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 am old enough to remember seeing beef and dairy farmers crying their eyes out at having to destroy their animals due to the foot and mouth outbreak. Big burly people in bits. Not due to the lack of income (they were compensated) but due to losing animals they cared for before their time was due.

Absolutely. Ireland had a F&M outbreak in 2001. It impacted everyone, as we're a small country with lots of connection between urban & rural living. So restrictions applied to the cities as well as countryside.

It was devastating to see the effect on farmers, watching their livestock being killed.

Some of these posts are ridiculous. Criticising people for not having directly killed animals themselves, for example. I eat meat. No I wouldn't want to kill an animal. I'm fine with that - there are many jobs I couldn't or wouldn't want to do.

@Norked

Farmers have to be in denial. I get it.

I know a farmer who has sheep and cattle. And I know that, for him and his wife, sending animals for slaughter (captive bolt stunning, all of that, to make it as painless as possible for the animal) is very, very different from having to call the vet to PTS sheep ripped to shreds by a dog and left in agony overnight, or a bullock terribly injured by litter left by lockdown picnickers.

@Empanadas we have a 14 yr old ewe on our small holding. Since the age of 2 she bore twins until the age of 8. She’s happy, healthy, has teeth so can forage, hand feeds and loves live albeit old.

So are you saying farmers don’t care?

And lambs can live for any age, depending on what the farmer does with them.

What a strange way to justify involvement in mass slaughter though. “Oh it’s not as bad as being ripped apart or choking on litter....” As if that’s the only alternative.

@Lolalovesmarmite

I am a sheep farmer and I care deeply about the welfare of my animals. For somebody to suggest otherwise is insulting and just plain wrong. The world is a nasty, brutal place and, in comparison to what a lot of animals go through in the wild, farmed animals are treated very well. My sheep spend all but 6 weeks of the year outside, they have enough to eat and veterinary treatment when it’s needed. They are never left to starve or suffer which, sadly, is better than can be said for people in some areas of the world. My land would not be suitable for arable crops and we are constantly seeking to enhance the biodiversity on the farm.

Yes, I agree that factory farming, especially of poultry, is horrible but that is driven by the demand for cheap meat. I personally believe that everybody should be eating less meat of better quality. I don’t want to intensively rear lots of stock for barely any profit per animal, I’d much rather raise fewer, do it better and make a fair price. You don’t need to eat meat every day, you can buy locally and ethically, spend a bit more and eat it once or twice a week.

Slaughtering animals is not nice, but it’s part of life. Animals don’t ‘think’ in the way that we do so humanising them in the way that vegans do simply isn’t accurate. Yes they feel fear, but they don’t anticipate and most of them don’t understand death. If a lamb dies in the field, the ewe may hang around for a few hours and call for it but she won’t grieve or remember. We took a lamb off a ewe this year because she didn’t have enough milk and two weeks later she didn’t recognise the lamb. They aren’t human. The humane way to manage livestock is to ensure that their needs are met and that they are not stressed. That’s something that vegans demonstrating outside abattoirs should bear in mind, I’ve seen people left in tears after being targeted by vegans at abattoirs. Not because of the demonstration but because the vegans insisted on sticking hands, phones etc inside trailers and causing the animals severe stress. No farmer wants to see their animals suffer.

Excellent post.

They just have different values. I suspect there's things you do or views you hold that others find abhorrent. Doesn't necessarily make you wrong,va bad person or something that needs reconciliation.

MrsDThomas - in relation to lambs, I was asking what is the “optimum” or typical age that they are slaughtered?

How do farmers decide which lambs to slaughter and which to keep on (if any)?

@DdraigGoch

Surely that land can be used to grow crops and feed even more humans. *@Lemming20* Do pop up here to Wales and tell the hill farmers how they can get a viable crop out of mountainside.

Whenever I hear phrases like "why can't they just...", I know that the remainder of the sentence will be ill-informed drivel.

Ditto for vast swathes of Scotland.

It's clear that people who post things like this are thinking of the rolling hills of Oxfordshire or the flatness of East Anglia when they envision wheat or barley growing all over the mountains.

Also want to know why the beef industry is being targeted by OP. Don't the ickle iwckle piggie wiggies count?

On a side note - if you're a knitter/crocheter, or just a shopper for clothes, support the British wool industry by buying wool. Acrylic is cheaper yes but way inferior and has a shocking environmental impact too.

We don’t send ours to slaughter. We send them to stores. Another farmer buys them on sale day and takes them home to fatten up or selects a few for breeding. They are sent at around 6-8 months.

They are selected by size.

“We don’t send ours to slaughter. We send them to stores. Another farmer buys them on sale day and takes them home to fatten up or selects a few for breeding. They are sent at around 6-8 months.”

Aren’t you concerned they could be being “fattened up” in appalling conditions? Any type of farmer could buy them presumably?

So you send them to this market at 6-8 months but, once purchased, how long would the “fattening period” (sounds delightful) be after that? Do they generally make it to a year old, for instance?

Empanadas why would you put a list of questions out when you could easily Google and find those answers? How lazy.

I think there are many variables. I used to visit a dairy farm frequently and in calving season a truck turned up each morning and any male calves born since the trucks departure the day before would be handed over. It was a quick rubber mallet to the head. I think they got turned into processed meat roll for pets or similar. Maybe not all dairy farmers have such a system and some keep them for longer? Male chicks get macerated/gassed on hatching yet many vegetarians eat eggs.

In days gone by hunters used to work together to drive mammoths off cliffs. Can’t imagine that would have been nice for the mammoth especially if it survived the fall but was badly hurt and had to lay until they came to finish it off. Essentially we are meat eating animals, we were not designed to be vegetarian/vegan. Animal husbandry, raising animals for meat/food has been going on since the Stone Age.

If we all stopped eating meat, petting farms would probably still exist because people will want their children to see and feed lambs etc.

However, once those lambs are older, the farmer isn’t going to have room for all the sheep and they will end up being culled anyway!

They kill calves at one day old? As a matter of routine? With a mallet?

Empanadas why would you put a list of questions out when you could easily Google and find those answers? How lazy.

Because @HoppingPavlova that would remove her ability to evangelise and throw her hands up at the horror of it all and make another wee passive aggressive dig about the "sort of people" who eat meat.

@Empanadas not at all. Farmers in markets know each other. Its very local. You know who is buying.

Lots of times we sell to a farmer privately. He comes, pays, paperwork. Done

a male cow

🤦🏻‍♀️

There's no limit to the OP's ignorance - you can't even get the basic terminology correct.

I think farmers on this thread have been remarkably restrained in their responses when you lack basic biological knowledge, or facts about farming.

You are entirely entitled to your views. But perhaps before you go starting threads railing against a community and profession, you might at least get the facts straight.

Some posters have called me ignorant so, ok, I’m asking you questions so you can educate me then? That’s why I’m asking. At least MrsDThomas answers questions in a meaningful way (Thankyou for that). Its interesting how the “you are a thick” type of poster tend to go quiet when asked about specifics.

@Empanadas

MrsDThomas - in relation to lambs, I was asking what is the “optimum” or typical age that they are slaughtered?

How do farmers decide which lambs to slaughter and which to keep on (if any)?

Where I grew up in NZ lambs were sent to the works/market at 8-9 months.That’s about 45-50kg.

Some posters have called me ignorant so, ok, I’m asking you questions so you can educate me then?

Most of your questions haven’t been asked in good faith. Those that have (or at least I took them that way - such as the one on ‘just get rid of beef farming’) you seem to prefer to ignore any attempts to respond in good faith.

Recently I discovered some “animal rights activists” had sat on pictures, videos and evidence of animal suffering for five years in order to create the maximum shock effect.

I can add to that. Since 1975ish PETA and other anti vivisection activists have used pictures of a man who they claim is a scientist causing incalculable cruelty to animals, in labs here in the UK, right now, this year!

Except he was a vet, in labs to check conditions, responsible for closing many of them down, before his untimely death in 1989. Father of a close friend. And PETA etc are fully aware of this! I have told them so every time I see the leaflets with his picture on them. Last time was in 2017!

Which is why I am quite vociferous every time I see someon use PETA etc as a ninfornation source. I know they lie, and they lie BIG!

They kill calves at one day old? As a matter of routine? With a mallet?

Well, yes. Given they are male dairy calves what would you do with them? No point raising them for meat as they are not beef cattle. Sitting them in a paddock to eat pasture and watch rainbows is a loss no one could afford. The options are very limited. Personally I was impressed as it was done in one blow, swift, painless and meant the calf was not subject to the trauma of being separated from the cow for more than an extremely short period in which they were gathered for the trucks arrival, were not subject to stress of being transported, handled etc. That’s the reality if we want to drink milk, eat butter, eat meat, eat eggs etc. The majority of people do want this as we are an omnivorous animal ourselves and from the dawn of time have killed animals for food. No point bleating on about it otherwise.

@Empanadas

Some posters have called me ignorant so, ok, I’m asking you questions so you can educate me then? That’s why I’m asking. At least MrsDThomas answers questions in a meaningful way (Thankyou for that). Its interesting how the “you are a thick” type of poster tend to go quiet when asked about specifics.

Much of what you are pretending to need answers to is easily available on Google. I wouldn't say 'thick' - that is your pretence, Disingenuous, at best!

To be honest, when you Google questions such as I have posed, it gets very distressing. Pictures of dairy cows that have collapsed; all sorts of horror and utter misery. So if people on here claim to know better, I’d like to hear about it. Maybe it’s not the norm for male calves to be killed at birth? I mean, how routine is this? Same with male chicks? You can get a different perspective maybe from talking to people than you can from internet sites. That’s what I was hoping, I suppose.