Raising calves like this is a travesty
a PaSSENgEr in a car, I sat gazing peacefully from the window at the passing countryside. a raw February day in deepest Devon, green fields dotted with sheep and ruby cattle, ancient oaks and beeches naked against a sky of scudding clouds. We were travelling along a winding, one-track, mud-splattered country lane miles from the nearest main road. We passed a farm and then I spotted them. White crates with black and white Friesian calves inside. They had just enough room to stand, barely any space to move or turn around. The rustic idyll was a travesty. Sentient creatures being grown like cabbages, showing the greed and cruelty of factory farming. Before some farmer starts wittering on about townies not understanding the ways of the country, I grew up in a farming community in the Forties and Fifties, when there was a realistic and non-sentimental approach to farming. There were fierce-toothed gin traps, fox and otter hunts, and as a boy I trapped moles. Leaving school at 15, I became a farm labourer. One of my jobs, early morning and late afternoon, was to milk the small herd. Calves were born in the field and many times I was chased off by the protective mother. The calves were moved into a pen next to the cattle shed. New mothers were always anxious, their heads hanging over the field gate, lowing gently by milking time. Eventually, their offspring were released to toddle into the cattle shed, where there was still enough milk for them to suckle. The mother would turn her head to lick them and all would be content. When old enough, having spent time grazing in the fields, the calves were trucked off to market: the bullocks destined for the abattoir, the heifers to produce milk. and so the cycle continued. My first experience of factory farming was battery hens, distraught, partially featherless and unable to walk. a sign of the obscene cruelty to come. Thankfully, disgust at this practice of factory farming is beginning to grow among the public.