So after 27 years of using animals for food and clothing I went vegan. Often people mention about going cold turkey…for me that wasn’t the case; I’d stopped overnight but I didn’t have any unpleasant experience from putting a abrupt stop too my substance dependence with animal products…nor did I have any feeling of joy at the time.
I was travelling Australia and got myself a job on a cattle station/feedlot. There were thousands of cattle there and my job was to fatten them up during their last 100 days on earth. After just one day I witnessed unimaginable pain and suffering being inflicted onto these peaceful beings, I wanted to quit and find a job else where but I stuck it out. At some point during my first week we had heavy rain and all the hard compact ground inside the feedlots turned into 2ft of sticky cow manure which made it extremely difficult for the cattle to move, impossible to lay down and the smell was unbearable.
As I was feeding up one morning after the heavy rain during the night, I could see something white in the manure. I stopped the tractor and jumped out to see what it was. Laying there drowning in cow shit lay a young calf with manure in it’s eyes, ears, nose and mouth. It was no doubt there all night, not strong enough and unable to move in that environment. I picked him up and pulled it out and put him onto hard ground but he couldn’t stand up. The nights ordeal had been to much for the young calf and he had no strength left. The girls there cleaned him up in the shed and covered him with towels to keep him warm and as comfortable as possible until he passed away a few hours later. He then went to whet was known as ‚the dead pile‘
From that moment on I was vegan!
I stayed on the farm for three months after that and I’m glad I did. I have so many stories from what I experienced there and I hope from what I witnessed I can tell people about them and they can make some sort of connection and cut out animal products from they’re lifestyle.
If anyone would like to know anymore about the farm please feel free to ask.
I’m now back in the U.K for the time being and am extremely thankful to that young calf for being the reason I went vegan.
