Beef Magazine Responds to Slaughterhouse Toy Media Coverage

Yesterday (COLLEEN—IT WAS PUBLISHED THURSDAY), Beef Magazine issued a response to the consumer outcry regarding a model livestock truck being sold as a children’s toy at Walmart. Writer and fifth-generation rancher Amanda Radke first focused on semantics by pointing out that while the truck in question is modeled after a semi that hauls animals to packing plants and that nobody in the livestock industry would refer to it as a “slaughterhouse truck.” Radke further explains that these trucks have multiple uses such as transporting sale calves to feedlots, moving cattle between pastures, and more generally hauling “these animals safely and swiftly to their destination.” As expected, Radke urges readers to buy these toys for their children, and says she plans “to purchase one for my daughter this Christmas. I know she’ll love loading her growing toy cow herd onto the truck.” Furthermore, Radke asserts that “it’s not necessarily the prettiest part of animal agriculture, but it’s an essential part, so that people can eat.” Something tells us that people can eat just fine without treating sentient beings as commodities and teaching their children to do the same.