Post by fuzzymom on Dec 5, 2008 0:36:18 GMT -5
So I'm not sure really where to put this. I've been doing a little thinking and I really don't know what to do. I am vegan for animal rights reasons, so I don't like the idea of animals as food for people, especially myself.
I was reading a vegetarian/vegan magazine the other day and I saw advertisement after advertisement about vegetarian/vegan dog food, and even saw a little pictures of a cat with a caption that said "Where do I get my taurine? That is like me asking you where you get your protein." <--That one really got me mad. I'm into natural diets. Cats, ferrets, and dogs are designed to eat meat, right? That is what they would eat in the wild. So why push a vegetarian/vegan diet on them? But on the other hand, I want to cause no harm to animals. But I keep snakes, ferrets, cats, and dogs, all of whom eat meat. I don't want to give up my beloved pets. In fact, I hope to start an animal sanctuary years down the road and all animals that come to the sanctuary will be fed a natural diet.
So here I am with a dilemma. If I keep the animals I have now, on a natural diet, which is something I believe in, I'll have to buy meat, which supports the meat industry. Finding animals raised in the old fashioned "out in the sunshine, chewing on grass, and running through fields and having a happy life until their last day" kind of of place would be very very hard where I am. I'm in Richmond for crying out loud. So buying meat from normal sources would go against what I believe in, but switching them to a vegetarian/vegan diet is absolutely out of the question. So then I guess my main goal is to find meat from farms like I mentioned above, drenched in sunlight and only one bad day in their life, kind of deal. But as I said, I can't find that in Richmond, so what do I do?
I was thinking of switching the ferrets over to a whole prey only diet but that would still leave my dog and cats eating either kibble or raw meat from inhumane sources. When I have my sanctuary, I plan on rescuing abused/unwanted farm animals, but I could never use an animal I rescued as a food source for my animals, so what do I do?
I plan on updating my entire rodent breeding system to make it as humane as possible, and make it so that every last mouse, rat, gerbil, hamster, ect that comes into the breeding program or becomes a feeder is treated like a pet until it's last day. (Larger cages, toys, ect).
So I really just don't know what to do here. I'm at a moral fork in the road. Each path goes against the other and I'm stuck. I would be fine raising small animals for a food source for my carnivorous animals, but how do you do that for cats and a dog (especially since I plan on having large dogs in the future. We are talking a Great Dane!)
I was reading a vegetarian/vegan magazine the other day and I saw advertisement after advertisement about vegetarian/vegan dog food, and even saw a little pictures of a cat with a caption that said "Where do I get my taurine? That is like me asking you where you get your protein." <--That one really got me mad. I'm into natural diets. Cats, ferrets, and dogs are designed to eat meat, right? That is what they would eat in the wild. So why push a vegetarian/vegan diet on them? But on the other hand, I want to cause no harm to animals. But I keep snakes, ferrets, cats, and dogs, all of whom eat meat. I don't want to give up my beloved pets. In fact, I hope to start an animal sanctuary years down the road and all animals that come to the sanctuary will be fed a natural diet.
So here I am with a dilemma. If I keep the animals I have now, on a natural diet, which is something I believe in, I'll have to buy meat, which supports the meat industry. Finding animals raised in the old fashioned "out in the sunshine, chewing on grass, and running through fields and having a happy life until their last day" kind of of place would be very very hard where I am. I'm in Richmond for crying out loud. So buying meat from normal sources would go against what I believe in, but switching them to a vegetarian/vegan diet is absolutely out of the question. So then I guess my main goal is to find meat from farms like I mentioned above, drenched in sunlight and only one bad day in their life, kind of deal. But as I said, I can't find that in Richmond, so what do I do?
I was thinking of switching the ferrets over to a whole prey only diet but that would still leave my dog and cats eating either kibble or raw meat from inhumane sources. When I have my sanctuary, I plan on rescuing abused/unwanted farm animals, but I could never use an animal I rescued as a food source for my animals, so what do I do?
I plan on updating my entire rodent breeding system to make it as humane as possible, and make it so that every last mouse, rat, gerbil, hamster, ect that comes into the breeding program or becomes a feeder is treated like a pet until it's last day. (Larger cages, toys, ect).
So I really just don't know what to do here. I'm at a moral fork in the road. Each path goes against the other and I'm stuck. I would be fine raising small animals for a food source for my carnivorous animals, but how do you do that for cats and a dog (especially since I plan on having large dogs in the future. We are talking a Great Dane!)