People who live near farms does it upset you when the animals disapear to become burgers and I am townie that needs to toughen up,

[twinsetandpearls]

We have a field of cows that live at the end of the garden. Thet come to see us every day, we chat to them , dd dances for them and we feed them. The cats run around in their field and the dog has done an elaborate escape act to hang out with them.

They are now gone, dp said they were herded up and taken away, I imagine to be slaughtered. I miss them, dd has given me a good talking too about how they were meant for meat and new ones will be coming

How long does it take to get used to seeing animals as food? ,

Yes, of course, the forests.

We'd just have more crops, though. Wouldn't return to forest. Although if there were more forest we could bring back boar and wolves. Wolves would keep down the deer population. Now look what man did to the delicate eco system there.

I should say woods. A forest tecnhically being a royal hunting ground and doesn't have to contain trees.

lol @ your technical definition of forest. I didn't know that

x post

A lot of places though are inacessible for arable farming.

I don't know much thats useful

I guess we could reintroduce wolves. Could be interesting.

I don't know enough about it to write with any authority. Bronze is correct about it being man made. Farmers are preserving the national parks for us as we know them. Sheep do the job well and it has worked for generations. Farmers keep them for food, they aren't going to let them die of old age and bury them! If you start introducing animals that are not natives you get all sorts of problems.

yes, which is why sheep were plonked there. Obviously sheep farmers would go out of business if there were no sheep and our mountains would be barren, instead of barren and sheepy. But I don't see that as a big deal.

boar and wolves were native.

We could do without sheep, I know we could.

Do farmers just preserve national parks by keeping sheep?

Apparently sheep have been in the Lake District since the Vikings.

All those lovely dry stone walls and the like are there because of farming. If we take away the farming yes it goes back to nature but a lot of these places would lose their appeal. It would do major things to local and national economy and a lot more people than just farmers would be out of jobs.

Anyway.

To get back to the point, we can keep sheep. It is very very hard for man to mistreat sheep, you know. Quite a lot of lambs die from cold and hunger out on the hills so neglect can be a problem, but then they will ive in such inaccessible areas as we have discussed.

But sheep always live outdoors, which is Good. And they are tough beasts - scientists have been unable to make sheep give birth more than once a year so they do not have a particularly high value.

We can keep sheep and sleep easy

You;re being vague, bronze

I think you need to take great care before you change the ecology of a place.this page shows the relationship between sheep and the fells.

I have no truck with sheep and sheep farming.

We're channelling, AbbeyA...

They are hoping to bring in wolves near where my father in law lives in Scotland. Deer are the big problem up there--they eat the young saplings and the squirrels are then threatened.

I believe beavers have already been re-introduced.

I am a bit lost here-can we only keep tough animals who live outdoor all year around?

I have started to get all my meat from a farm shop so that I know where it comes from. You drive in and the hens are wandering around the car park. You can see the pigs and the ducks.They are having a happy open air life. I see nothing wrong with then eating them.

It sounds a lot better than the lives of many humans. And at least the death they experience at the end is quicker than some of us will endure.

This is getting morbid...

Soem guy in Scotland was hoping to bring back wolves and thelike. Only problem was he was having to fence them off.

Anyone see that? It was called the real monarch of the glen. I only watched the first one as the bloke got on my tits.

No ,abbey. The only thing I'm interested in is that farm animals are not cruelly mistreated. I eat meat and I plan to continue eating meat. It should be well-farmed. Sheep are generally well-kept animals.

The countryside isn't some sort of sanitised theme park! It is a working environment with close ties to nature. Nature is cruel. Farming is humane-much better than going out and shooting one of these 'tough' animals!

yes, I've heard about reintroduvcing wolves.

In that case pointydog you should get all your meat from a place where you know how it was produced.I know that all the meat in my local farm shop is locally produced in a humane way. I no longer buy any from the supermarket.

No it doesn't. Actually, the local farm phoned yesterday to tell us the lamb was now ready for us to pick up. For the last month, I've been looking at the lambs in the field and thinking "yum. Hurry up."

The nicest lamb I ever tasted was one that I knew the name of!!