Many children play with toys that evoke the bucolic life on a farm. But most kids are probably not aware that, for the vast majority of farmed animals, life is anything but happy.
REYNARD LOKI: ‘Many children play with toys that evoke the bucolic life on a farm. And many will likely visit a small local farm, where animals have space and access to sunlight and the outdoors. But most kids are probably not aware that, for the vast majority of farmed animals, life is anything but happy. Consider the life of a chicken trapped on a factory farm. If she is one of the 9 billion chickens who suffer and die on U.S. factory farms for their meat, she is committed to a life of unending misery, fed an unnatural diet to spur abnormally rapid and painful growth…
These are the brutal realities for millions of animals trapped on factory farms. But how do parents and teachers address these realities of our broken and inhumane food system with children? Journalist, editor and author Leslie Crawford has answered that call with two books published by Stone Pier Press, an environmental publishing house with a focus on food and sustainability. The first, Sprig the Rescue Pig, tells the story of a factory farm pig who escapes the truck bringing him to a slaughterhouse, before being rescued by a young girl and her family, who show him love and kindness.
The second, Gwen the Rescue Hen, published this month, is about a chicken who escapes from an egg factory farm and is rescued by a young boy who decides to make her—and some of her fellow escapees—a part of his family. Both books include special sections filled with fascinating facts about pigs and chickens to help educate kids and adults about how incredible pigs and chickens really are. In telling these heartwarming tales of resilience, compassion and love, Crawford avoids the more brutal realities of factory farming, showing simply that these farms are extremely unhappy places for such intelligent and emotional beings’. SOURCE…
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