If a little baby
human happens to have something terribly wrong with it at birth, something that will make its' life considerably more difficult, the first thing people tend to do is look for
ways to help it. They don't automatically assume the best route would be to
kill it, so that it wouldn't have to deal with the problems it might have later on in life, or so that it wouldn't have to go through so much more to do what
everyone else does with ease. Why is it that we have such
double standards where animals are concerned?
This horse farm I live on happens to have anywhere between ten and twenty
foals at any given time, less at times. They've been raising them for a very long time now, and I don't think they've lost more than one or two babies, ever. There was a baby born the other day, three weeks past its
due date. It was cramped up for way too long and that has effected its front legs, which happen to be pretty
stiff and
tense, which means it really hasn't been able to stand up yet. (Considering they're generally able to stand up within the first hour on their own,
this isn't such a good thing.) These are all race horses here, and thus this foal's problem because a bit more of a
concern. I'm not sure if it's going to be able to ever run, the tendons are so tight and it will be extremely difficult just to get it walking. The problem really is, though, that they probably won't even do everything that they can to get the little thing up and moving around because a)
it would cost too much, and b) it will never be of much
value to them. They're by no means
cruel people, but money-minded, I'd have to say. I've heard several times now that they might have to "
put it down", which seems completely ridiculous to me. There has to be
something you can do for such things.. a surgery perhaps, if nothing else.
The thing that probably bothers me the most about the whole situation, is that the foal hasn't given up. He tries so hard to
stand up over and over and then
collapses in exhaustion only to try again a few minutes later. It sure doesn't seem as if he'd like to
die, or give up, any time soon..
It just seems so
foolish that people would come to the conclusion that killing something before it's even seen
the light of day is a fair alternative. It just is not, and never will be, in my opinion. I'm tempted to punch them all in the head and steal it.. however
unrealistic that might sound, it certainly isn't any more so than killing a poor little
baby horse.
I guess you could look at it in a few ways.. it will have a hard life, at least to start, no matter what you choose to do. So do
children born with no legs at all, but they can still enjoy life. It's
a hard call, I guess.. it's just that if it were me, I'd do things so much differently. It's easy to be the observer, too.. ah well.
If anyone actually has any sort of experience with this type of thing, you could let me know (in a /msg or something) of ways that you can help foals in such situations.. damn humanity.