, that turned me off from eating meat. You could smell the place from about three miles away. Thousands of cattle standing in the muck in these pens, muck on their legs and sides, not blade of grass or dry ground. I imagine there were antibiotics and other chemicals and unknown animal byproducts in the “feed.”

I used to see these feedlot places a lot when I trucked around Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas. They were so thoroughly revolting to me that I don't buy meat anymore.

There were a couple other things that put me off meat that may seem small, but had a strong effect. There were nights when I slept in the truck out there under the stars, at truck stops, and there would be cattle trucks parked during the night right near my truck. I could hear the cattle clomping around all night, bleating, and there was that stench, that stink. I remember one morning I got out of my truck and there was this steer looking at me through a hole in the side of the cattle trailer next to me. There was a big round hole in the side of the cattle trailer and there framed in the middle of this hole was a big, black, terrified eye, looking right at me.

Oh, and the pigs. I remember one morning at a truck stop when some drivers were transferring a load of pigs from one truck to another truck. Man, those pigs were shrieking terror itself.

I've never even been through a slaughter house or read Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle, but I have seen film clips of some of the stuff that happens in the meat-packing industry. They are easily available on YouTube.

I used to love a hot dog every now and then, with a good mustard and relish, or a thick, juicy steak with maybe some onion, sauce or something, but no more. Seeing what little I saw out there trucking around the feedlots has just taken the delight out of it.

Finally, one of my students, a mature, level-headed, perceptive woman told me that her husband is a professional chef and he has seen such things in restaurant kitchens that he refuses to eat at restaurants anymore.

So last night I saw this video from Jenny Brown's Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in Woodstock, NY, where she saves mistreated animals, and I feel more appreciation for what she represents and is doing. This video is of some ducks she rescued from a “hoarder” who kept them in awful conditions. These ducks had never been in water and it just is thrilling to see them get into it for the first time.