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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How do farmers reconcile themselves to the volumes of animals they send to slaughter over the course of their lifetimes?

999 replies

Empanadas · 15/06/2021 13:44

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?

OP posts:
Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:12

Obviously if you see any animal born in distress you care for it. Anyone would do that. It hardly deserves medal or “look I’m doing all this for no profit.” Confused It’s about as basic as you can get.

OP posts:
lakesummer · 17/06/2021 23:13

I am not a sheep farmer or expert.
I don't want to put myself forward as one. These are personal anecdotes.

But members of my family have had small flocks and in the past also raised orphans from larger flocks.

Raising orphans is a lot of work OP.
You really should watch some basic farming programs.

Scrowy · 17/06/2021 23:15

@Empanadas

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.

They wouldn't have been born if there wasn't an intend purpose for them.

Finally something we can agree on, no we don't see it as optional, despite the fact they won't make us any money. That's what I was trying to say. It's not even a consideration.

If you are volunteering to take them off us, spend your money on the milk and feed they need and pay for them to live out their lives on your London sanctuary we won't say no though.

We might even throw in half a bag of Lamlac gold for you to take with you for luck

Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:18

Why do people think I have a London sheep sanctuary?

How many sheep are you offering?

OP posts:
Scrowy · 17/06/2021 23:20

@Empanadas

Obviously if you see any animal born in distress you care for it. Anyone would do that. It hardly deserves medal or “look I’m doing all this for no profit.” Confused It’s about as basic as you can get.
Born in distress?

They aren't born in distress. They are just born. Some of them their mothers walk off and leave them, some of them their mothers don't have enough milk to feed them, some of them their mothers die, some of them are 'waffy' and have no basic desire to stand up and live.

So we pick them up, put them in a quadbike trailer, take them home, warm them up, feed them, perhaps try to adopt them on to another sheep but if not feed them every few hours by hand through the day and night until they are old enough to eat solids.

And then sell them for no profit or at a loss.

Because it's not just about money.

Scrowy · 17/06/2021 23:21

@Empanadas

Why do people think I have a London sheep sanctuary?

How many sheep are you offering?

How many acres do you have?
Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:21

How many if those orphan ones are you selling and how much?

OP posts:
derxa · 17/06/2021 23:24

@Empanadas

Obviously if you see any animal born in distress you care for it. Anyone would do that. It hardly deserves medal or “look I’m doing all this for no profit.” Confused It’s about as basic as you can get.
You don't even read what people are telling you. Pet lambs are not usually 'born in distress'. I have 3. One was seconds from death after being abandoned by its mother and the other two could not be twinned on. And you say anyone would do that. Of course but you would not know how to. No one is looking for a medal. It's routine animal husbandry.
Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:24

I don’t have any acres Confused

I might know people who do though.

Would you keep them on yourselves indefinitely for the right price?

OP posts:
Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 17/06/2021 23:26

You are wasting your breath with this one. She wants to believe all farmers are evil. Despite us feeding a nation. I’m not a farmer any more. My father worked 18 hours a day, until he turned 60 and died of a heart attack, rounding up sheep. He cared for every single animal in our farm. He used to cry when he lost an animal. I never had a holiday. Never had any money. So OP, please shut the fuck up. You know nothing.

Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:29

“He used to cry when he lost an animal.”

Even the slaughtered ones?

OP posts:
DdraigGoch · 17/06/2021 23:36

The Good Life is another good watch on this subject. Sure, it's fictional but the issues of how Tom and Barbara feel when it is time to send Pinky to the abattoir, what to do with a runt in the litter etc. get good airing. Maintaining soil fertility is in there too - artificial fertilisers are no use in the long run, you need livestock manure to keep producing good crops.

It also teaches you that animals stop producing milk when they haven't been mated recently - a sterile cow/bull would be no use. Worth a watch OP, it's quite educational.

TheHateIsNotGood · 17/06/2021 23:36

Empanadas - it's too late in the year to 'adopt' any 'orphan' lambs, however they became 'orphaned', by now they're munching and growing or dead.

Your concerns regarding how aninals are cared for are clear, your understanding and motives for posting less so.

May I suggest adopting ex-battery chickens, bird feeders or a little pond if you have any outdoor space; or a wormery or fish bowl if you've none at all to get a little bit of animal care knowledge behind your opinions?

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 17/06/2021 23:38

Yes, even the ones that people would eat. To live. I’m sorry if that upsets you but it is reality. People eat meat. It isn’t always nice. That is life and death.

Scrowy · 17/06/2021 23:40

@Empanadas

I don’t have any acres Confused

I might know people who do though.

Would you keep them on yourselves indefinitely for the right price?

No.

Genuinely, even if you paid us above market value to compensate us every year for their costs beyond when we would have normally kept them, no.

Sheep are a flock. Pet lambs aren't part of the flock by dint of their upbringing. The males can't breed as they will have been ringed and the females often carry on the poor motherhood traits led to them ending up in the pet pen in the first place so we wouldn't breed from the, again.

If we can't breed from them then they are then just taking up very very valuable space. Yes we could probably keep one years cohort, once, but no more.

Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:45

How many are in this year’s cohort. The “pet” ones, I mean?

OP posts:
lakesummer · 17/06/2021 23:49

some of them are 'waffy'
I love this description.

OP, the battery hen rescue might be the best idea.
They really have a rubbish life, much worse than Scrowy's sheep.

It is very rewarding to collect a hen often with poor plumage and watch it learn how to peck outside and grow all its feathers in etc ( you would need to get more than one)

Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:52

I can’t take hens as too many cats. I know lots of people who have rescued hens from slaughterhouses though.

OP posts:
Scrowy · 17/06/2021 23:55

@Empanadas

How many are in this year’s cohort. The “pet” ones, I mean?
30ish perhaps.

But they will never be for sale to anyone who thinks that providing good life for a sheep is just about keeping it alive.

Original poster
Empanadas · 17/06/2021 23:58

We take pregnant cats from the refuge and we rehome them and /or the kittens with friends and people locally.

OP posts:
Original poster
Empanadas · 18/06/2021 00:04

“But they will never be for sale to anyone who thinks that providing good life for a sheep is just about keeping it alive.”

Since when was “a good life” defined as a bit of silage for a few months and then slaughter?

A good life for any animal is to live it’s natural life with human care as necessary. If and when they become ill or old, you can put them to sleep.

OP posts:
LemonSwan · 18/06/2021 00:05

I know the threads moved on, but back to the original question:

I think they just understand lifes systems. I was on a thread about seaspiracy & people were talking about cowspiracy; I said god wait till cropspiracy and we will all be eating beetles.

Obviously everyone was highly offended and so I couldnt be bothered to explain the ins and outs. To put it bluntly we have 100 crops on average left before top soil is depleted for good worldwide (thats 50 years as two crops a year on commercial farms). At that statistic is a couple of years old if not half a decade.

The only way to live sustainably on this planet is to take a little of everything, waste nothing and facilitate the circle of life. Circulate livestock and crop on rotation, grind those fish bones for fertiliser and stop importing advocados.

Scrowy · 18/06/2021 00:13

The only way to live sustainably on this planet is to take a little of everything, waste nothing and facilitate the circle of life. Circulate livestock and crop on rotation, grind those fish bones for fertiliser and stop importing advocados

I agree

TheHateIsNotGood · 18/06/2021 00:18

Empanadas - hopefully you make sure your 'rescue' cats wear bells so they don't kill too many wild birds - or do you cage them or always keep them indoors like zoo animals - a questionable animal care practice by most standards.

LemonSwan · 18/06/2021 00:26

@Scrowy

Sad about the stop importing advocados and by extension mangos. Fucking love a mango!

But it is true