not surprised. never a fan of champion. and that isn't hunting to me. farm raised animals, that don't fear man?

 

I'm not defending Champion by any means, but just because the boar are given extra feed to get them through the winter does not mean they are necessarily comfortable with people. For all we know they move to the back of the property when the humans show up with extra feed and only return when the humans leave. There just is not enough information IMO to know what is really happening.

 

Eh...

I only ever liked their original Acana Regionals, once they changed that and my dogs turned into itching machines, I was not a fan.

My FIL harvests farm-raised pigs, cattle and once in a while a buffalo. They're happy in a pasture somewhere, and he says after years of experience, it's far more humane to drop them in the pasture where they're happy and calm, vs. corralling them, forcing them into a stock trailer, hauling them off to be slaughtered. They are much more stressed in that way vs. just dropped in the pasture.

<shrugs>

 

Since Farmina seems to be the latest darling of the forum (not saying it isn't all that, and a bag of chips), any idea how they harvest the "wild" boar used in their feed.

 

Good and fair question. Italy's most valuable agricultural areas, including its famous vineyards, are overrun with wild boar that have bred with a larger, more aggressive and faster reproducing species from Eastern Europe. They reproduce so fast that recreational hunters could never put a dent in the population. The hunting season is pretty short and only a few days a week during the season.

There is some commercial raising of wild boar in Italy but very little because there is no need for it. The boar we get is part of culling programs in three regions where wild boar are trapped live, then inspected and then slaughtered as any other animal raised for meat. Italy does not permit the commercial sale of wild boar acquired in the wild unless it has been inspected while alive and slaughtered in a licensed facility. The supply is so abundant that we even use dehydrated wild boar meat along with fresh meat. We are able to use at least 42% wild boar because of the supply.

Texas has a similar program where animals are captured live, inspected and then slaughtered for human consumption but the species is not the same as in Italy.

So, we don't use wild boar that has been killed by hunters.

 

I tend to agree with Shamrockmommy, I think it's more humane to kill pigs in the pasture where the have lived their lives in the fresh air, sunlight, able to exercise freely and root in the ground, doing things pigs love to do. I think that sort of life is far, far better than those millions of pigs kept in tiny wire cages all their lives, then herded into crowded trucks and hauled off to the slaughterhouse. Pigs are intelligent, they know what's happening. I mean, please tell me if I'm out to lunch, but based on what I read, that's how I see it.

 

You are most definitely not out to lunch. I would personally prefer that no one ate meat, so that the pigs, and other animals were not slaughtered, but, if they have to be killed, there is no question in my mind, that what you suggest is the much more humane way to do so.

Animal farms are, IMO, a blight on our species humanity.

 

The back of the sample bag I received says "High quality Italian wild boar from semi-wild farming". Maybe I'm slow, but after reading Farmina's reply I'm still not sure what "semi-wild farming" entails.

 

Translation from Italian to English is not perfect. What that is trying to explain is that the wild animals are not killed in the wild but rather captured live, quarantined and inspected before slaughter. The term is supposed describe that there is a process to capture and process the boar that is different from people walking in the woods and shooting them and different from actual breeding and raising boar on a farm. They are true wild boar and not animals bred, fed and raised on a farm but neither are they killed in the wild either. That is simply not possible to do.

There are always problems with translations for example when Italians translate the word "made" like "made with the best ingredients" it comes out "realized with the best ingredients".

If you were to say the foods are "impressive" it could be taken negatively to an Italian as if there was a negative impression.

The other issue is that there is only so much space to explain things on packaging that you need to condense things.

Hope that explains it.

 

I work with a bunch of wealthy guys that go on canned hunts. They spend big money to PLAY hunter and they bring back videos to show everyone of them shooting bred and raised animals. It is all wrong. This canned hunting is a practice where domesticated animals that are not afraid of humans are placed in a situation where amateurs play shoot-em-up arcade games. Usually it is a bunch of business men renting the bow from the canned hunting preserve. The animals are not killed in a quick or humane manner and after being struck can run off and suffer. The reason this practice is illegal is these are domesticated animals that do not have the ability or instinct to flee.

You shouldn't confuse this with actual hunting or commercial slaughter because animals killed by amateurs with bow or even rifle can suffer greatly.

 

Why the heck is this an issue? They have to be killed somehow, why not let them be killed while standing in the pasture and not be bothered by the process of loading and hauling to the slaughterhouse? I'd much rather see and animal killed by a hunter then at a slaughterhouse. People are so out of touch and make issues out of things that are actually better than the alternative. Have you ever seen how animals are treated at a slaughterhouse or the process of getting them there? It isn't pretty...hunters normally respect the animals they hunt and that isn't the case at a slaughterhouse.

 

Because sometimes its not a quick death if the animal manages to get away from the person who shot it or tried to. They would try to re-shoot the animal, making it suffer even more.