I'm hoping this is the correct forum for such a post, and I don't mean to offend if this is blasphemy, but when oxen reach the end of their productivity or otherwise become unable to work, is it standard practice to retire them, or to eat them?

As I understand it, in far off countries this is the natural order, and similarly so in far off times.. But how is this handled currently?

Thank you for any response you can give!

This was an issue recently at Green Mtn College when their ox team couldn't work anymore and they decided to have them processed for food.

Never worked oxen but I would think that by the time oxen working days are over, all they are good for would be dog chow. I suppose it would depend upon the individual owner, what their means are and how attached they are to their working companions.

I had just heard that Green Mountain College in Vermont was talking about serving theirs in the dining hall! Made a few people upset over that one and I don't know what came of it. Some students left the school while others were all for it, big debate.

Jake

Thirty years ago, I reached that point with a pair I had no time for. I sold them to a guy who said they were a present for his wife. While I didn't have to face the question of their demise, I've always wondered what became of them, and made it a point to never ask.

Don't know much about working oxen, however your oxen your choice.
I agree with NoraWi, if they have been really worked probably wouldn't be very good meat.

I have read accounts of oxen making good meat. I'd say it's like everything else. If you want to eat it, it's all in how you prepare it.

The two that I lost are buried on the property. I have two older ones now, going on 17 years. They can do some things. They will be here until they decide it's time to cross the rainbow bridge. That's just the way I do things, others have their own opinion.

At $1.60 a pound hanging I think in this economy the answers clear

Thanks! This is still an issue at GMC, and a lot of animal rights folk (from outside the school, mind you) are using the argument that it's not okay to eat those animals that have "bonded" with you. So I was curious whether it is a big deal. Seems likely to be a split-down-the-middle issue, dependent on the particular farm and the particular farmer, but what do I know?

Then I stumbled upon your site. : ) Again, thanks for any opinion you can offer, I'm just trying to get a better idea of the situation.

Meat is meat. It's funny that the same type of people that talk about waste all the time would be against it. Likely they'd be against eating anything with a name. I say if they want to eat them, go for it. It's no one elses business. Purely personal choice.

I have eaten some. The freezer is a resting place for many many young 4H teams. Even old oxen, given a brief rest and food, make pretty good beef.

I am sentimental about my original team, which I still have. I myself do not want to eat them, though I have others. But if they can help feed hungry people and can get to the abbatoir when the time comes, processing them would be a blessing to hungry folks.

It should be noted that the folks who worked the oxen (and bonded with them) are the ones who think butchering them is the right thing to do as it fits with the focus and mission of GMC. The opposing forces want to send them to a sanctuary of some sort who has offered to take them for free.

Some people are unwilling to recognize that death can be part of a life well-lived.

Finish them out for 100 days or so on ground corn. ( even 1/2 and 1/2 corn and wheat works good). Age them for 3 weeks at about 38 degrees. Cut a few steaks to test for tenderness and if they are too tough, grind them.

Years ago in my poorer state ,I was able to buy older diary cows that had stopped producing very much. I paid 3 cents a pound on the hoof and I think I paid 1&1/2 cents a pound hanging weight to get processed and the slaughter house kept the head/hide, organs. Those old gals were 15-16 yrs old and ate good but a little chewy. I bought pinto beans east of Albuquerqe for $11/100 weight and that is what we lived on, except whenI killed a deer or antelope.

I guess it all depends if you are rich and famous or poor and hungary. I can't see putting good meat in the ground Just don't put thier names on the package.

I have read many times of the oxen being butchered or traded once all the sod on the homestead had been turned. Horses and mules were better suited for the needed tasks of the future.

A large part of the issue at Green Mountain is that one half of the team had sustained an injury that was not able to be remedied. A while back, at least, the injury was interfering with the animal's quality of life. Simply retiring that animal to pasture would have been inhumane.

I've been following the issue at GMC too.

Although I'm not sure I would choose to eat an ox I'd raised if he was in good heath but just slowing down. However, if he was going to be put down for an injury anway - beef is beef.

Good point grey, which leads to another question I shouldn't necessarily ask in this thread (it may deserve its own), but for draught teams (any species), is it common that 'orphaned' members refuse to work with others, or have we seen worst cases "come back" from such scenarios?

Oy, that sounds like a loaded question, but I'm really just curious. I'm trying to word this as neutral as I can, but it should be known that I am in support of the college's decision. Never having been a teamster (though having lots of respect for what y'all do... holy monkey!), I appreciate the input of those who are.

Thanks again, everyone!

People are spoiled. Never been hungry enough to get over the mushy stuff. I love my animals but if and when times were/are lean then I would be doing what needed done. Ever read the book A Day No Pigs Would Die? Change your perspective on things. We eat the 4-H animal. Never a problem. This year my daughter had a pig that thought he was a dog and minded better than most. That pig went to the freezer when his show days were done...And he has been very good eats!

I love it when the green/recycle everything folk have a moral quandary.

I would eat them, just name them hamburger & steak. no different than eating any other meat animal. they have devoted there life to doing work for you & feeding you the last thing they can do for you. why throw away the meat that they have kept good for you

When I found my zebu dead in the barn I grabbed the knife and finally found the saw and by that time I
was cold and wet. I thought about the long butchering process and then thought about the warm fire and ez chair inside. The result was I dragged the body to the back and fed the wildlife and
went inside and dried off and warmed up. In my younger years it would have been different.

As far as paying someone else to butcher. well been there and the ones ive found dont
follow directions, yea custom butchering as long as
its their way....... and I think are crooks to the
point its cheaper just to buy chicken or pork in the store. never again.

so.....

The Kansas City Star reported today that the injured ox at GMC was euthanized and buried, not eaten due to protests of animal rights activists. Even though I can sympathize with their concerns in many instances, but in this case they are wrong. For the ox it didn't make a difference, and that is what should count.Waste is waste , no matter what the sentiments are about this. The only argument that I would accept is that the ox was spared transportation in his injured state.

My newspaper said the animal had been medicated with things people did not want to deal with in the meat.

Request for Common Cause From Philip Ackerman-Leist, Director of the Green Mountain College's Farm & Food Project
November 11, 2012

Dear Colleague in Food and Agriculture,

I am writing to request both your attention to and support in an issue that impacts farms of all sizes, the ability of livestock-based businesses and educational farms to function without the threat of harassment or harm from outside special interests, and the possibility for communities to determine the future of their regional food systems.

As you may have heard or read, the Green Mountain College community followed a decade-long tradition of discussing the fate of livestock on the college’s Cerridwen Farm before deciding to send our two longstanding oxen to slaughter. Bill and Lou have been central elements of the college farm since their arrival ten years ago, but Lou injured his leg this past summer and is no longer able to work or even to walk any significant distance without experiencing obvious pain. Therefore, in an open community forum this fall, about eighty students decided to send the much admired pair to slaughter and processing, with the meat to be used in the college dining hall, as we have done with sheep, poultry, swine, and cattle in the past.

However, an extremist animal rights organization, VINE (Veganism is the Next Evolution) Sanctuary, turned our community-based decision into an international advocacy and fundraising effort. VINE recently set up its new sanctuary and education/advocacy center in Springfield, Vermont in order to take on everything from backyard poultry to small-scale livestock production to the iconic Vermont dairy industry. They allow for no distinction between any form of livestock agriculture. As a case in point, one of the founders of VINE states the following:
“Another issue we face is that Vermont is a big ‘happy meat’ place. The happy meat people are convinced the animals are treated well. It is just a myth, and regardless, any farmed animal on a factory farm or a ‘happy meat’ farm, can’t get away from ending up dead.”
Another VINE blog makes the point even more explicit:
"Despite the blather about respecting the bedrock of one of Vermont’s primary industries, and despite the inane lies pitched in almost hysterical fashion by ‘happy meat and milk’ farmers, cows are nothing more than potential money-making machines to people. That’s what they’re there for, after all."

The Green Mountain College oxen case seemed to have been the perfect target for VINE’s efforts, quickly supported by Farm Sanctuary and PETA. Why focus on our college farm and not a “factory farm” or some other farm with questionable livestock management practices? Perhaps we find ourselves in this situation because the college has long been transparent about our community-based discussions regarding the fate of the livestock on our college farm—it is a vital part of our educational program here. It could also be that we have been targeted because we are not only teaching and advocating for sustainable livestock farming, but some of our graduates are seeding the local landscape with these kinds of farms.

Unfortunately, this issue is not just about the fate of Bill and Lou or the intense local and international pressures faced by a small but diverse college community that opted for transparency, truth, and accountability in its own food system. If the extremist elements in this activist agenda succeed in forcing our college to choose a course not of our own making in this issue, then they will have the power and the confidence to do it again—perhaps next time to a smaller and less resourceful community or farm or even to a bigger institution or initiative. Such an outcome would be inconvenient to some and perhaps tragic to others. And it flies directly in the face of Vermont’s innovative efforts to develop community-based food systems, envisioned on a grand and courageous scale through our nationally-acclaimed Farm to Plate Initiative, a strategic ten-year plan to build the vision of interlinked local and sustainable food systems that can build thriving communities even in the most rural reaches of our state.

Imagine the pressures our college has faced in recent weeks and consider how other communities placed under such pressure might fare:
Numerous petition drives, with tens of thousands of signees from all over the world—people who know nothing of Bill and Lou’s conditions, much less the accountability and transparency we have built into our college food system
Action alerts that have generated email assaults (at least one staff person received almost 1000 emails in a single day) and switchboard and voicemail overloads of our campus phone system
One cyber-attack generated 3.9 million emails filtered in a period of several days—all from a single domain
Harassment and threats of physical violence to students, faculty, staff, and administrators
Constant surveillance of our college farm by stealthy intrusions, video cameras, and Facebook reports of our daily activities
Driving a livestock trailer to the edge of campus and barging into our administrative offices demanding that Bill and Lou be turned over
Dishonest and highly abusive postings on the college’s social media sites, requiring around-the-clock monitoring and editing
Attempts at widespread defamation of character of faculty, staff, and administrators through letters, emails, websites, and social media channels
Threats of continued negative publicity campaigns unless we turned Bill and Lou over to VINE Sanctuary
Online discussion of whether to give Bill and Lou medications that would render their meat unsafe and inedible
Slaughterhouses throughout Vermont and New York were threatened with protests, harassment, and potential violence if they agreed to work with the college, ultimately eliminating virtually all such possibilities for us, including our scheduled date at a local Animal Welfare Approved facility


Throughout it all, we have attempted to avoid a polarization among parties. After all, our student body is comprised of approximately 70% meat-eaters and 30% vegetarians and vegans. One of my colleagues in helping our students to think critically about these livestock decisions is Dr. Steven Fesmire, a philosopher and a vegetarian. For ten years, he and I have tried to model open and civil discourse about dietary choices and related animal issues through forums, joint classes, and guest lectures. We are unaccustomed to diatribe replacing dialogue, and our students tend to be open to a diversity of ideas and respectful of differences in opinion. Our community finds it odd that certain extremists have opted to try and make us out as villains when one of our stated goals is to become the first college or university in the United States with a major food service provider to eliminate all animal products that are not humanely raised and slaughtered.

Our college honors different dietary choices and encourages a diversity of philosophical perspectives related to agriculture and animal ethics. Were that not the case, we would not have a higher than average population of students who are vegetarians and vegans. We teach animal rights perspectives in our classes, as we believe that these philosophical ideas can help to illuminate the path toward more humane and sustainable livestock agriculture. The challenge we are now facing is not one of a philosophical perspective that we find inappropriate but rather of an extreme activist agenda that is divisive and destructive. The end goal is the abolition of livestock agriculture, whereas our college is invested in the transformation of livestock agriculture.

What happens next in this situation may have ramifications far beyond our campus community. If VINE, Farm Sanctuary, and PETA succeed in harassing and threatening not only us but also our regional livestock businesses to the point at which we succumb to their abolitionist desires, then they will march forward with their activist agenda and wreak havoc not only on the rebuilding of community-based food systems but also on the longstanding efforts in our region to create increasingly humane and ecologically appropriate livestock production and processing.

It is time for more organizations and individuals to come forward to denounce the intrusive and unethical bullying orchestrated by these organizations. Their tactics do not promote discourse, diversity, or democracy. Ultimately, they impede animal welfare reform by putting backyard poultry on the same level as a poorly managed “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation” (CAFO). You may or may not agree with our community’s decisions regarding Bill and Lou. We recognize that people can come to different conclusions in what is the best alternative for each of these animals, and these discussions can be civil and frank. Regardless of your opinion in this particular matter, it is important to recognize that the extreme bullying tactics employed by these groups need to be countered with the courage, reason, and civility of people and organizations that believe in the transformation of livestock agriculture, not its abolition.

During the early morning hours of November 11th, under the cover of darkness and with complex security plans in place, we had to euthanize Lou and bury him in an undisclosed location, as outlined in a statement to our community by President Paul Fonteyn. It was a difficult and complex decision. President Fonteyn offered these words regarding Bill: “Bill will not be sent to a sanctuary but will stay on Cerridwen Farm and will be cared for in a manner that follows sustainable, humane livestock practices, as is the case with all of our animals. We take responsibility for our animals on the farm--it is an obligation we will not ask others to bear.”

Please make your voice heard on this issue, whether it be through letters to the editor, calls and emails to your elected officials, or by appropriate direct action through your organization. Green Mountain College has decided to stand up against the bullying directed at us while also standing up for farmers, businesses, educational farms, local food systems, and burgeoning farm-to-institution programs—in Vermont and elsewhere in the country. It is our ardent hope that reason and civility will prevail and perhaps save some other farm or organization from the onslaught that our college has opted to engage, oppose, and defeat.

Sincerely,



Philip Ackerman-Leist
Director of the GMC Farm & Food Project
Director of the Masters in Sustainable Food Systems (MSFS)
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies

I know Philip Ackerman-Leist personally. I met him before the college had an oxen program. I was still in school and my first team of Guernsy's were just calves. He is a good man trying to teach his studens real life lessons. Not everything is always perfect, and the reality of farming is that animals die, and sometimes have to be butchered. My own children have learned this, the hard way. Those oxen are the property of the college, and they have the right to care for them as they see fit. That guernsey team I mentioned is burried in the pasture after living 11 and 12 years. Another steer we owned is in the freezer. The circumstances were didferent for each animal, but I don't want an outside group telling what is right or wrong for my animals and my family. They should not impose this on the college either.

Thanks for posting the letter from Philip! He's awesome.

It is an uphill battle when you're fighting foes like this:
"To force an ox to work, waving a whip (which reminds him of the pain it can give even if you don’t use it), requires you to either (a) consciously know that you are using fear to compel compliance and not care that your are doing so; or (b) ignore the animal’s feelings so that you can continue to think of yourself as kind. To take a calf away from a cow so that you can take her milk instead requires you to either (a) admit that you are causing a mother grievous pain, or (b) pretend that her sorrow doesn’t exist so that you can continue to think of yourself as kind."

Not a whip, Pattrice. UGH.

http://blog.bravebirds.org/archives/827

Ol' Phil sounds like my kind of guy if I read his letter right. I'm all for fighting the know it all's (note I didn't call them moronic retards, I'm learning!) that have decided their way is the only way simply because their emotions rule their minds. They don;t have a grasp of reality. Nathan Griffith (sp) was just going on about this in an editorial in Sheep magazine. It's that rural/urban divide again.

Pattrice and Miriam Jones and their ilk at VINE are insane. Their blog is rife with pure speculation presented to appear as fact. Example - they believe that Lou the ox was smuggled out under cover of darkness to a secret slaughter facility ..... somewhere. Somehow, if you keep animals, you are being unkind to them (as Jaime pointed out above)but they (VINE) are not unkind because they are keeping your animals from you .... I think.

BTW - Pattrice believes that GMC brought this on themselves because they wouldn't negotiate with VINE over how GMC was going to deal with its own animals! Now why VINE thinks they have any say in how GMC, you or I deal with our animals is beyond me.

VINE also believes that GMC has been humiliated by this event whereas I believe they stood tall in the face of a group of fringe case extremists. IMO - they foolishly went after GMC, one of the groups that is doing this right. I think it might be a case of nutritionally-induced delusional thinking.

So vegan, vegetarian or omnivore ---- no one should stand by VINE and it's tyrannical behavior. Support GMC.

BTW - Philip is on the CBC's "As It Happens" right now discussing the GMC story.

I see groups like VINE not as evil people but as seriously misguided. They are the extreme answer to what they perceive as extreme conditions on the other side. When we meet such people ( and I have on hayrides ) we should not denounce them but invite them to watch how we are treating our animals and how willingly our animals work for us. It's that distance to the union and companionship between teamster and animal which these people had no chance of observing which makes them misguided. And of course, the cynical voices of many representatives of the livestock industries are doing damage , too. When in some of the programs on Rural TV you can observe people defending the so-called modern livestock practices ( CAFOs for example) as more animal-friendly than natural environments then this also contributes to the confusion on the side of animal rights activists. But generally , I do not think that their influence should be exaggerated.

I don't think most of the anti everything people are evil either. But I do think a few of them are, and those are the people running things generally. I think it was one of the founders of PETA who said, "A rat is a dog is a boy.", meaning that rats should have the same rights as a boy. That's bizarre thinking IMO. I've had to deal with a few of our local "eco-warriors" on a professional basis. You can't reason with them at all. And there's no middle ground either, it's got to be 100% their way or everything burns. I believe a good deal of these people are simply insane or something like it. But to me what is more baffling is the meat eating general public that happily scarfs down a T-bone from the supermarket while complaining of the cost and then gets irate at the idea of CAFOs or any system where the livestock isn't roaming free, yet housed in a heated, padded, air conditioned cow-condo. It's that urban/rural divide again.

People who have never raised their own meat will never understand that the "happy meat" movement is not about staying detatched from your food. You shouldn't have to keep your heart out of the equation. There is nothing wrong with caring about the animals that provide you with sustenance. It is wrong to assume that a person who chooses to raise an animal, care for it, slaughter, butcher, and eat it - never cared for the animal. All life concludes with death. All life is important. Working oxen are not more deserving of humane treatment than the beef steer. They should all be treated well. To be food is not an ignoble occupation! The more detatched a person is from their food source, the more apt they are to assume that the processes that provide it are lowly.

Aside from that, the animals belong to GMC. The disposition of the animals is entirely up to GMC. The bullying, threats and terrorism perpetrated by a fringe element are wrong and illegal.

VINE missed an excellent opportunity to support the college. They could have focused on the issue that all beef comes from cattle. No burger is magically free from the death of living creature. They've made it seem like one animal is more deserving of rescue than another when they could have taken the approach that any burger you eat comes from a bovine that could have been a pet, a friend, a mascot.

The school still put down an ox and they still serve hamburger. It was a waste and the blame rests entirely on the extreme and misguided actions of outside agencies.

Apparently VINE and their cohorts feel that some animals are more equal than others ;)

As an omnivore who has raised then consumed poultry, rabbits, sheep, goats and cattle - I think “meat is dead animals” is a message that the mainstream consumer doesn't register when they pick up a sandwich at the fast food place.

Klaus - I have to disagree. If VINE or their followers are misguided, who's doing the "guiding in the wrong direction"? What happened to GMC is indicative of how social media and the internet have completely altered the game, so to speak. After reading their comments, I can't believe that any of the supporters of this group would be willing to accept draft animal power as anything short of animal abuse and a form of slavery. They (VINE - Veganism is the Next Evolution))believe that "food sovereignty" means abolishing animal agriculture world-wide.
I can only hope that by attacking GMC they went after the wrong group and will suffer a severe backlash.

I have no way to contact Geoff, but if he is the same person commenting on the VINE blog, he has to know and use the fact that BILL ISNT ALONE. There are 4 other bovines on Cerridwen Farm, and currently he's shacked up with Arty (Artichoke) the milker. Hot stuff.

Someone tell Geoff! The VINE people won't approve my post on their blog. Something about accurate information that they don't want displayed. They want their readers to think that Bill is isolated.

Geoff, if you can see this, please siphon the fuel from their propaganda machine!

Geoff , people can be misguided by others of course through persuasion, but also by their own perceptions through limited interpretations. When people see all the wrongdoing towards animals it is conceivable that they develop the attitude that everyone who handles animals and profits from that in one way or another must be regarded as being part of that wrongdoing. That is self-evidently not my stance , but I can understand where they come from. That is why I had rather have a constructive dialog with these people than denounce or demonize them , no matter how much I disagree with them.

You can't have constructive talk with distructive organizations such as peta and vine.

Jaime - yep, that would be me rattling the chains for the VINE folks and I did see a post from "Bob" that said Bill will not be alone. So one more of their arguments for GMCs inhumane treatment of animals bites the dust.

They just can not see that GMC had no responsibility to meet their demand for compromise any more than they (VINE) would have to take advice from GMC.

Klaus - I'm all for free-thought and giving people the benefit of the doubt but when presented with the facts, the choice to disregard those facts so as to maintain an ideology causes me to denounce them. Constructive dialog isn't an option with this group on this issue but I applaud your sentiment.

Remember - all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing.

BTW - what they did borders on extortion. Telling folks at GMC they'd "turn down the heat" if GMC would negotiate to allow VINE to take Bill and Lou. In the same breath they claim to have had no hand in what transpired ..... They may have made a foolish mistake.

Ona more positive note - a GMC student (Shelby) has done a very nice job of presenting the reality of what happened at GMC (ie. no secret removal of Lou under cover of darkness to a secret slaughter facility. Just euthanized and buried in an undisclosed location to keep things respectful.

Well said Geoff (all it takes for evil to flourish....). I appreciate your efforts!

Wes - that's actually a quote attributed to various people. I thought it was Margaret Meade.

Well whie I've been a "nice boy" over at the VINE blog I seem to have gotten some of my posts deleted by the owner. I didn't appreciate it when they tried to compare compassionate raising of livestock for food to a husband raping his wife - sort of tough love I guess.

But from out of all this I found some new interesting stuff. One - a blog called "Let Them Eat Meat" written by a former vegan. And a book by Simon Fairlie called "Meat: A Benign Extravagance".

Here's part of a review:
Fairlie examines the use of land, water, feed, and energy in animal husbandry operations of varying scales and in different agricultural settings. For every statistic Fairlie can pull from a highly regarded study, it seems that he can offer an alternative statistic that encompasses a broader view of agriculture or insight into the neglected pieces of the farming puzzle.

So there's one for reading by the fire this winter.

If my team were no longer viable I would retire them for their faithful service unless they were too sick to be retired. In either case I would not eat them, but then I don't eat meat - Something bigger than I might just eat me because of my cancer and arthritis my failing ability to work as I used to!!

Sorry about bringing this back up. First of all it would be easy to stop them in their tracks. They want laws passed, let them. Just like the horse slaughter situation. All the special intrest groups that pushed to close the plants. Should be held liable for the mess that they caused. Large fines and life prison terms should be handed out for all the pain and suffering that they caused horses. Sorry but when I get around one of them special intrest kuacks I get fighting mad! They all should have to pay.




Jim