Truth and Transparency

Many people are clamoring for more transparency. They want to see what we do, how we do it and we help deliver – but it’s still criticized. Even when people see with their own eyes the rabbit is fine – it’s still not enough.

The video in question has been targeted by some animal rights folks -with criticisms of being “heartless” and threats of reporting for cruelty. The video was showing tattooing a rabbit –

The rabbit is not injured in any way. Tattoo identification is required for showing as well as to identify individual animals, the same as cattle and other animals are ear tattooed. She’s on the show string for the national show. In doing the video I thought it was clear to anyone watching that she was fine – but apparently because she is calm and unstressed, not moving to run away, that’s a bad thing! She’s *not* fearful and unsocialized so now that’s a bad thing?!

It does underscore that critics will never be happy. It doesn’t matter what people do or don’t do they exist to criticize. It’s also said – behind my back of course as cowards are not honest enough to ask directly – that no rabbit raiser “does that” – actually it’s very common. For those showing and breeding it identifies an individual. For those with pets – if something should happen and it escapes you have positive identification instead of “brown and white mixed breed rabbit”.

It’s long been said that any animal husbandry practices was targeted, and it’s long been denied. Animal breeders, farms and others may find it incredible to know that they’re seen as “cruel” every time they identify an animal with a tattoo…but there’s no interest in “good farms” in agriculture. The mixed messages are incredible.

The mellow attitude is one of the things we like about the Giant Chinchilla – and it’s incredible that in the eyes of animal rights folks the calm nature is judged as surely injured or too afraid to move. There’s no possibility that the rabbit simply wasn’t that concerned with the whole thing.

It’s often said “if you don’t do anything wrong you have nothing to hide” – but clearly there will always be those finding something ‘wrong’. We get what we look for.

“The untidy truth is better than smooth lies that unravel  in the end anyway.” ~Colin Powell.

We’ve shown you the truth, including the reaction of the rabbit afterwards. We’ve been showing the rabbits on a regular basis, including at public displays where they tolerate strangers petting them. That simply is just the way they are.

There will be over 20,000 animals at nationals – all will have identification tattoos in their ears. With a tattoo it can’t pull off like a tag in larger stock, and the small ears of rabbits make tags impractical.

It’s up to each person to figure what they agree/disagree with – but flagging that as cruelty does more to show their true extreme motives than anything we can say, just as it did to flag Chris Chinn’s hog farm video tour for ‘cruelty’. This impacts your food choices…and indeed the food supply.

These are the same things as the over the top abuse in critics’ eyes. It’s important that the general public understand why livestock raisers do this – and see the reactions of the animals themselves. Rabbits are generally quiet – calves or goats may bawl when the tattoo is applied, in part because they must be held snugly. This is why I use a wrap on the larger rabbits – some people use a tattoo box. Make no mistake, animal rights folks want to stop agriculture – no matter the claims to you, the public, their actions are clear in that.

Management or cruelty? What do you think? (Keep it civil – threats will be reported…disagree if you must but keep it civil.)