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?

The problem is you’re saying “we need to change” without knowing WHAT you’re changing (you keep seeing farming as one practice) and what you’re changing to. And you’re asking farmers when we’re one part of the whole market - consumers drive the market, supermarkets do too.

We’ve answered your query on “how do you reconcile raising and killing animals”, now we’re into “what’s the future of farming”. Which I worry is small farmers being driven out by low prices and farms being acquired by corporates and something like the dangerous and gross US model. Which is the opposite of what you want, but you keep demonising “farmers” when they could be your allies.

Now to vegan, ethical and green farming - there is no perfect solution that supports the UK, our climate does not even support a fraction of the UK, our land can’t all be arable and what it grows couldn’t give you a slither of a decent diet. Well we could outsource a lot of it to other countries but we’d lose oversight (as with slavery in Italy) and be taking their resources, it gets a bit “empire-y” if we were basically looking for land elsewhere that could support us. And it wouldn’t be green or cheap.

These kind of arguments suggest you don't believe in bothering with change. Why bother changing even any thing if you point out everything else that is wrong.

It's a matter of hypocrisy, though. One person living in the west sees living in a brick building and using a plumbed-in toilet, when plenty of people in the world manage with small eco-friendly mud huts and holes in the ground for their waste, as their inalienable right and says "Well, of course I wouldn't think of sacrificing that aspect of my lifestyle" but then they see the lifestyle of somebody who eats meat and/or dairy products and starts preaching to them about how terrible and selfish their choices are.

It's the easiest thing in the world to tell other people they should stop doing what you choose not to do, but then accuse them of whataboutery and accuse them of not caring about making any (believed) positive changes when they highlight something that you consider an essential/pleasurable part of your life and have no intentions on compromising on.

As an English speaker, I could get a bee in my bonnet about the enormous amount of the planet's resources that are consumed to print books in Chinese and Spanish and demand they all simply be ceased forthwith; yet simultaneously throw my arms up in horror at the slightest suggestion that my (English-language) books should be threatened. That would still be ridiculous.

@Lessthanaballpark

They’re not running a charity and if they can’t make money on the animals there won’t be any more.

Imagine if we applied that logic to humans.

looking at the state of the NHS, and the complete disregard from the West towards the rest of the world,

we already are.

Brilliant summary from WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

This argument about killing plants or vegetables - talk about clutching at straws. . I can’t even bring myself to engage with that “argument” I’m afraid.

People will make their own decisions. If someone chooses to cut out meat, why is it then assumed that they have to be holier-than-thou militant types and be held to impossible standards and nonsense statements such as, “Well don’t drive on the roads then because that was once an animal habitat.” This type of argument is so defensive as to be utter nonsense. Nobody can be expected to live in a way that is “perfect.” But, if people decide, based on the information they have, that they’re going to cut out chicken, for instance, well good for them. It doesn’t mean they’re hypocrites if they don’t “go the whole hog” and avoid all meat and fish and, for that matter, grain in case any wildlife were harmed in that production. I find people who make these extreme points very peculiar. I mean most humans don’t eat dogs or horses, but they might eat pork, for instance. Are they militants? Of course not. It’s a very personal thing and it’s just about where you draw the line. Some people might cut out one type of meat. Some people might cut out all meat, but still eat fish. Others make different decisions.

@Empanadas - you must be trolling. I can't believe anyone who is literate could be this dump. You didn't come here to "be educated". You came here to provoke people into giving you some upset comments so you can run around among your circle of bigots where you constantly re-affirm yourselves on how meat producers and meat eaters are horrible and aggressive, because they get pissed off when someone is asking what really is dumb questions that could be found anywhere on the internet. And frankly, if you really mean those questions, on agriculture in general, you probably never even had a potted flower to take care of.

Have you even read the thread?

@Backstreetsbackalrightdadada - A choice isn’t a choice if it involves a victim no because that’s like saying it’s ok if a man rapes a woman because that was his choice, it doesn’t make it morally acceptable, the rights of animals/humans are taken away when you choose to make immoral decisions.

@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.

Thanks Backstreetsback, I actually think this has helped me re-consider my choice to eat meat for a few years after 13 years as a pescatarian. I think I will go back to that diet for now.

I get that some people don't like it, but this kind of thread just shows how little people understand the issues.
Livestock have been an integral part of maintaining soil health for thousands of years. Modern farming methods (monocrops, digging up hedgerows, artificial fertilisers in place of manure) are causing soil degradation, and many farms are now close to soil collapse.

There are 7 billion people on this planet and they all need feeding. Monocrops and artificial fertilisers are not a sustainable way of producing that food. The soil is depleted of minerals, so our food is not as nutritious as we expect.
Artificial fertilisers don't add vegetable waste, so topsoil is blown away by the wind and not replaced. Add the issue of increasing salination and we are reaching crisis point.
Thats before we look at the fact that people also need clothes to wear and the choices are between vegetable fibres or plastic.

Importing foods that are grown as monocrops is ecologically damaging. And not everyone can eat a carb based diet anyway.

Face up to it; there is no perfect diet of lifestyle and we each have to make our own choices.

Yes I’m off now. To mingle with my “circle of bigots” - a.k.a those terrible militant mums of Putney / Barnes. Or those other well-known extremists in the ballet class. Those are the ones you have to watch.

What about pets OP? Presumably you want to ban keeping pets too? After all, being put down by a vet when sick is no different to the animal that being killed for meat - just as stressful for them. I would suggest you need to learn about what animals actually feel and need, rather than what you think they feel and need.

“After all, being put down by a vet when sick is no different to the animal that being killed for meat “

Did I just read that?

The animals were raised for food. What is the problem?

@GorekyPark

I also think most consumers really never think “this was a living being, as much as I am, with feelings and friends and memories”

We don't, because that's bullshit. Chickens don't have feelings and friends and memories just like me or you.

Chickens do have friendships, given half a chance, and they have feelings. I can understand why that's an unpalatable truth for anyone who eats chickens. It's not nice to think they are miserable and stressed in their living conditions or that they experience fear and pain at point of slaughter. There's plenty of evidence for animals and birds having intra and inter species friendships. And they certainly have memories, how could we teach them anything if they didn't? Of course it's much easier to eat something that you believe doesn't have any similarity to you.

@Throckmorton

What about pets OP? Presumably you want to ban keeping pets too? After all, being put down by a vet when sick is no different to the animal that being killed for meat - just as stressful for them. I would suggest you need to learn about what animals actually feel and need, rather than what you think they feel and need.

This is all I have to say to this post

Thanks Backstreetsback, I actually think this has helped me re-consider my choice to eat meat for a few years after 13 years as a pescatarian. I think I will go back to that diet for now.

Why is it OK to eat fish if you think it's bad to eat mammals? Especially given the horrendous environmental impact of over-fishing.

Why is it OK to eat fish if you think it's bad to eat mammals? Especially given the horrendous environmental impact of over-fishing.

And the amount of soy used for fish feed in farmed systems.

@Throckmorton

What about pets OP? Presumably you want to ban keeping pets too? After all, being put down by a vet when sick is no different to the animal that being killed for meat - just as stressful for them. I would suggest you need to learn about what animals actually feel and need, rather than what you think they feel and need.

I'm not currently veggie/vegan but it is very different Throckmorton.

Pets are put down because they are suffering and ill. They are given sedation and usually held or cuddled whilst injected with a painless solution.

Animals raised for meat are killed prematurely and sometimes in situations that scare them.

Hasn't this changed? Aren't the majority of male dairy calves in the UK now raised for beef (though as others have said, it's a smaller number due to sexed semen).

I don’t live in the UK, I’m in Australia. This wasn’t recent but I used to spend a lot of time at a family members farm but my understanding is nothings changed for us here, could be wrong. Also watched on a few occasions as a beef cow or sheep (they kept a couple for household consumption) was cleanly killed on farm, then afterwards hung to bleed on a pulley. After a few days a butcher would come take the carcass and then deliver it back chopped up into cuts, for a fee of course. It was also standard practice to grab a chook when one was required for cooking. There was a hatchet type thing built into the fence for chopping the head off and a hook to hang it to bleed before dressing it. I buy meat from the supermarket but am not blind to the source.

@Empanadas what would you like to happen to the existing herds? Ours would all havd to be put down immediately if farming for food wasn't allowed as the cost of keeping them even for grazing would cripple us.
What would the preferred thing to happen to all this land? I'm thinking Highlands, North of Inverness. Predominantly farming country. Not really any other jobs, online industries not particularly viable. Crop farming not viable due to climate.
Not justifying either argument. Genuine interest here.

@Empanadas

“After all, being put down by a vet when sick is no different to the animal that being killed for meat “

Did I just read that?

Can you imagine if people took their pets to the vet to be put to sleep and they were slaughtered like a farm animal? Who actually thinks that happens?