DH asked me what do cows eat. AIBU to divorce him immediately?

[TheIckabog]

We were watching a program about a fancy hotel where they have their own cows. There was a clip of the cows being hand fed apples.

DH exclaimed in surprise ‘I didn’t know cows eat apples!’ He then paused and said, ‘What DO cows eat?’ whilst looking genuinely puzzled.

I said to him what do you think they do all day in the fields? They eat grass/hay etc, how do you not know this? DH then shrugged and said he’d never really thought about it.

He is a well educated intelligent man in his 40s. We also grew up/live in a place where dairy production accounts for a large percent of the export, so it’s not like he’s never seen a cow in a field or on a farm before.

I am aghast. AIBU to divorce him immediately? I really can’t see any other option to be honest

I am a countryside gal and have cuty-dwelling friends.

I found it amusing during the last few years' droughts to find myself having to explain to them why i didn't think they should petition the government to water the grass in Hyde Park. That grass is highly drought resistant, and tap water really isn't in such abundant supply in the uk that we can afford to water drought resistant plants like grass with it during a hot summer. It blew their mind that the park wouldn't have to be replanted if we didn't use sprinklers, and that we don't have unlimited amounts of fresh tap water, it has to be managed.

What changed during lockdown? Absolutely nothing, we still went out everyday, no furloughing, no social distancing, no working from home, no weekends off, no days off, no change. Enjoy your breakfast. Well said

City, not cuty..

And novel viruses like avian and swine flu and even Covid 19 all were able to mutate and adapt to human hosts due to the fact that animals were in proximity to humans due to us eating them, so it just seems like quite a bad idea overall tbh?

You forgot Ebola.

There are many other diseases that you can catch from eating and rearing animals but it can be done safely. Eating them is not the problem.

You can also catch diseases from drinking water, eating plants and by keeping pets.
So, your point is?

But she's a carnivore. Does she not hunt mice? That's 'cruel' to the mouse but that's what nature is like.

^This. My cats catch mice, as well as birds and rabbits. I don't understand why there's so much angst about animals eating other animals now. It's called the food chain and it's always been that way. We were hunters and gatherers for thousands of years as well.

Cruelty to animals is the part that's wrong, and it's right to campaign against that. So banning fox hunting and badger baiting was absolutely right, as was campaigning against factory farming.

@NoParticularPattern

And novel viruses like avian and swine flu and even Covid 19 all were able to mutate and adapt to human hosts due to the fact that animals were in proximity to humans due to us eating them, so it just seems like quite a bad idea overall tbh?

Whilst yes this is true at the very bare bones of it, you are looking at animal consumption and production in other countries and applying the same criteria to the U.K. We have much higher standards in this country than those from which the aforementioned diseases originate. Mostly because we actually learnt our lessons from BSE, foot and mouth etc and have safeguards in place that prevent things like this happening. There’s a reason why farmers are up in arms currently about the government selling out on food standards because of brexit. You open the doors to produce from countries that have had issues like you mention and which have made no attempts whatsoever to learn from it or improve their standards and you’re not just going to financially murder our already tightly squeezed agricultural sector, you’re asking for diseases to be spread like wildfire. Our food and welfare standards are the highest in the word and we would very much like to keep it that way as well as expecting anyone else wishing to sell in our country to hold the same high standards. Safeguarding against disease does not have to mean the complete dismantling of the system, it means that the system has to work to prevent those things. Our system in this country does, others do not and I don’t know anyone over here that would prefer to farm in that way over the way that we currently operate- even if it does mean an absolute MOUNTAIN of paperwork to prove you’re compliant. Humans and animals are perfectly well suited to living in close proximity to one another but the methods and practices involved are where the problems arise. You could take the most commercial, large scale farm in the U.K. that you could find and thankfully it still wouldn’t even come close to the way that large scale commercial farms are run in other countries.

Yes, of course that’s something to be thankful for, that our farming standards are so high in this country. That we don’t have wet markets (they have them in New York though, don’t know of you knew that, it’s not just China) And that the Amazon rainforest isn’t being burnt to feed your cows. But these things happening in other countries will unfortunately have a global effect which we can’t avoid. Foot and mouth was horrific wasn’t it? I still remember all the cows legs in the air while they were being burnt, and I expect you remember it even better 😢

What changed during lockdown? Absolutely nothing, we still went out everyday, no furloughing, no social distancing, no working from home, no weekends off, no days off, no change. Enjoy your breakfast

Yy same here, I’m a nurse. Like you say, nothing changed. I can’t take any credit for anyone’s breakfast though tbh.

@Lweji

And novel viruses like avian and swine flu and even Covid 19 all were able to mutate and adapt to human hosts due to the fact that animals were in proximity to humans due to us eating them, so it just seems like quite a bad idea overall tbh?

You forgot Ebola.

There are many other diseases that you can catch from eating and rearing animals but it can be done safely. Eating them is not the problem.

You can also catch diseases from drinking water, eating plants and by keeping pets.
So, your point is?

My point is that we seem to be able to control the diseases that can be caught from water and pets because they haven’t recently caused a pandemic. Maybe it’s just a matter of time though? Certainly it’s thought to be only a matter of time before the next pandemic caused by animal agriculture...

An ex once asked me what was on the inside of baked beans, and was it mashed potato...

Cruelty to animals is the part that's wrong, and it's right to campaign against that. So banning fox hunting and badger baiting was absolutely right, as was campaigning against factory farming

Yes I quite agree. Factory farming hasn’t stopped though. It’s still going on, in this country and all over the world.

I know, I should have used the present tense there. There's a lot of other forms of cruelty to animals the world over as well.

My husband grew up thinking dogs were male and cats were female

This is exactly what I thought till my parents put me right when I was about six.

To be precise, I'd said “I thought dogs married cats?” I didn't mind my parents correcting me, but I was miffed that they laughed and seemed astonished I thought it. Cats are (mostly) a bit smaller and prettier, dogs are (mostly) a bit bigger and tougher, so it seemed like common sense.

My point is that we seem to be able to control the diseases that can be caught from water and pets because they haven’t recently caused a pandemic.

Because this one is new...

But there are regular outbreaks of cholera around the world, for example.
And Cryptosporidium is widespread.

What actually causes the pandemic is the capacity for the virus to be transmitted between people, not that it came from animals.
We can certainly improve safety measures to reduce the chances of a species jump, but it's not the consumption of meat that is the problem.

Would it have happened if we didn’t consume meat though? Is there any reason why an avian flu couldn’t begin in this country? Or a swine flu?
We’re lucky to have water treatment systems in this country aren’t we unlike many other countries. So I don’t think cholera is a threat here? Or does that have the potential to become a pandemic? I don’t know if it can be transmitted human to human or only via water?

Little bo peep anyone?

And novel viruses like avian and swine flu and even Covid 19 all were able to mutate and adapt to human hosts due to the fact that animals were in proximity to humans due to us eating them, so it just seems like quite a bad idea overall tbh?

I'm sure the fact that humans have overpopulated the planet and are living in closer proximity with better faster cheaper short and long distance travel than ever before has nothing to do with how a pandemic affecting the human population can take a grip and spread like wildfire.

Why do we have monoculture, factory farming and dubious farming practices at all? Oh yeah because there are quite a lot of human mouths to feed and small scale meat and dairy free food production won't feed the 8 billion people on planet earth

But we humans have been eating meat since we lived in caves. It's hardly a new thing, is it?

I don't think eating meat is the cause of this. But yes, it probably is because of overpopulation in a lot of countries, which makes spreading viruses that much harder to prevent.

@MsWonderful

Would it have happened if we didn’t consume meat though? Is there any reason why an avian flu couldn’t begin in this country? Or a swine flu? We’re lucky to have water treatment systems in this country aren’t we unlike many other countries. So I don’t think cholera is a threat here? Or does that have the potential to become a pandemic? I don’t know if it can be transmitted human to human or only via water?

Covid didn't originate here either. 😉

It's caused by a respiratory virus, so actually eating the meat is not the issue. But rather living in close proximity to animals.
The issue is thus, bad practices, rather than the eating of meat.

In any case, these pandemics stem mostly from rearing chickens and pigs, or messing with wild animals, and the jury is still out for sars-cov-2.

So, we could stick to cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, horses, with no risk.

Yours is a very simplistic and erroneous view, I'm afraid.

but I go to bed every night knowing that how I feed my family isn’t cruel or abusive despite what some sources of misinformation would have everyone believe.

Keep telling yourself that, you might convince yourself. 🙄
Total lies on here about cows not crying for their calves, they absolutely do.

@derxa

Where I grew up cows ate grass in the summer and silage and draff (by product of the whisky industry) in the winter. The draff used to be stored compacted with a topping of silage and when the farmers broke through for winter feed the smell round the farms was AMAZING! Thinking about that smell takes me back to childhood. This is exactly what we fed our dairy cows in the 1970s and 80s

We made our own silage (huge quantity) every year for the cows to eat over winter.

It took everyone even us children to pack it and cover properly it so it was airtight and sealed as water was the enemy before it could develop in time for winter.

silage
/ˈsʌɪlɪdʒ/
noun
grass or other green fodder compacted and stored in airtight conditions, typically in a silo, without first being dried, and used as animal feed in the winter.

@PermaStress

And novel viruses like avian and swine flu and even Covid 19 all were able to mutate and adapt to human hosts due to the fact that animals were in proximity to humans due to us eating them, so it just seems like quite a bad idea overall tbh?

I'm sure the fact that humans have overpopulated the planet and are living in closer proximity with better faster cheaper short and long distance travel than ever before has nothing to do with how a pandemic affecting the human population can take a grip and spread like wildfire.

Why do we have monoculture, factory farming and dubious farming practices at all? Oh yeah because there are quite a lot of human mouths to feed and small scale meat and dairy free food production won't feed the 8 billion people on planet earth

But if we cut out the “middle man” farmed animals and just ate the farmed plants, we would be able to fed all the humans. It’s partly due to massive overconsumption of meat and dairy in western countries that there isn’t enough for everyone. Processing plants through animals then eating the animals is an inefficient and wasteful way of doing it. Yy completely agree there’s too many humans, but also too many farmed animals to feed a small percentage of those people.

Yy I appreciate mine is a simplistic view but we should at least start thinking about alternatives and either cutting down massively on meat and dairy consumption or cutting it out altogether, for the greater good of the planet and all the other beings who inhabit it. Let’s not be too selfish

@BaconsLaw

My husband grew up thinking dogs were male and cats were female.

My ex thought bulls and cows were different species and not male and female of the same species.

Because he was abusive he would not believe me (because obviously I can't ever be right if he thinks differently) even though of the two of us I was the only one who had lived in the countryside including a dairy farm but he trying to embarrass me decided to announce my stupidity in a group later that night thinking it'd be great to embarrass me in public I assume at which point they all just looked at each other and burst out laughing at him.
I had never seen anyone turn purple before but I did that night!

@BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze

but I go to bed every night knowing that how I feed my family isn’t cruel or abusive despite what some sources of misinformation would have everyone believe.

Keep telling yourself that, you might convince yourself. 🙄
Total lies on here about cows not crying for their calves, they absolutely do.

You can eye roll at me all you like, it won’t change my view and how I feel about it. I don’t have to tell myself anything, I know it to be true. Just like I’m only one person sat here telling you that my cows and calves don’t cry for each other, you’re only one anonymous voice on the internet telling me that they do. I’ve just moved 5 calves out of the calving pen, none of them more than 2 days old, not one of the calves made a fuss, nor were their mothers “crying for their calves”. They are all safe in their new housing and fully fed and watered. But obviously you must know better- you being an anonymous voice on the internet and all.