This news item about the proposal to farm 18,000 cows in cubicle in the Mackenzie country set me meditating on our relationship to the animals we share this earth with. We depend on them for protein. Does that give us an unfettered right to raise them any way we want – battery hens, sow crates, cubicle cows? Did God create them solely for our use and financial gain? When it goes wrong, we end with plagues of rabbits and opossums in NZ, and camels in Australia

Quite apart from the practical difficulties of cubicle cows:
- Setting up costs – buildings, etc;
- scarce water resources in the area;
- the logistics of feed: fresh grass for the cows; grain grown elsewhere in New Zealand or imported;
- huge amounts of effluent to be disposed of.

What message does this send to our trading partners? Yes, our cows need some shelter in the winter, but 8 months inside seems excessive. Do we expect a heaven without our fellow creatures, if we can contemplate using them as objects to get rich from? My 7 year old granddaughter summed it up for me when she said emphatically: ‘But that’s MEAN!’

Be Sociable, Share!

•