"Some who practice animal husbandry feel strongly about this, and have
published codes for ethical treatment of livestock.  Both Organic
certification, as well as the Grass Roots Farmers Cooperative, require that
treatment of livestock must be implemented to control parasites."

I am an ex farmer.  I hunt and fish.  I have killed many animals and always thought a clean fast kill was fine and still think that.  If I can not confidently kill a deer with one shot and put it on the ground dead within 15 feet of where it was standing when I pulled the trigger I do not pull that trigger.  From time to time my wife and I eat pigeons that are culled from my genetic studies.  I would much rather eat pigeon than chicken.

I ride a bike quite a bit.  Rode 1750 miles last summer.  I generally ride on a bike path.  When I ride in the morning I see a lot of snakes on the path sunning themselves to warm up.  This time of year I see about one snake per ten miles.  I stop and scoot them off the path.  You would be amazed how many people target them.  It is pretty easy to tell people target them.  When about half have had their heads run over and the rest of the snake is ok it is obvious.  At least they are humane enough to make a clean kill.  A few days ago I saw a painted turtle that had been run over so many times half the shell was gone.  I suppose those are some of the same people who think it is perfectly ok to let a hive of bees die when the only crime those bees committed was to have a mom with less than perfect genetics.  The Bond method and not  monitoring mite levels by a meaningful method strikes me as just about the stupidest animal husbandry ideas I have ever heard and in addition rejects the science of genetics as a way to help breed a better bee.

You can not fix stupid, not even with duck tape according to a sign I saw a week ago.

Dick

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