really irritated by this comment and to think if your happy to eat meat you have to accept someone killed it!!!!

[YellowCanary1]

We're farmers, we raise and send for meat cows and lambs. We also raise and slaughter for our personal use pigs, chickens and rabbits. All our animals are very well cared for, free range and killed humanely. Dh will also shoot pheasant and pigeon for food.
Friend has told me she no longer wants to be friends with me as she disagrees with our way of life. She disagrees with shooting and raising pets (I presume our rabbits) for food. Seems to have launched a facebook campaign against shooting, which isaimed at farmers in general.
I'm most confused. She eats meat, happily buys it from supermarket where I can guarantee most of it will not have enjoyed the lifestyle ours have. I think the shooting is one of her main problems, is this so different from slaughter, surely its better than an animal being caged all its life only to end up in tesco. I genuinely don't get it? We don't kill for sport, we have huge respect forall our animals and the enviroment. We live virtually completely self sufficiently. What are we doingthat is so wrong?

good on you OP for doing what you do. I would choose free range meat with a humane end every time- tastes so much better. unfortunately circumstances dont always allow for that but we try our best. your mate is an utter hypocrite with clearly no idea what she is talking about!! you can add me on your dinner list!

I'm a vegetarian.

Your friend is an idiot.

I'm thawing out the front end of a muntjac for tomorrow's dinner. Pest control, gastronomy and not giving Sainsburys any money: win all round.

You can tell your friend from me she's a complete spoon in thrall to factory farming.

Your friend - the meat eater who doesn't agree with killing animals - is very strange.

I was vegetarian for a decade and I agree with you. If I were your friend I would be incredibly grateful to be able to buy my meat directly from a friend whose animals I can see are well cared for and killed quickly. I'd go so far as to say that you would make a gem of a friend to any conscientious meat eater [shamelessly sucking up]. Where do you live...

You shouldn't eat meat unless you are prepared to accept its been caught and killed, and are able to do it yourself.

But I was raised by two parents who had grandparents that owned farms and had spent most of their childhood holidays on said farms.

Yellow if they are red squirrels it is illegal to kill them as they are a protected species. Grey Squirrels however are considered to be a non native species and a pest therefore people are encouraged to cull them.

Sorry

harticus sorry not yellow!

OP I will be your friend, I wish I was able to live as ethically as that! Your ex-friend is an eejit of the highest order, much like those that are up in arms about the Ugg thing (whilst sitting on leather sofas etc etc.)

Factory farming and inhumane practices are the problem, not the self-sufficient way you do things x

So you eat ethically reared meat and your friend eats mass produced non ethical meat, by comparison? Yanbu. Where do you live and will you be our friend?

She's ever so slightly confused, isn't she? Tell her you don't want to be friends with a jellyhead like her... and block her from Faceache

Your friend is a bit confused or just plain ignorant. My parents are farmers and do the same as you, and i personally think that's the best way of doing things.

Also, really why would she bother making such a statement to you when this is clearly your way of life, and you are making a more educated conscious choice than some people and it's not like just because she has now decided to be evangelical about something you are going to say 'ah I've seen the light please let us stay friends'?!

Your friend is a buffoon.

So there's space in your life for another friend then.......?

Can I apply? I'm quite nice really and promise to make appreciative noises whilst gobbling down all the meat you see fit to send my way!

Thanks all, yep there is a friend opening, spplications welcome.

Friend does have habit of jumping on popular culture band wagons, not always based on best information. She's sort of person who reads one newspaper article and then is an expert in that subject. I have invited her to go through the whole animal to food cycle with us if she wants to understand it better.

Unless she is a vegan she has no leg to stand on. Ignore her. As a veggie myself I think what you do is infinitely better than factory farmed meat. However, I would ask that you consider the lentil lifestyle but that's just me!

Your friend is very dim. Does she have a new special little friend she is hoping to impress with her not-at-all irrational or hypocritical stance?

Perhaps you need to focus on the transportation of live animals prior to slaughter for supermarkets!

yellowcanary, I think people like you who raise animals kindly and kill them humanely are far closer than your friend is to the moral values that she is pursuing in such a clumsy way. I'm sure that you have a loving respect for them, founded on knowledge not on ignorance. By your free range farming you are probably doing much more for animal welfare than her campaigning ever could.

Yanbu, as long as you're not one of those annoying meat fans who feel the need to metaphorically shove meat down the throats of those of us who don't eat it. There's something about stopping eating meat that people who love meat seem to get very rankled by. I have friends who constantly bring up my non meat eating status every bloody time we are out, it's more of an issue to them than to me! And I've encountered farmers who do very similar. I'm sure that's not you, just wanted to add how annoying it is.

Randommess I totally agree with you and we've been very vocal about this issue. 80% of our stock is sold locally and I can walk in to a range of butchers and know what's ours but 20% goes to market, after which we have no say or control over what happens next. We'd rather 100% stayed local but currently the market isn't strong enough and we need to make a living. The worst part is majority of british reared meat goes abroad and the majority of what we eat here is from abroad, it's absolute madness!

Your 'friend' is not only an idiot, but doing the cause she is supporting more harm than good. Unless she is happy to forgo meat and other animal based foods and decline to wear leather then she should think twice about what she writes. I doubt that she has done any real research into the thing she is spouting off about, and if she cba to do that. very much doubt that she can ba to change her life style to suit her new 'views'.

But I guess she is quicker with a keyboard than her brain.

(Yes I'm a meat eater who has leather items, but I don't wear fur as I don't eat mink/fox etc. I did read up years ago, and came to my own conclusions. And thank British Farmers who support good animal welfare))

I'm a vegetarian and I'd rather be your friend than hers. She sounds like a hypocrite

Your ex-friend is a loon, but sadly I've come across quite a few people with a similarly bizarre stance and double standards.. maybe they think their meat grows on trees?

PS) DH is a veggie, one of our best friends is a farmer who loves shooting & apart from the fact that he regularly tells DH that all vegetarians should be shot & eaten, we get along fine!

Your friend is a knobhead.
Perhaps she should do some proper research into her meat sources before she starts forming an opinion.

This is something I feel quite passionately about, I only buy british and buy as locally as I can. I'd sooner eat less of a higher quality. Chicken breasts are a prime example just look at the cheap imported ones, texture colour even smell.
So all in all I'm loving your work!