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?

I love my dog, if it went lame i would nt have it shot
...
If you genuinely loved an animal, you'd not kill them.
@Bluethrough so you are content to see your beloved pet suffer when in incurable pain? So much for dignity in dying.

I’ve not seen a thread started by a meat eater criticising vegetarians or vegans

Me neither

@Empanadas

Again, 100% realise this is overly simplistic and not likely to happen in the short-term, but for cattle farmers who own land, could they not let a percentage go wild (I heard there’s some subsidies for this now)? Could you not sterilise your cattle to keep the population to a certain size and just keep cows for grazing the land and milk maybe? Sheep for wool? Then get another job if necessary? If you live in a very rural area where there’s not many other work opportunities, do something online?

I think meat is a declining industry anyway (hopefully), so in a way, this would just be getting ahead of the curve?

PMSL

You really don't know how farming works if you think that in order to stop cattle breeding, you need to sterilise. You just don't let the bull into the field!

You won't get milk from sterile cattle. Are you a mother? If so, you must be aware that milk supply eventually dries up and is only replenished after copulation.

You can't keep sheep for the wool alone these days. It's actually loss-making. A fleece will sell for about £1. That's per sheep, per year. Before deducting the expenses of shearing and packing.

"Do something online". Ha! Internet in many rural areas is still only one step up from pigeon post.

Then get another job if necessary? If you live in a very rural area where there’s not many other work opportunities, do something online?

Have you tried changing careers and going hungry yourself OP?

You come across as extremely unreasonable and entitled

'If you genuinely loved an animal, you'd not kill them.'

Not even if you had a farm full of hungry mouths to feed, and the only way to pay for the meal is to send a field of cows off to slaughter? Let alone having a human family to feed and a roof to keep over their heads.

@JewelGarden

'If you genuinely loved an animal, you'd not kill them.'

Not even if you had a farm full of hungry mouths to feed, and the only way to pay for the meal is to send a field of cows off to slaughter? Let alone having a human family to feed and a roof to keep over their heads.

If you genuinely loved children you wouldn’t allow abortion to happen.....

I’m not vegan and have read the thread. What you say is not accurate. Traditional meat farming in the uk is not the majority of the meat we eat in the Uk. There is vastly more factory and imported meat than ideal practises mentioned here. There is a lot of spin around meat by supermarkets and people fall for it.
@Newgirls where - pray tell - do we import meat from? Ireland, New Zealand, Germany, The Netherlands. Places which use similar practices to us.

@MozambiqueHere

Where is the land going to come from to grow all of the crops to feed everyone if we all give up meat? You can fill a field with cows and it's going to fill a lot more bellies than filling it with cauliflowers

You need a lot of fields to feed all those cows. A LOT of fields. Which is why a non-meat diet requires significantly less land than one that includes meat.

Fields which are no good for other purposes (given that arable farming is generally a more reliable income, if this land could be used for it, it would).

On cereal farms it is good for the soil to have a break. This involves growing stubble crops and allowing ruminants in to graze.

A cow eating grass all day does zero harm to the land.

I grew up on a farm that reared sheep and cows for meat. The whole idea of it just seemed so wrong and I hated eating meat from a very young age, my parents eventually gave up trying to force me and I haven’t eaten meat or fish for well over 30 years now.

It's so easy to spot the pampered city dwellers who don't have the faintest clue about farming on this thread.

Your post is actually offensive OP. Do you really imagine that animals not living on farms have wonderful stress-free lives and just lie down and quietly slip away when their time has come? I find it strange how so many in the UK seem to have little idea about the world outside their office walls.

@Empanadas

How many calves does a female cow produce though - eg in a year?

Is there really no way of managing a scalable dairy operation that doesn’t involve selling off or slaughtering the male calves?

I don’t need all the “you are thick” responses. It’s a genuine question.

Cows are pregnant for 283 or so days and typically have one or two calves. They're milked for around ten months after that before being put in calf again.

Sexed semen is an option and can increase the chances of a female calf to 90% but (it was) more expensive.

Then get another job if necessary? If you live in a very rural area where there’s not many other work opportunities, do something online?

Such appalling ignorance! You do know that the UK isn't the only country in the world? News flash, there are countries for which agriculture is a major contributor to the economy. Whole towns in some parts of the world rely on agriculture for their very existence. What would you like all these people to do "online". I simply cannot believe how little you know about the world outside of your own experience.

If these animals weren't raised for food, they wouldn't exist...

Why does this keep being put forth as an argument in defence of industrial scale farming?

Its quite clear that it would be better they didn't exist than to be here, destined for slaughter and human consumption.

Agree that no farmer can genuinely care for an animal whose murder they're going to profit from.

I met a lovely elderly farmer once who cared very deeply for all his animals. Always telling me wonderful, funny stories of lambing and calving and of his pet cow Betty who he reared from birth and kept as a pet. Such a character!

We were chatting generally about farming and the highs and lows and how some people think it's cruel to kill the animals he produces.

He said that over the years comments have been made that they would rather see them all happily living in the fields roaming around, He then said to me - what people don't understand is that if farmers didn't breed sheep for meat the only time you'd ever see sheep would be in a zoo" and the fields full of cute spring lambs would be a thing of the past.

I know there's more to it than that but it was just something that always stuck with me x

the fields full of cute spring lambs would be a thing of the past.

That would be a good thing.

It's so easy to spot the pampered city dwellers who don't have the faintest clue about farming on this thread.

I grew up next to a dairy farm. The cows calling for their babies never got less disturbing.

@Norked

the fields full of cute spring lambs would be a thing of the past.

That would be a good thing.

Feeling like that must be a really miserable way to live your life.

The winters are long and hard in hill farming, the thought of seeing the lambs racing round the field in spring is genuinely one of the things that keeps us trudging on outside in the cold rain, snow and 5 hours of daylight in the depths of winter.

@mrstt89

I agree with you OP. The farmers up here use barbaric Larson traps to trap the magpies and crows. All for the purpose of preventing them from eating the pheasant's eggs. Not because they care about the pheasants but because come shooting season some rich wankers will pay him to hunt. Animal lovers my arse.

The control of crows and magpies is for more than just protecting pheasants. There is a reason why songbirds and ground nesting birds do well on shoots, and the removal of prey species is a large part of it. They also benefit from the preservation of woodland and hedgerows and the sowing of cover crops. Some of the best places for wildlife that I know are, ironically, shoots.

I know a lot of people who shoot or who are involved with shooting. Sure, some of them are 'wankers', as with any group of people, and a few of them are 'rich', and a proportion are very comfortable, but a lot of them are builders, or smallholders, or NHS employees, or... So don't drag class warfare into it.

@Norked

the fields full of cute spring lambs would be a thing of the past.

That would be a good thing.

No it would not!

If you are that concerned @Jellykat , contact the WG and RSPCA. Not eating meat is not solving the problem is it?

Farmers have to be in denial. I get it.

Am I correct in saying a cow’s natural life span is about 20 years?

So at what age is a male cow generally sent off for slaughter?

How do you decide which ones are for veal (how long do they getting to live for)? And how long is a cow allowed to live for if you have deemed its existence is for beef?

Is it actually true that a proportion of male calves are sent off for slaughter at 5 DAYS OLD because they are surplus to requirements???

What about dairy cows? How long do they get to live for?

Is it true that dairy cows basically become lame because they are not allowed rest between lactation periods? In which case, they are just slaughtered once they’ve outlived their use?

How do you remove the calves from the mother’s when you are slaughtering them? Must be horrendous.

What about lambs? How long do you let them live for?

@Norked

Farmers have to be in denial. I get it.

reading this thread, it's clearly not the farmers who are in denial.

“I grew up next to a dairy farm. The cows calling for their babies never got less disturbing.”

How awful.