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?

Humans have a very multifaceted relationship with other animals.

There aren't just pets and livestock.

There is also wildlife. Some of this wildlife is very heavily protected, it is a crime to disturb its habitat in anyway let alone the animal itself.

Some wildlife is considered vermin and can be actively exterminated.
Large amounts of insect life are actively destroyed during arable farming, likewise rabbits.

Mice and rats are destroyed if they enter human homes in urban or rural settings, likewise flies.

Gardeners often destroy large amounts of some animals such as slugs but create bird baths.

It is a very unusual approach to not destroy any animal life although some groups such as Jains do promote this.
It would be exceptionally challenging for all of mankind to live this way, I would suspect actually impossible.

Anything else would involve some levels of compromise and each individual has the ability to set their own compromises within the law of the land they live in according to their beliefs.

I am an equal opportunities animal killer - foxes, deer, cute rabbits, mice, rats, spiders, covid virus, lice - happy if any of them are killed, ideally in a way where they don't feel too much pain for too long.

No we do NOT own animals. The fact any animal exists, as a species, means it has as much right to exist as any human.
I'll try walking into a pride of lions and reminding them that I've got just as much right to exist as they do so they mustn't eat me.

I'll do it just as soon as I can get an appointment with a solicitor to write my will.

My cat is my property, legally and practically.
I'm not so sure about that - what's the saying? "Dogs have owners, cats have staff"

@DdraigGoch

My cat is my property, legally and practically. I'm not so sure about that - what's the saying? "Dogs have owners, cats have staff"

You're not wrong!

There is also the issue of culling.
Usually done for the benefit of an indigenous species such as red squirrels
Or the ecosystem as a whole as in deer in Scotland or the culled animal population itself.
There are many examples of humans having accidentally messed up an ecosystem trying to repair the damage by removing the invader species.

Some people get very upset at the idea of mass killings, others very upset that action might not be taken to protect vulnerable native species.

She gave Jeremy a ewe to shear but it kicked him in the balls so that was the end of that.
I've seen a rampaging ewe (who didn't fancy being sheared) knock over a very large man. We did consider putting her forward for the next England rugby squad.

I’m chief staff to 4 of them in this house . My shift starts at 4am.

[quote Kumonkumon]@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman sorry if you felt patronised...In terms of venison, actually i agree with you, eating game that has been hunted is better than eating factory farmed chickens.[/quote]
Apology unexpected but accepted, thank you.
Tried to post this earlier but the internet refused play ball.

@SupermanTonight

Farmers are a different species, I’m sure of it, even from meat eaters. Very hard, very cold, very detached. And they always say they are doing the right thing, feeding everyone. And they always ‘care’ for their animals. You’ll never meet a poor farmer, but they’ll all tell you there’s no money in it. 🙄

Do read through the bloody thread and you will find plenty of posts which show that there are plenty of good farmers who do care about the welfare of their stock. So kindly take your blind prejudice elsewhere

And there are plenty of livestock farmers struggling to make ends meet against the penny-pinching supermarkets. You're another one who could do with watching Clarkson's farm - a good idiot's guide to agriculture. The discussion he has with his land agent about the costs of keeping sheep is very enlightening.

I think farmers could seem to some to be a different species, because they are very pragmatic. Pragmatic is different to cold or detached.

That doesn't mean to say they do not care about their livestock, or care for their livestock. However, I don't think you can be a sentimental bag of waterworks and be a farmer, it's just not tenable.

In the case of beef, the planet can’t sustain the rainforests being chopped down for gazing land and the methane production.
I should point out that virtually all beef cattle reared in the UK - and in the US - mostly consume food inedible to humans. They up-cycle grass into top-quality protein, they eat brewers grains, they eat the husks and stalks left over from various forms of grain production.

Methane, it is true, is a potent greenhouse gas, but it cycles through the system very quickly. It's also worth bearing in mind that there have always been large numbers of large ruminants producing methane, and that much of the methane currently released is from rice production and also from degraded peat (e.g. the Fens, which produce a lot of vegetables). Nothing changes the fact that the climate crisis is mostly there result of burning fossil fuels.

No we do NOT own animals. The fact any animal exists, as a species, means it has as much right to exist as any human.
That is an ethical belief, not a statement of fact. I don't think I own the wild animals that choose to hang out in my garden. I do own my dogs. I take responsibility for them precisely because I own them. The days in the UK of the local dogs wandering around the streets all day, and possibly changing the house they returned to at night because they felt like it, are long gone.

Besides, where do you draw the line on the right to exist? Headlice? Fleas? Ticks? Rats? The flock of 200 wood pigeons that descends on the pea crop? If we didn't kill animals - either directly by culling them before they eat everything we've been trying to grow, or indirectly by completely depriving them of habitat by sealing it all up in polytunnels or producing it in vats in large factories that use up a substantial acreage - people would starve. It's one reason there is so much hunger in so many countries: the crop is lost not just due to droughts or floods or poor soils, but because it's eaten before harvest, or eaten after harvest, by vast numbers of insects, birds and mammals.

I suppose deciding that nobody must kill any animal, ever, anywhere, would rapidly solve the human over-population crisis, but you'd be indirectly killing billions of people if you did that.

@SupermanTonight You clearly don’t know many farmers. Those who own their farms are quite often asset rich but cash poor. The last farm I worked for was owned by a multi millionaire, their overdraft was in the millions. Banks don’t mind because it’s secured against the land. As you see on Jeremy Clarksons show, he made £144 farming 1,000 acres. For all that effort.

You’ll never meet a poor farmer
I used to work in an agriculture-related job.
I was privy to the incomes of a number of hill farmers.
I used to wonder how the fuck the poor sods survived, even after they had been paid the various subsidies to which they were entitled, and you allowed for the fact that the family vehicle and various other purchases went through the farm books and didn't come out of the farm profits, such as they were.

This was the 80s and I'd just graduated after benefitting from a student loan of about £2k. It was hard to manage on that, and I had to work in the summer holidays etc. The take-home of some hill farmers with young children was about £4k.

Very hard, very cold, very detached.
And I take it you've never had a farmer show you the photos of the sheep they had to have PTS after a dog attack? Ears ripped off, legs bitten to the bone etc, and the whole farming family distressed at the agonies their animals had suffered.

I stick to my point that some animals are treated like slaves. Birds in the garden are free to do what they want and go where they want, as with wildlife. Other animals are kept in small cages, their calf’s taken away as soon as they are born when the mothers don’t want this to happen. Pigs and chickens kept in such small cages they can’t turn around. They don’t have free will, they can’t choose not to have that life, they live a life of hell before they are even taken to be killed. We use them for our gain and they don’t have a voice to say no. That is a slave.

Do read through the bloody thread and you will find plenty of posts which show that there are plenty of good farmers who do care about the welfare of their stock. So kindly take your blind prejudice elsewhere

Read the thread. I knew they all ‘cared’ about their animals. They always do. 🙄 Not blind prejudice, I wish it was.

That doesn't mean to say they do not care about their livestock, or care for their livestock.

Oh they care. They equal money after all.

@Iheartbaby battery farming is illegal in the UK, as are sow stalls. If you are going to criticise farmers try and use actual facts rather than old pictures you’ve seen on the PETA website.

And I take it you've never had a farmer show you the photos of the sheep they had to have PTS after a dog attack? Ears ripped off, legs bitten to the bone etc, and the whole farming family distressed at the agonies their animals had suffered.

Yes, my farming family were very upset at their loss of cash.

[quote 21Flora]@Iheartbaby battery farming is illegal in the UK, as are sow stalls. If you are going to criticise farmers try and use actual facts rather than old pictures you’ve seen on the PETA website.[/quote]
And your point is? Just because it doesn’t happen in this country doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in other places.

You’ll never meet a poor farmer

This is total rubbish.
I grew up amongst tenants farmers. The hill farmers were constantly at risk of bankruptcy and there are very few farms still operating in that area.

The dairy farmers struggled with widely varying milk prices, I think all dairy farming has ended where I grew up.

Small farms have taken an absolute battering and none of these families were wealthy. Most had the women working outside the home to bring in an income they could live off.

No one could buy their farm even if they had the money so had no way of building assets.

I'm in my 40's so we aren't talking that long ago.

And there are plenty of livestock farmers struggling to make ends meet against the penny-pinching supermarkets.

Aw, is exploiting animals not making them a good living. Poor babies.

Well hang on, first you were saying, 'you will never meet a poor farmer', and now you're saying 'aw, is exploiting animals not making them a good living'.

A bit of a contradiction, don't you think?