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?

[bridgetreilly]

Death is the most normal part of life for every animal. Why would you be squeamishly sentimental about it? Farmed animals don't suffer with illness or old age, they are kept in good, safe stress-free conditions and then killed humanely. You don't have to be some kind of psychopath to be a farmer and it is incredibly offensive to suggest so.

I find it much more bizarre and inhumane when people with pets are reluctant to ever have them put down, even with they have no quality of life left.

[Ozanj]

@lljkk

Cycle of life. People gotta eat & high quality protein & heme iron sources are valuable nutrition; people are designed to get vitamin B12 from somewhere. Animals eat animals. We are animals, too.

How do Jains reconcile selves to how rest of world eats and lives? Jains are the only ones with any valid claim to moral high ground. Rest of us are just pretenders.

Jains believe even eating vegetables harms animals (that’s why they sieve flour that has weevils in it and pick out insects in lentils etc). Traditionally Jains would have atoned for the sin of even a vegetarian diet by taking off to the forest at the age of 30-50 (or whenever their children became householders) and killing themselves through ritual starvation.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

"If we didn’t eat meat then those animals wouldn’t exist. They are bred to feed us."

I don't think that any vegetarian or vegan (those doing it for ethical reasons not lifestyle/diet) would have an issue with farm animals not being bred into existence. In fact that would be part of the point - not seeing animals as things for us to use, if at all possible.

[buffyp]

@ChangePart1

They don't see them as living, breathing, individual beings. They certainly don't see them as having any intrinsic rights or worth beyond financial.

To them it's the same as if they were growing crops and then sending them off to distributers. They don't see themselves as having anything to come to terms with or reconcile themselves to.

And I agree, it definitely takes a certain sort of person. But I think it takes a certain sort of person to be able to eat animal products, work in an abattoir, or carry out animal testing too.

And I think it takes a certain sort of person to make such sweeping judgments. I eat meat and feel not the slightest guilt about it. You have no idea what farmers feel about their animals. It’s called a circle of life for a reason.

[Ozanj]

@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.

You clearly don’t know how the cobalt in the chips of the device you used to type this post is manufactured.

[MrsSquirrel]

Yes, there are other people in the world who have their own beliefs and values.

Maybe the title of this thread should have been, why do I feel superior to livestock farmers?

[Tubbs99]

Maybe because they are doing the very important job of feeding the nation? I applaud them for it and long may they continue.

[TipsySquirrel]

The idea always seems to be that if we stop eating meat completely that chickens, pigs, sheep and cows will just roam the countryside quite happily. They won’t. If there is no financial incentive to raise these animals, then animals won’t be kept, they won’t be bred. They wouldn’t be there. That land that is used for livestock grazing would be used for something else. It will be farmed in some other way and those changes will probably result in a poorer environment because that land isn’t suitable to arable farming.

To say it takes a certain type of person is incredibly insulting. Firstly, there are a range of jobs where someone can perceive themselves to have the moral high ground because that industry has some questionable practices. Development and banking. If we really wanted to pretend we were far superior than others we could also bring in aviation, tourism, motor industry - they’re all contributing to environmental degradation and some tourism is exploiting poorer countries. What about utility companies? Taking finite resources to provide our homes with heat, water and electricity. Or any company relying on palm oil. That’s a lot of industries with people just trying to make a living for you to assume they’re a ‘certain kind of person’. Personally, I don’t think these people are a ‘certain type of person’ but I don’t think livestock farmers are a certain type of person either. Secondly, most livestock farmers, it’s a way of life for them. In most cases the farm has been passed down through generations. They keep raising livestock year after year, even when they’re barely making any money because that’s what they’ve known and that’s what they are. They’re a livestock farmer. It’s not a happy day when you send livestock to the abattoir but it’s a day when the farmer knows they’ve completed their job, they can be proud, they’re hopefully going to be able to keep providing for their family and their family farm will hopefully survive for another year.

[OrangeRug]

Simple - they don't actually give a shit about the animals. Just like the consumers who pay for these animals to be slaughtered all the while virtue signalling about abandoned cats and dogs in hot cars.

[romdowa]

I dated a beef farmer years ago. He loved his herd and took incredibly good care of them, he even hand reared several calves but he just seen it as they way it was. The calves he had reared used to follow him around like dogs and wag their tails when they would see him come. Yet they went to slaughter like all the rest. He had been raised with this and he just seen it as normal and knew their had to be a level of detachment to the job.

[Tubbs99]

Ooh I’m now thinking about having a nice juicy, rare steak for dinner. You’ve put the idea in my mind, thanks OP.

[Soubriquet]

@romdowa

I dated a beef farmer years ago. He loved his herd and took incredibly good care of them, he even hand reared several calves but he just seen it as they way it was. The calves he had reared used to follow him around like dogs and wag their tails when they would see him come. Yet they went to slaughter like all the rest. He had been raised with this and he just seen it as normal and knew their had to be a level of detachment to the job.

One of the reasons I couldn’t be a meat farmer

I would want to keep every hand reared animal and would leave no room for livestock

[Backstreetsbackalrightdadada]

I’m vegan but (a) it’s really bad for the planet unless I live off turnips and (b) I’m realising it’s also never going to give animals the chance at a life. I’m staying vegan but know most won’t ever be and whats important to me is quality of life and a humane and calm end. I hate seeing trucks on the motorway with animals in :( I wish all animals didn’t have to travel so far for slaughter and that we knew for sure it was done in a quiet and humane way. That’s actually my priority issue, more than turning people vegan!

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Conscience in this depressing business?

So, you have already decided then?

Most farmers I know take delight in rearing healthy, quality animals that will win shows and so gain extra money at sale.

A family that rears rare breed sheep, gives them all names and sells on the hoof to other breeders and to people like me in freezer friendly portions.

A larger scale piggery that hand rears runts and takes delight in getting them to weight maybe only a week behind their littermates, and sending them off to sales or abbatoir.

Another who is both farmer and butcher and lovingly rears his pigs and sells their meat with their name on.

They have morals, a conscience and all the other human attributes. They just aren't veggie, or vegan, which I assume you are.

You'd have to be that or a total hypocrite to start a thread like this. Your assumption that most(?) will agree with you may be a tad misplaced.

[Hyppogriff]

Oh do naff off op

[Tubbs99]

@Hyppogriff Definitely a goady post. So it doesn’t deserve any sensible replies.

[UhtredRagnarson]

They don't see them as living, breathing, individual beings.

I think you’ll find farmers, the people who help birth, feed, medicate and rear these animals are fully aware that they are living breathing Individual beings. What a completely ignorant comment. You clearly haven’t spent a single second on a farm.

[Backstreetsbackalrightdadada]

I also think most consumers really never think “this was a living being, as much as I am, with feelings and friends and memories”. I grew up on a farm - I can tell you for sure animals have friends (cows definitely do!) and rich lives. And yes we cart them off for slaughter, and they have no idea what’s happening to them and their last days are often terrifying. Some slaughterhouses are ok and some are awful. The animals pick up on the smells and sounds. Slaughterhouse workers get terrible PTSD www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-50986683.amp

But consumers don’t realise the work that goes into being a farmer, at the effort it takes to give an animal a healthy and safe life, at the skill to be a slaughterhouse worker and how that impacts you.

I get the joke about steak above, but I bet you wouldn’t/ couldn’t raise and kill that cow yourself. What you get is convenience - meat with no effort, no conscience kick. It’s easier to make a joke and brush the topic aside.

[OppsUpsSide]

They don't see them as living, breathing, individual beings. They certainly don't see them as having any intrinsic rights or worth beyond financial.

Saying it doesn’t make it true, but it does show up your ignorance.

[Tubbs99]

OP if animals, didn’t want us to eat them, they shouldn’t be so bloody tasty. It’s all their fault.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

@ChangePart1

Yes, I have an agenda where nonhuman animals are treated with respect and dignity, and not exploited or enslaved for human desires. Good catch, you got me there ;)

Farmers, on the other hand, have zero agenda. They don't deliberately and consciously choose to do what they do, it just all kinda happens to them.

Rubbish!

But then dehumanizing a while cohort of people does make it easier to vilify them.

The same old hypocrisy masquerading as being caring.

[tothesea]

Don’t criticise the farmers with your mouth full.

[WithLoveFromMyselfToYourself]

Almost all animals except for humans will die by being eaten by other animals, either by being hunted or because they become to weak to move. There is no stun bolt, severing of the spinal chord or anaesthetic involved.
Natural life and death are pretty brutal, I’m not quite sure how theists square it.
Animals farmed to high standards have a better life and death than most animals and some humans. I do get the ethical problems in choosing to bring creatures into the world to kill, but I am currently willing to buy high welfare meat, eggs and dairy.

[JellyTumble]

Oh bugger off with your sanctimonious bullshit, OP.