Book Review by guest writer Keegan Taylor--Enslaved by Ducks

 

 

 

Well, it’s been some time since our last book review, but your reviewer has just literally laughed out loud whilst reading the story Enslaved by Ducks by Bob Tarte. If you have ever owned one more pet than you planned, or if you have had an animal worm it’s way into your heart against your will, or if you have possibly owned six more animals than you planned (ahem, Kathy and David), then you may be able to relate to this book. Unlike Some We Eat (which we reviewed some months back), Enslaved by Ducks only makes the slightest pretense of being informative and no pretense of being scientific. All in all, it’s just a story of a city man turned country bumpkin, who soon finds himself overruled by (mostly) avian masters.

 

 One example of Tarte’s great sense of humor is his anecdote about trying to subtly out-do people in their pet ownership. He tells about sidling up to a woman buying dog food and sighing about how he can’t get a dog himself. She pats his arm sympathetically and says maybe someday he can, and then he (figuratively) pounces . . . listing off how he’s just too busy with his parrots, dove, ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, and cats. And he walks off in triumph. But, of course, it’s a lot funnier when he writes it, and if you’ve ever had something which you feel a little like gloating about then you’ll very likely be able to relate. We won’t say that this has ever been the case with a teenaged daughter of GEE Funny Farm owners, but we will just say that sometimes we suspect that some people really do feel and act this way.

 

 His anecdotes about his psychologist visits are less in our line of work (with animals), but can we just say that they, too, are so delightfully funny. What a wonderful character description! When the doctor reads off questions such as, “Do you hear voices? Do people follow you?” Tarte’s response? – Well, that’s just plain wit!

 

When thinking about my own review, I glanced at Goodreads to see what others were saying. Many people loved it. Many people were indifferent to it. Many people hated it. One of the things we noticed about Tarte’s early animal acquisitions that we knew would end in trouble was his lack of research. That is one of the issues we’re most passionate about: if you’re going to get an animal, then do the research! From dog to bunny to parrot to lizard, you need to know about that specific species’ temperament and needs. We couldn’t be mad at Tarte himself because it’s a mistake so many people make! We just hope that those who read the book will learn from his experience.

 

 Are the Tartes perfect pet-owners? Oh, no, they certainly make mistakes. Is everyone going to be able to relate to them? Probably not. If you don’t have much interest in pets, then this story probably won’t be for you. But all in all, they’re good-hearted people with a delightful, animal-loving story to tell, not unlike the Gees! 



Now That Was Eye Opening by guest writer Keegan Taylor

Somebody from church was given a turkey awhile back, and he gave it to us. We've had it in our basement freezer for awhile now, and I thought I should just go ahead and bake it. I've never baked a turkey before, but I brined it and mish-mashed several recipes together to prepare it, and -- voila! -- my final masterpiece.

Here's the thing, though, in the last couple of years, I've read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as well as Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat (twice) by Hal Herzog. My parents have also recently been sharing some things they learned from Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. National Geographic also recently had a feature article on feeding our hungry planet. I also have a few friends who are vegan or who have moved in that direction. So generally, overall, I've become more informed about what it takes to create all the meat we consume. I get it and I feel concerned about it, though I haven't figured out how my moral feelings will govern my behavior.

But fixing this turkey was just one step more on the road towards cutting back on meat consumption. When you handle a whole turkey, you see how much meat is on this one animal. This was an 11 pound turkey.

I have some familiarity with animals because of my mom's farm. That experience mixed with my most recent major efforts in the kitchen combined to give me a truly hands-on understanding of what's going on here.

In Some We Love by Hal Herzog, he describes the life of the chicken on your plate in the hen house:

"Cheap meat comes at a cost. A broiler chicken's bones cannot keep up with the explosive growth of its body. Unnaturally large breasts torque a chicken's legs, causing lameness, ruptured tendons, and twisted leg syndrome. According to Donald Broome, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, severe leg pain in chickens is the world's largest animal welfare problem. Arthritis, heart disease, sudden death syndrome, and a host of metabolic disorders are prevalent among industrial broilers.

"The living conditions of the animals destined to become chicken nuggets are Dante-esque. The chicks will never see sun nor sky. Because they are so top-heavy, broiler chickens spend most of their day lying down, often in litter contaminated with excrement. As a result, many will develop breast blisters, hock burns, and sores on their feet . . ."

So I've read that before and I've felt anxious about our food consumption around here, with five meat-eaters. But when you have a meat-made turkey lying on your cutting board and you're handling that thing, you can see that there is a very high meat-to-bone ratio. My mom has turkeys. They are the sweetest, most contented things. My mom loves them, because they follow her around and live in a little happy troupe. In the summertime, they have the run of the yard and they mostly forage for their own food. With that turkey in my kitchen, I imagined plucking my mom's healthy, wholesome turkeys and I knew that they would not look like this. They are not the same kind of turkey, but that's the point. The kind of turkey we're consuming in massive amounts are not, by design, healthy animals.

When my parents bought the farm property they now live on an older couple lived there. They owned a horse, a pony, and a sheep, which my parents inherited with purchase of the property. The three animals had all been excessively grain-fed. The pony suffered severe laminitis and the sheep -- the sheep was a horrid, massive, bulky creature whom we named "Mammoth." There was no hope for him by the time we inherited the property. My mom weaned back his grain consumption but he was too far gone. There came a day when the beast could no longer rise. He was just plain too heavy for his own legs. A neighbor came and put an end to Mammoth, may he rest in peace. Now, I know I've gone from turkeys to chickens to turkeys to sheep, but the point here is I would never have wanted to eat that well-fed enormous sheep, but I do regularly eat equivalent kinds of chickens and turkeys. Unfortunately, when I put that turkey meat in my mouth, no matter the fact that I'd been pondering the unfortunate circumstances of its life, I still felt satisfied and pleased with the taste of the turkey. It would be so much easier to align my beliefs and actions if I didn't like the taste of animals.

I'm not really sure what affect this experience will have on our meat consumption around here. My husband isn't all that fond of turkey anyway. When I told him about my experience with the turkey, I said, "Are you listening? Do you care?"

"Yeah. I heard you," he replied, "But, ya know, cruelty just tastes good."

He said this tongue-in-cheek about the turkey because he doesn't even like turkey. But he (and I) do like beef and pork and chicken. But I'd like to think that we weren't so crass as to feel that cruelty does taste good. I'd like to cut back on our meat consumption because that turkey on my table demonstrated full-on that grocery-store poultry absolutely truly is the result of some cruel experimentation, and I don't particularly want to be a party to it.

Book Review: Thinking Straight About Animals

Here at GEE Funny Farm, we are passionate about animal education. Besides actually interacting with animals, what better way to increase animal education than through some great literature? Recently, among ourselves, we’ve passed around the book Some We Love, Some We Hate, and Some We Eat by Hal Herzog. It’s subtitled: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals.

This book is entertainingly informative. Herzog is a professor in the psychology department at Western Carolina University. He’s especially interested in the field of anthrozoology, the study of the relationship between humans and animals. If that doesn’t sound complex enough to study, then you haven’t given enough thought to the nuances of our interactions with other species. Even if you do have some grasp of these nuances, Herzog will very likely broaden your view.

For instance, how did a gray wolf transform into all the variations of house pet dog that we now have? (103 – 109) In fact, Herzog investigates the human-pet relationship in many different ways. He discusses the issue of animal hoarding (138 – 141), as well as the reasons we keep pets (78 – 82), and the cost of pet-keeping (75 – 78).

Another angle to our relationship is, of course, our consumption of animals. Have you ever heard how the chickens you get from your local grocer were bred, raised, transported, and marketed to be brought to your table? If you are in the dark on this process, then don’t miss Herzog’s no-fluff description (167 – 170). Of course, when discussing meat consumption, an anthrozoologist would do well to learn about vegetarianism, why people are (or are not) vegetarians, as well as why they are no longer vegetarians (190 – 201). While these may be the obvious angles to humans and meat-eating, Herzog also discusses why eating one kind of meat (dog, or rat, or cat, or sheep brain, or pig intestines) in one place is repulsive in another place (182 – 187).

Herzog also introduces us non-scientist types to the complexities of using animals in scientific testing (Chapter 8). He looks at the benefits of dolphin therapy (18-23), shares tests given to people about whether they would save animals or people with their inconsistent results (54-57), and what we think about what animals are thinking (60-62).

Of course, if you want to learn the answers to these questions and others besides, then the best place to go is the book. While the book is marketed for popular reading, Herzog includes lengthy notes at the end for anyone who wants a more in-depth look at the studies and books he references. This makes it a great starting place for budding anthrozoologists, and also a perfectly acceptable ending place for someone who’s just slightly curious about the subject matter.

Mostly, this book is informative. But each subject he discusses really boils down to ethics in the end, so Herzog does conclude by encouraging us to all make a little more effort to make our actions more consistent with our beliefs about animals, whatever they may be. Herzog has both the merit and the fault of being slightly inconsistent himself, which helps him avoid the pitfall of being uncomfortably preachy. He’s honest about his own animal cruelty as a child and discusses how ethics plays into his meat-eating choices. He’s also open about the confusing nature of animal ethics. So ride along with Herzog on his investigations and discussions and decide for yourself whether your money and effort is better spent preventing cock fighting or improving the lives of Cobb 500 hens.