photograph good manners of Heavenly Horse Haven
Rootie now matter more than 1,000 pound .
The first time I saw Rootie since he was a piglet , he already weighed more than 1,000 pound . A permanent resident at Heavenly Horse Haven ( https://site.heavenlyhorsehaven.org/index.html ) , a farm - animal delivery in Anza , Calif. , Rootie was the kind of grunter bred for the tabular array .
It had been two years since I made the 90 - minute drive to Anza to visit the horse rescue . scat by an incredibly devoted animal lover , Gina Perrin , Heavenly Horse Haven sharpen mostly on sawhorse but had become a harbor for every other farm brute you could imagine . When I visited the horse rescue yesterday , I saw emus and marmosets , along with the usual horses , goats , llamas , duck , wimp and , of course , Rootie .
Rootie hail to Heavenly Horse Haven several yr ago . He was found as a little piglet on a street quoin in Los Angeles by animal ascendance and bring to a local rescue . When he grew to 1,000 pound sign , he became too large for the small rescue to keep , so he was taken to the sawbuck delivery ’s sprawling prop out in the desert .
I could n’t believe how vast Rootie had become ; he was absolutely massive . I called his name as I approached and , lying in the mud in his large paddock , Rootie greeted me with a oink . I squatted down by his head and strike behind his monolithic ears and stroked his gun muzzle .
After a while , Rootie got up — lifting his monolithic bulk out of the mud was no easy undertaking . As he start to walk toward his water trough , I could n’t help but find how much effort each step took . His legs seemed like thin pegs under his giant organic structure . It was obvious this pig was not designed to take the air .
afterwards on , I ask Gina about Rootie ’s difficulty with walk . She confirmed my suspicions . Pigs like Rootie that were mean for food were never intended to live this long . Bred to choke at a unseasoned eld , their “ designers ” did n’t take into account what these animals would be like when they matured . Rootie cheated the sad sack ’s tongue , but he now had to struggle just to move around .
It ’s clear that Rootie is glad and well - loved , and I ’m sure if he could pick out , he ’d choose to be here rather than have been made into Roger Bacon and pork chops many eld ago . Yet , I could n’t help but feel umbrageous that factory - farm livestock have been overbred to the point to where they ca n’t even run as normal animate being if they dwell past their scheduled slaughter date .
organization such as the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy ( www.albc-usa.org ) are play hard to wreak back heritage breeds — farm animals keep open by American sept farmers in the centuries before the Clarence Day of agribusiness . Urban farmers should squeeze these breeds and help work them back into the public eye . In my opinion , farm creature should be do by with dignity , and that includes being able to take the air well into sometime age if they are fortunate enough to get that far .
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