How do farmers reconcile themselves to the volumes of animals they send to slaughter over the course of their lifetimes?

[Empanadas]

Hi, this is something I’ve always wondered. However, I was watching that Netflix series about Prince Charles and the Duchy of Cornwall and there was a farmer showing a whole barn of cattle he has obviously reared from birth, but quite blithely saying, “oh they'll all be off next week.”

AIBU to think being a cattle / sheep / chicken farmer takes a certain type of person and to wonder how they deal with their conscience in this depressing business?

[NeonDreams]

@GetInThereLewis

NeonDreams The OP isn't brainwashed at all. Vegans are not flat earthers. Animals ARE slaughterd,I worked in one in Suffolk that killed 10,000 chickens every hour and 9,000 pigs a day.

Her last post (999) proves that she is. All programmed talk and slurring farmers. The cognitive dissonance is real with the OP.

[Empanadas]

This thread has shown me that to survive as a farmer, there has to be a deeply-rooted cognitive dissonance about the fundamental fact that income is acquired directly from death. Sending animal off for slaughter is discussed in a strangely matter-of-fact, almost jovial tone - as if it were no more than dispatching parcels via Royal Mail.

It’s easier for those involved to go all around the houses and deflect and obfuscate with all the multifarious wrongs of the world in general, rather than just focus on the single and disturbing issue of animal slaughter. This is an understandable defensive strategy and probably the sole reason they are able to rationalise the reality of what they do.

They have convinced themselves that animals whose natural life spans could be 20 years, are actually living the good life even though their life is shortened to a matter of months or possibly years for the lucky ones. High quality food, the fact they are allowed outdoors, the cost of vet care and their own hard work etc etc are also somehow seen as mitigating against the tragedy. Instead, they perceive themselves as the good guys. Again, I guess you would need to cling to this conviction to be able to do it at all, let alone let it become a way of life.

Animals are indeed views as commodities. Even where supposedly great acts of kindness are carried out, the price is always mentioned in the same sentence - eg. the farmer who rescued a sheep even through it was “worth less” than his quad bike; or the lambs that were hand-reared even though they are only “break even” in terms of profit.

It’s a sad world indeed.

My children are basically vegetarian now and becoming much more aware. I’ve always been very careful not to influence them because I wanted them to draw their own conclusions on this issue, as with anything else. But I think, following this thread, it’s time engage with them. I’ve been reading about the various sheep sanctuaries up and down the country. It’s a drop in the ocean, obviously. People will scoff at the vegan whinger, but that’s really ok by me because anything has to be better than nothing. I’ll be donating to one sanctuary off the back of this thread. It feels so hopeless though.

Thankyou for all your perspectives as it has been informative.

[SueSaid]

' also feel certain that those who work in Abattoirs for any length of time will be psychopaths'

Totally agree. What kind of person kills scared defenceless animals all day every day. I mean if it is the only work they can find and it pays the bills then understandable as a short term job. Sadly there are too many leaked reports of the animal abuse that goes on.

I imagine they've very unpleasant people tbh. You only have to walk past a field of cows or sheep to see what sweet animals they are. Imagine bundling them off wagons and killing them then chopping them up all day. Ugh.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

@21Flora, I live in a mostly arable area. You often see fields put to stubble turnips, to give the soil a break, reduce cereal diseases and to benefit from natural fertiliser when the sheep are put out on them. Similarly, you get vetches grown for silage, with remains ploughed in after cropping: rests the soil, provides nutrients.

The OP upthread described a good life for an animal as being allowed to live out its natural span, and be PTS if necessary. That is the life of a pet. It's not the life of a wild animal: the mouse taken by an owl, the young rabbit caught by a fox, the hedgehog ripped up by a badger. And it's not the life of the owl, fox or badger when it gets old and sick and dies of hunger or disease. If you live in the countryside, you're aware of this: you've come across half-eaten things, you've seen a magpie nagging at a woodpigeon to chase it away from the best so it can get at the chicks, you've seen the hollowed-out carapace that was a hedgehog last night but isn't this morning. You have the bloody circle of life thrown at you constantly, unless you choose to be willfully blind. You know that for things to live, other things have to die. That is how it works, and humans are not exempt.

IMHO, Disney has a lot to answer for.

[GetInThereLewis]

NeonDreams The OP isn't brainwashed at all. Vegans are not flat earthers. Animals ARE slaughterd,I worked in one in Suffolk that killed 10,000 chickens every hour and 9,000 pigs a day.

[Empanadas]

I accept that people eat meat. I don’t know how many times I have to say that. The thread was never about this. I was interested in how people involved in slaughter deal with it, psychologically and morally.

I see somebody has moved on to the vegans must have vegan pets nonsense.

Never mind my friends and neighbours and their cats. Shall I fly out to Kenya and have a word with the lions?

Incidentally, cats were never designed to eat beef, chickens, liver, lambs or pork in the wild None of mine eat that cat food. They just walk off. They always prefer fish based food and I think most cats do.

[21Flora]

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman the last solely arable farm I worked for had a big contract with weetabix. Thousand of acres grown for them. Yes, people aren’t eating animals in weetabix but the gamekeepers were out everyday shooting rabbits, foxes, pigeons... We let out the stalking rights to weekend parties who came and shot the invasive deer species. If they didn’t do it, the farmer would have done it. We brought in cattle from the local livestock farmer to graze as part of the three year crop rotation. As you say, animals are exploited for everything. The people on this thread are wilfully ignorant, I think to justify to themselves why it’s okay to be horrible to people that they think they are superior to. If they accepted that animals die for them to eat, they’d be stuck.

[NeonDreams]

@Empanadas

I don’t need to go to a farm to know that millions of animals are being slaughtered. Talking to those involved will not change the reality of what happens.

In other words, you are closed-minded. You sound very programmed, like you have been brainwashed by propaganda, I find most Vegans come across the same, it is intense brainwashing and the talking points and turn of phrase are same. Classic programming. Although I personally believe the lack of nutrition leads to such thinking/posts such as the OP's.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

@SupermanTonight

I'm not sure what you eat, but rest assured that it's produced by farmers.

Not those that exploit animals though. 🤷🏻‍♀️

But they know they'll kill animals as they produce it. Rabbits, pigeons and deer are deliberately shot. Insects are sprayed. Mice etc get caught up during harvest.

I know someone who used to work on a veg processing line. Part of the job was picking out the bits of bunny from the chip line.

[nanbread]

@lakesummer

I actually think that rescuing cats is a very kind and nice thing to do.

But the growing numbers of obligate carnivores is putting significant pressure on the food chain.

In the USA cats and dogs are responsible for 30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption.

If America’s pets were their own country, their meat consumption would rank fifth in the world behind only Russia, Brazil, the United States and China.

The cats and dogs in the USA alone have the same climate impact as a year's worth of driving from 13.6 million cars.

Why not focus on reducing pet numbers OP. Something that is possible to do in London rather than farming.
You could focus your energies on stopping your friends from getting new meat eating pets.

I actually think this is a great idea

[Ritasueandbobtoo9]

“The only way to live sustainably on this planet is to take a little of everything, waste nothing and facilitate the circle of life. Circulate livestock and crop on rotation, grind those fish bones for fertiliser and stop importing advocados“

This^^

What shelter let’s you take pregnant cats?? Surely all reputable cat charities foster and neuter the cats. Do you neuter the cats? If not why not?

[HoppingPavlova]

There was a case here not long ago where hard core vegans were found guilty of animal abuse as they fed their ‘beloved’ dogs a vegan diet. Obviously that didn’t work too well and led to broken bones, skeletal malformations etc. Despite being told by a vet they had to feed the dogs meat they persisted with the vegan diet and also homemade plaster casts for breaks etc instead of returning to the vet who was not aligned with their philosophy. It ended up with animal welfare, one dog had to be put down as it was too badly damaged and the other was touch and go last I read of the case. Their rationale was they loved animals so much they couldn’t possibly feed their dogs any form of meat. Mind blowing.

[Mandalay246]

OP - I see work with rescue cats, which is very admirable. I'm interested to know - what do you feed them?

[Mandalay246]

I also feel certain that those who work in Abattoirs for any length of time will be psychopaths.

Living in an agricultural town where many residents work in this field I can tell you that they are not. What a stupid statement. I can't believe the sheer ignorance on this thread. It seems there is a huge disconnect in the UK between city and rural dwellers.

[AnnieSnap]

@Empanadas

I can’t take hens as too many cats. I know lots of people who have rescued hens from slaughterhouses though.

Cats won’t tackle hens. Bare in mind that hens can be very handy with their beaks and claws! It’s quite amusing to watch a cat take an interest in a hen, stalk forward and gradually realise how big they are and think better of it!

[EverythingRuined]

Haven't read all the comments.

I worked in a slaughterhouse, I wasn't a licensed slaughter man but I worked on the line skinning, gutting etc the animals as part of my training. I had no qualms about it at all at the time and I still have no qualms about it. If anything it made me more comfortable eating meat as I could see how the animals were treated. I know there are cases where animals are subjected to inhuman treatment during their lives but I didn't see it in any of the abattoirs where I worked. The slaughtermen just wanted to get on with their work and finish the days work ASAP. Having stressed or agitated animals about makes their work harder and potentially more dangerous so it's in their interests to keep the animals calm and to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Most of the slaughter men I knew seemed to be animal lovers and nearly all of them had (well fed) pet dogs.
I disagree with animals being transported long distances to be killed and I dislike overly intensive farming but I don't have any problem with animals being killed for food at all.

[AnnieSnap]

@ChangePart1

shrug I find it more offensive when people think it's acceptable to breed, raise, kill and then sell the dead bodies of living breathing animals. Not gonna beat around the bush on that one.

I’m with you on this.
I also feel certain that those who work in Abattoirs for any length of time will be psychopaths. They go through vets at a hell of a rate because they can’t deal with it too long. I read an account from a vet who said he only lasted 3 weeks because after he ‘stopped the line’ a couple of times because animals weren’t being stunned properly, the men working there gathered around him and told him he’d better not do that again, or else. He described witnessing various cruelty. What kind of person would go to work to roughly move and pen animals, then spend hour after hour killing them?

[JassyRadlett]

I'm up waiting for a old and very fat (she was geld last year so spent all summer feeding herself rather than a calf) Bazadaise cow called Betty who is looking like she will calve at some point tonight. I'm exhausted from being up with calving cows several times this week and probably not making as much sense as I would like.

Good luck with her! We had one cow who was an ex-poddy, a total softie and obsessed with my mother. Every time she went into labour she went in search of my mum, starting with climbing the five steps up to the verandah outside the kitchen.

Getting her down the stairs while she was calving was always a bit of a bugger.

[JassyRadlett]

Sad about the stop importing advocados and by extension mangos. Fucking love a mango!

And almonds. I know I sound a bit obsessed but for the love of god stop importing almonds and almond products.

[derxa]

@Scrowy

That should be wormers not workers

I'm up waiting for a old and very fat (she was geld last year so spent all summer feeding herself rather than a calf) Bazadaise cow called Betty who is looking like she will calve at some point tonight. I'm exhausted from being up with calving cows several times this week and probably not making as much sense as I would like.

Good luck with her Scrowy

[Scrowy]

That should be wormers not workers

I'm up waiting for a old and very fat (she was geld last year so spent all summer feeding herself rather than a calf) Bazadaise cow called Betty who is looking like she will calve at some point tonight. I'm exhausted from being up with calving cows several times this week and probably not making as much sense as I would like.

[lakesummer]

I actually think that rescuing cats is a very kind and nice thing to do.

But the growing numbers of obligate carnivores is putting significant pressure on the food chain.

In the USA cats and dogs are responsible for 30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption.

If America’s pets were their own country, their meat consumption would rank fifth in the world behind only Russia, Brazil, the United States and China.

The cats and dogs in the USA alone have the same climate impact as a year's worth of driving from 13.6 million cars.

Why not focus on reducing pet numbers OP. Something that is possible to do in London rather than farming.
You could focus your energies on stopping your friends from getting new meat eating pets.

[Scrowy]

Since when was “a good life” defined as a bit of silage for a few months and then slaughter?

That's not what I define it as.

Think very hard about what more it might take to get a lamb from the point of being born to being a healthy animal at slaughterer to enter a breeding flock.

How would you avoid watery mouth, pulpy kidney, joint ill, scours, scab, scrapie, listeria, pneumonia, maggots, braxy , blackleg, ticks?

What workers would you use, how would you keep yourself informed about the nematodirus forecast in your area?

How would you protect them from predators like crows?

What fertilisers, contractors and tractors would you use to make the silage for them the year before and where will you store that, what creep feed would they have and when will you decide to wean them. How will you keep them where you want them to be?

If they develop footrot what will you do? What drenches will they get, how many foot baths will you put them through, will you clip them as lambs or not. Will you vaccinate the females for enzo , toxo and put them into the heptavac p system?

Will you register for the Red Tractor Farm Assurance standards for beef and lamb?

What is your CPH how will you manage six day standstill and do you know how to inform ARAMs of any movements?

It's not just about banging some silage and some water into them every few days.

[Empanadas]

No we don’t keep them indoors and I would t have cats if it meant doing that. No birds at all surprisingly, but we do have live snakes brought in occasionally. Fortunately, they have no access to the road.

[LemonSwan]

@Scrowy

Sad about the stop importing advocados and by extension mangos. Fucking love a mango!

But it is true