I thought it would go away. I mean a post like this one is so much bologna there should be no way that it would get spread around right? … Wrong! What am I talking about? This…

****EDIT- February 2016 The original Facebook post was eventually removed. This is a screenshot of that post. Unfortunately some of the caption was cut off.****



The movie Earthlings was released back in 2005, despite it’s almost 10 year old age, the promotional facebook page for the movie is still quite active. This particular post has been shared, liked and commented on since it was put out way back in April. Despite the post being a total fabrication, it appears to be one of the most popular posts on that page and has been seen by millions of people.

If you saw this post and felt shocked and saddened by what they were telling you, you’ve been had. Here are 6 ways that this post is lying to you.

These little houses that calves live in are called calf hutches. A calf hutch is where most dairy calves live for the first stage of their lives. Like any newborn baby, calves need to be protected from germs and bacteria that can make them sick. The people that are behind this photo want you to think of it as a prison cell when it’s really a more like a crib or playpen. Want to know why we separate cows and calves in the first place? Read this post. This isn’t a veal farm. This is not how veal calves are raised. Even if it was a veal farm, veal calves are not slaughtered at 6 weeks of age. If you want to learn more about the veal industry in the US please check out this website or this website. This photo is from a heifer raising farm. Heifer calves (girls) are raised to become future dairy cows. Yes, there are a lot of hutches there. I don’t know which farm this is but they may be raising heifer calves for one farm or several farms. Many dairy farms raise their baby calves on a different farm from where they milk cows. This allows each farm to focus on one aspect of raising calves. A high school math teacher has different lesson plans than a 1st grade teacher and an employee on a heifer farm has a specialty that is different than a milker on a dairy farm. This photo is stolen. It wasn’t taken by Animal Rights activists, the photo appeared online on a dairy website and the folks behind posting it with the false information stole it off of that website to use it for their propaganda. That’s just not cool. Let’s look at what a calf hutch looks like from the front. It should blow the idea that calves can’t move around in them right out of the water. Click on each photo to read the caption.

6.Make no mistake, Nation Earth, the group behind the ‘Earthlings’ movie and this facebook page wants your money. Even though the movie is almost 10 years old, they aren’t ready to stop milking their cash cow, which is the only kind of cow they care about. From the Earthlings website donation page-

“Nation Earth uses all funds raised to continue streaming EARTHLINGS online for free, to help raise awareness in other people and other organizations, to donate copies of the film to organizations and individuals, to continue activism in the animal rights field, to produce UNITY, and to help produce other educational media.”

The bottom line on all of this is that this post is the perfect example of people being able to make up whatever fits their agenda and use it to pull the wool over unknowing people’s eyes while making a grab at their pocket book. The post from Earthlings has been seen by millions of people and unfortunately the truth will only be seen by a fraction and that’s exactly why we need more farmers telling their stories and showing what really happens on farms.

P.S. If you choose to comment on the post, please be respectful. Many of the comments already there are perfect examples of how not to act online and they come from “our” side.

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