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?

These are my pet lamb friends from this year. They are all the lambs that couldn't stay with their mothers for a number of reasons.

They are all around 10 weeks old.

They have so far cost us more than we would make from them if we sold them now.

By the time we sell them we will probably break even from them, but only if we don't count the physical labour involved in keeping them alive and fed. We break even if we only count the cost of their food.

If we only cared about money, and included our time as a 'cost' then farmers wouldn't keep 'pet lambs' as they are basically a waste of time and money.

Yet here they are. Alive. Happy. Losing money. Cared for.

Because most farmers can't bear to waste a life once it's born, even if it doesn't make a profit. Yes the lambs might not live until they are old toothless starving sheep with their eyes pecked out by crows, but they have a great life with us until their time is up.

So are you selling them or not Scrowy?

It isn't about telling yourself that you are one of the good ones, whatever that means in practice.

It is about not being self righteous and casting judgements on others.

Accepting that you, like others, cause damage and like many others are trying to minimize this.

Focusing on yourself and your behavior. Not criticizing things you know painfully little about while maintaining a rigid fundamentalist certainty of your own rectitude.

'Cry your squirrels tears by all means, but don’t try and tar farmers with being cruel. Most farmers are born into farming. They are good people trying to make a living'

Haven't rtft but by the very nature of their job rearing animals for slaughter they are cruel. I couldn't imagine wtf possesses them to pack off a load of helpless animals for long journeys ending in their slaughter. Nice way to make a living .

Sorry if I’ve misunderstood the post above, but what is the point of reading and then slaughtering those beautiful creatures above just to “break even?” You could just do nothing and save yourself the effort and the inevitable terror for those creatures?

•rearing, not reading.

'Because most farmers can't bear to waste a life once it's born'

God no, think of the ££!

@Empanadas

So are you selling them or not Scrowy?

I give up

'By the time we sell them we will probably break even from them, but only if we don't count the physical labour involved in keeping them alive and fed. We break even if we only count the cost of their food'

As the op has said, why bother then?

'Pet lamb friends'. Jesus. Until it's time for slaughter..

'Because most farmers can't bear to waste a life once it's born'

What does this even mean? That an animals life is “wasted” money isn’t made from its death?

Or does it mean, they can’t bear to waste its life now, seeing as no ££ will even come if that anyway?

“I give up hmm”

You give up????

This is insane.

It doesn’t take ‘a certain sort of person’. Farming is a way of life, often passed down through generations. Go and talk to those in the farming community and ask them?

Yes these ones will all probably go around Christmas time or early 2022. They will be in the barn they are in now until we have silage and then they will be put out to the fog grass (the sweet shoots that appear after the crop has been taken).

It's a nice life.

Out of the other 1800 lambs we had born in their cohort this year

600ish female 'mule' lambs will be sold in the autumn NEMSA sales as breeding gimmers - they will live out their lives on other farms throughout the UK breeding butchers lambs

Another 600ish male 'mule' lambs will go to slaughter between August and February

200ish female 'swaledale' lambs will stay on our farm to become the replacements for our breeding ewes in 2 years time. They will live out their entire lives on the fells around our farm.

200ish male 'swaledale' lambs will go for slaughter between August and February. We may keep one or two very good ones to sell / breed from.

We also have a dozen purebred blue faced Leicester sheep that produce pure BFL lambs each year. They all get kept/sold for breeding.

All of the above 2021 lambs were lambed outside, and whilst they are with us will live outside on pasture or open fell for their whole lives.

@Empanadas

Sorry if I’ve misunderstood the post above, but what is the point of reading and then slaughtering those beautiful creatures above just to “break even?” You could just do nothing and save yourself the effort and the inevitable terror for those creatures?

Ah, so if a lamb has been rejected by its mother, you think that it should be left to its own devices? Starvation isn't a very pleasant way to go.

Where does it say they’ve been rejected by their mother’s?

I’m sorry, I have no worlds to describe how utterly appalling this is.

@Empanadas that’s what a pet lamb is, a lamb abandoned by its mother. They can also be known as orphans or cade lambs

They are all the lambs that couldn't stay with their mothers

This is what I mean about not pontificating about stuff you know nothing about.

What reasons do you imagine there are for having to hand rear a lamb?

Would you prefer they just starved?

@JaniieJones

'By the time we sell them we will probably break even from them, but only if we don't count the physical labour involved in keeping them alive and fed. We break even if we only count the cost of their food'

As the op has said, why bother then?

'Pet lamb friends'. Jesus. Until it's time for slaughter..

Because it's a life, often one we helped bring into the world. Why wouldn't you see that through until they reach the purpose they were born for?

If it was just about money then why not knock them on the head at birth? That's what a heartless, money obsessed, profit driven gar, would do right?

Except they don't. They spend money they can't really afford keeping them alive, because they care, because it's good stockmanship and it would be a waste of a life.

We can disagree as much as you like about what that means but I'm glad they get a chance of life, sun on their backs, racing around with their mates than they got culled at birth because they aren't profitable.

They are friendly in the sense they know humans = food and they are funny collectively and every year when they go I am both sad but glad that that part of the year is over. Every now and then we have one of them for the freezer for ourselves and they always taste very nice too.

I think they are desensitized, I also think as humans we are wilfully ignorant.
It's why the whole planet is being messed up unfortunately, if you can't see it happen in front of you you can pretend it doesn't exist.

I literally have no words.

@Empanadas

I literally have no words.

And yet your DH and two of your children eat meat

@Empanadas

I literally have no words.

That's because hyperbole can only take you so far unfortunately.

Real, lived passion for farming and selling good quality, well reared high welfare stock. I'm not sure I could ever run out of words to tell people about my pride in doing that.

You are proud of yourselves because you didn’t “knock them in the head at birth.”

Is this actually for real?

Of course you bloody well feed animals, orphan or not! Christ almighty. Do you see this as optional?

“Purpose they were born for?” No, the purpose you have decided for them.

The lambs I have known been hand reared have either,
Been rejected by mother.
Some sheep just don't take to motherhood, particularly the first time around.

Been one of a triplet and there hasn't been the milk or mother hasn't accepted third.

Has been too poorly to feed by itself.

Or occasionally mother has died.

Sometimes the lamb can be given to another sheep particularly if they have lost a lamb.
Sometimes you have to bring it inside and stick it beside a range to warm up.
Sometimes there are no surrogate sheep available.
Then you have to hand rear or watch the animal die pointlessly.

I actually think that when people lived in closer proximity to the land there was more acceptance and understanding of farming and less of the emotional distress exhibited by OP.

And have zero idea that sometimes lambs are rejected by their mothers. Or a ewe with triplets can only feed two.