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HOLY COW! The Epiphany of Cheri Ezell-VandersluisBy Claudette Vaughan From intensive dairy farm owner to rescued farm sanctuary activist, Cheri Ezell-Vandersluis has seen it all and now she’s talking to the Abolitionist-Online.
Cheri, please tell us about yourself.
When we first met I had a background of goat husbandry and have had animals around me my entire life. I had decided to make a living from dairy goats not knowing what the life of a dairy goat going to slaughter entailed. I just wanted to own them, milk them and sell their milk. My husband wanted to get out of the dairy cow business so we started earning a living from the goat business. This business became more personal for him because we would raise the baby goats up to a point where we had a direct market for them. This direct market was mainly the ethic community – Portuguese and Greeks – where they would come and purchase baby goats from us for Easter. These little goats that we had bottle raised and loved were being hog tied while they were alive and thrown into the trunk of a car or the back seat of a pick-up truck. We would stand at the barn gate where the goats were and we’d listen to our baby goats being driven away. Some of the people would go behind our barn and slit the baby goat’s throat there. After a few of those incidents my partner and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes and came to the conclusion that if we truly love animals then we can’t allow this to happen to them any longer. The epiphany while standing at the gate listening to our baby goats crying as they left and the combination of knowing the horror of what they were going through by looking into their eyes, changed our life forever. At that point we said, “No more. We can’t do this anymore.” So the inevitable question arose: “How are we then going to earn a living?” We contacted various farm sanctuaries although at that point we didn’t even know what a farm sanctuary was. I finally found a farm in Pennsylvania that was relatively new so they didn’t have so many animals on site. They came up and took half of our goatherd. We couldn’t part with all of them but financially we couldn’t keep all of them either. So we decided if we didn’t want to be part of the problem, we would be part of the solution. Voila! Maple Farm Sanctuary in Massachusetts was born. We haven’t achieved non-profit status yet as far as the government goes. We still haven’t make a profit but we take in abused and abandoned animals specialising in emergency type situations for farmed animals. We often receive dogs and cats as well. We still have a few of the original goats we rescued at the beginning of our venture. They are getting on now. They are in the geriatric ward of our sanctuary and they are still greatly loved. There’s a saying in Australia, “A bull calf is a dead calf”. Males are considered useless in the business of production and consumerism. As male calves don’t produce milk, they go straight to slaughter. In Australia the calf is taken off her mother after a day or so. They then go to the saleyard before slaughter which is an ordeal in itself. New Zealand laws dictate that bobby calves go straight to slaughter, bypassing the saleyard (which I’m not condoning either). What is the current situation for bobby calves in the US? Much the same. The babies don’t get the colostrum if they are going off to slaughter. It’s pretty sad because the Moms are calling for their babies and vice versa. That’s how they bond. They are taken away by the livestock dealer and taken to auction or the slaughterhouse, depending on the condition of the calf or who’s going to take it. There are artificial colostrums available on the market. If we’re lucky, we can get the calf going on that. If someone so chooses to take one at auction and bottle raise him as veal, then a lot of those boys will go that route to slaughter. Although they are not meant to be kept in confinement, they are. It’s a horrible, horrible life. Is any political pressure being brought to bear on governments in the US to stop bobby calves from being slaughtered? Unfortunately I wouldn’t say this is a topic that is outstanding in most peoples’ minds. If you go to the local supermarket or restaurant, cheap meat is plentiful. People just don’t make the connection between the two. I think if more people saw what happened at the slaughterhouse and how animals suffer maybe there would be more pressure to bear on this industry to act. Since George W. Bush raises beef cattle and he thinks nothing of it, the majority of the rest of the country certainly doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal either. What is your up close and personal impression of cows and calves? If you are around a calf when she is first born they are curious and they follow you around. They are loving, feeling, sweet creatures so if you treat them with love and nurturing they give it right back to you. It’s the same with the goats, cows and with all other farm animals. Our goats have dogs around that protect them from the threat of coyotes. Goats are known for having a lot of character. We see it a lot in the babies as well. When we look into their eyes there is a real soul inside. Are you and your husband happier people within yourselves now that you have abandoned the abuse industry? Do you feel like you are living more in line with a spiritual and/or a moral principle? Yes in both senses - spiritual and moral. Kinder. More loving. More aware. I think you find more peace within yourself when you look at animals and know they are not going to be hurt, tortured or consumed by anyone. It’s rewarding because it’s the gentler way to live a life. What do you think the solution to changing peoples’ minds about animals is? A lot of minds have to be changed and a lot of awareness has to be brought into the world. One big thing for us is education because a lot of people are getting educated by visiting our sanctuary. They ask us outright if we eat meat and when we say “No” they can’t seem to get past that. We just explain to people why we don’t do it and compare what they are eating if they allow us to. I do my best to educate people in this way but I don’t try to shove it down their throats. The more that’s done, the more the other person pushes in the opposite direction. So the sanctuary teaches by doing and educating. This is our priority. What correlation do you draw between what is being done to the dominant species (us) and the oppressed species (them)? I see the analogy more as what we are doing to one another as a human race. It’s already proven that children who abuse their animals when they are young tend to be abusers or even murderers later on in life. I’ve done lots of things in my life to become aware, not only farming, and I have seen this mentality for myself first-hand. It’s a mentality that is cold, uncaring, harsh, mean and hateful. So many attitudes that come straight back to us have been initiated from the slaughterhouse and the killing mentality. For instance, one day I wanted to see how my baby goat was going to be treated because the buyer kept saying it was going to be a ‘humane’ slaughter. They said to me, “It doesn’t hurt them.” I wanted to see for myself so I went and watched. This man had his little boy with him as he slit the goat’s throat. Minutes passed by for the goat to die. He suffers. He gags. He gasps for air and the man was so cold about it and he was teaching his child to do this same thing. After the goat stopped struggling the boy went over while his father was slitting the goat’s stomach open. This kid reached up and patted the guts hanging out of the baby goat. I thought to myself “What a strange thing we are teaching our children to agree with.” BSE in the States. What’s happening on that score? The US still does not accept cows from Canada because there are assumed suspect there. If you have an opportunity to read Howard Lyman’s book, “Mad Cowboy” then that’s still the situation in the States as far as turning a blind eye is concerned. Everyone turns their head and I’ve been in the supermarket before when the BSE scare has hit the news. People say they don’t want to eat red meat and other people say, “You’ll never get Mad Cow Disease so go ahead and buy the product.” It all comes back down to lack of awareness and maintaining the status quo. Nothing is changed. The only thing that is changed is what cows are fed now. By choosing to make giant steps in our life by getting out of the intensive farming business both my husband and I have never been happier. If you would like to donate to the sanctuary contact www.MapleFarmSanctuary.org
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For three generations my husband’s side of the family owned
and ran an intensive dairy farm. This was a way of life for him i.e., milking
the cows and seeing the older cows who could no longer
produce any milk going off to slaughter. While he loved the cows, he didn’t
know of any other way to run the farm. 
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