Jenny MoxhamBabes To the Slaughter
By Jenny Moxham
An Animal Rights Poem from All-Creatures.org

All of God's creatures have rights, a fact that most people don't seem to recognize. This includes both human and non-human animals, but not all of them can speak for themselves.


Babes To the Slaughter
By Jenny Moxham

Why is it human grownups
Think their own young folk should never
Be distressed by seeing things that are
Upsetting, cruel or gory,

For instance they would never
Show them pictures of the slaughter
Of the ones they eat for dinner,
Yet it's quite a different story

When it comes to other young ones
Who don't happen to be human,
But are just as much in need of
Loving tenderness and care,

Folk are happy to distress them,
Not just simply with a picture
Of the slaughterhouse so brutal,
But by putting them in there.

The pig is but a youngster
When he's whisked away and murdered
And as sensitive and frightened
As a human son or daughter,

And the six week baby chicken
Is as scared as any toddler
When she's strung up by her ankles
And conveyed to brutal slaughter,

So it's surely inconsistent
To show such consideration
For the feelings of the little ones
We think of as our own,

Yet to treat with cold indifference
All these 'other mothers' children
Who are equally deserving
And themselves are barely grown.

Pig are slaughtered at six months and 'broiler' chickens still have their baby blue eyes when killed at six weeks of age. 'Bobby' calves are killed when only a few day sold and 'veal' calves are killed at six months. Half of all chicks bred by the egg industry (the males) are killed shortly after birth by suffocation, gassing or mincing. All farmed animals are subjected to pain and distress from the time of their birth.

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