Why Our Farm Is Quitting Facebook
Several of our followers have asked why we are leaving Facebook and others have expressed their disappointment.
We are a bit disappointed too as we love all our followers and have enjoyed being able to share our farm with everyone currently on Facebook.
But there is a good reason for us making the switch over to MeWe. Several reasons actually, and they probably aren't all what you think! For one thing, there are more and more advertisements on Facebook now and the feeds are overflowing with them. Wasting precious time and almost causing us to become "numb" to them. Once we moved to MeWe where there are zero ads, we couldn't believe how "clean" our feed looked.
But more than ads, here is a primary reason we are taking this step to remove our Farm's Page and start a new trend over at MeWe:
Facebook has been pressured for years by PETA and have finally caved in and started to enforce their rule which bans animal for sale ads. On the surface this might seem like a good thing for the poor, defenseless animals. But sadly this rule has had the opposite effect. PETA doesn't have any understanding of farm life or what constitutes a "good" life for a farm animal.
Unfortunately, Facebook also does not understand farms, agriculture or animal safety. And even if they did, they would likely not be able to properly enforce it.
If you have ever visited our farm, you know that our animals live the best life possible! They roam on free pastures, have excellent shelters from the weather and are fed the best organic feed and alfalfa we can provide. Many times these animals are fed before our own family is fed!
Part of our livelihood involves selling some of our goats and occasionally chickens. When we make these sales, we have strict guidelines as to who can purchase our animals. This is particularly true of our goats. Perspective buyers are interviewed, visit our farm or in some cases we visit their farm. We ensure minimum guidelines for any home that will take one of our goats. This is true of all responsible goat breeders. These folks have put a lot of time, heart and money into their herd and do not want their reputation ruined!
We see this everyday on all the goat related FB pages: good, responsible breeders connecting with other breeders, with 4-H kids and with those wanting to learn more, and communicating and sharing information and offering help.
Are there some irresponsible breeders? Yes, I'm sure that there are. But those folks will be most likely showing up at auctions where they can pawn off their animal to an unsuspecting buyer. (More about that below.) Irresponsible breeders don't last long on social media - they are found out and tossed out fairly quickly by the rest of the community. I've seen it happen! Buyers and sellers are good at holding each other accountable.
Since Facebook has banned all animal for sale and even "rehoming" ads, the result is that more horses, goats, sheep and other small livestock will be slaughtered, or sent to auction barns. More dogs and cats will be dumped rather than finding homes that can be interviewed by the seller.
Once the opportunity to sell online is removed, the opportunity to screen homes to get to know buyers and sellers is also removed. Small, reputable farms have lost their primary place to market their animals and get into contact with other breeders and this will force many to go to auctions.
AUCTIONS ARE THE WORST PLACE TO BUY OR SELL BREEDING LIVESTOCK
There is a place for auctions in the world of farms, but breeding stock and pets is not one of them. Anyone can sell or purchase at an auction and sellers have no idea where the animal is going. It's bad for buyers as well. Irresponsible breeders will continue as they always have by making money off of the uninformed person who may show up at an auction thinking they are getting a healthy animal, only to find that they are getting a poorly bred or sick animal. The buyer has no way to visit the farm where the animal has come from, to see the environment it came from, or interview the seller.
The buyers have no recourse because they didn't buy directly from the seller. And now vet bills and heartache will follow.
FARM EQUIPMENT BANNED TOO?
The enforcement FB has put into place has also caused farms to be restricted from buying or selling certain farm equipment. For example, we attempted to sell one of our 3 "egg mobiles" as we call them on several buy/sell/trade farm pages. These "egg mobiles" are moveable chicken houses. The chickens love them! Cozy, insulated and can easily be moved around pastures so chickens always have a clean place to roam. Facebook determined these egg mobiles were on their blocked list so we were unable to list them for sale on any market place or buy/sell/trade site. No matter how we worded our ad, it was removed again and again.
Chickens raised in confinement live terrible lives and yet those big companies that sell eggs from confined chickens are allowed to advertise on FB. Meanwhile, small farms with chickens living in comfortable and safe housing, free to roam on a half-acre at a time, always on clean ground, have been deemed NOT ALLOWED. The folly of this nearly leaves us speechless.
In a time when factory farms are inflicting more suffering on more animals than any other time in history, the small farms where animals are living their best life possible, are banished from social media.
And that, my friends, is why our farm page has found a new home on MeWe! We do hope you will join us and will stand for the liberty that comes with the people being able to decide for themselves what is good and right, rather than the platform deciding for them. To be sure, the public is a great accountability partner.
Will you Join Us?
