Animals that we eat.

I have often posted my views on raising animals for the table, my view being that how well they die is every bit as important as how well they were raised. I believe you can raise a prime piece of meat and utterly destroy it with bad killing methods or meat processing practices.

Then there is, for me anyway, the split that I battle with. Caring about an animal, caring about its health and housing and psychological well being and physical needs, just to kill it in the end. Seems a bit sadistic, or psychotic. Can I champion a good life and a good death in the same breath and not be a crazy person?

I was struck by something that I read in Dan Needle's column in Small Farm Canada, January/ February 2014 edition. There on the last page, Mr. Dan Needles, a man I used to read way back in my Harrowsmith days, said something that struck me as utterly profound. I quote:

 "I think if you let a pig live in a barnyard with shade and a nice view and lots of dirt to root up and all the apples he can eat then he has a pretty good life. If he has just one bad day and that day comes right at the end, that's better than most of us get."

A good life then one bad day that ends fairly quickly. How many of us can claim only one bad day? Most of us have had many, many bad days, and no one looking out for the quality of our lives except ourselves. As Mr. Needles frames it, the life of a well kept farm animal isn't all that bad. Nor is their death. I found great comfort in this and more importantly, I found balance. The balance that we all strive to achieve in our goals and ethics on our little slices of this earth. Mr. Needles has summed it up for me. Only one bad day, right at the end.

This whole article is worth a read, titled, "Animal warfare". I recommend it.

I agree Uno.

Thank you for posting this. I have been struggling with the upcoming future of how to raise the male pigs in a way that I feel good about it, but not so attached that "the deed" will be impossible. This helps. A short life of all good days vs a long life of few.

Sometimes I think that it would be hard to eat a pig that I raised. And then I think about how much I like bacon and I feel way less bad.

Also, my husband says no pigs. Too smelly.

[quote="authenticfarm"]Sometimes I think that it would be hard to eat a pig that I raised. And then I think about how much I like bacon and I feel way less bad.

Also, my husband says no pigs. Too smelly.[/quote



properly kept pigs are not smelly at all......but they do grow on you as pets so beware   

We have raised meat pigs on and off for years and I am amazed how smart and personable they are....way too cute for me to eat though.

stellar way to look at the whole process.

cbrookkelly wrote:properly kept pigs are not smelly at all......

I tried to tell him that, but he grew up raising pigs and is quite against it.

Authentic my hubby as well. I wish I could convince him to try 2 pastured pigs for a year, I really miss pork. We do not buy meat from the stores and my FIL has stopped raising pigs 3 years ago...

Many years ago when I was 8 and a half months pregnant, Hub and I went to a charity auction where I bought the 'surprise, mystery' item. I lumber up on stage at this event hoping for some wonderful spa vacation and instead they bring me a terrified, squealing, 6 week old pot bellied pig!   It had obviously never been handled, had never been away from its mother, it was cute as a button and out of its mind with fear.

We lug this thing home in a box and rig up a makeshift pen in the basement where it made loud and distressing sad pig noises all night. In the morning before he went to work HUb said, don't do anything with the pig until I get home. I thought, uh-oh, if I don't get rid of this pig I"ll be here with a new baby and a pig running around the house! I crated up porker and took it to a local petting zoo/ fruit sales place where it lived for many, many years.

Hub is a pig fancier. He likes pigs. He speaks often and fondly of his pig named Sonja. Sonja the pig. Some guys talk about past girlfriends. Mine talks about his favorite pig. We don't keep pigs because we are already well on our way to becoming a retirement home for livestock. Hub is missing the slaughter gene and suffers greatly when anything must be killed, meat bird or murdering racoon. While I thought Dan Needles summed up the good life and death process of a farm animal, Hub disagrees. Just don't go there, is his philosophy. I didn't marry well.

maybe a local farmer could be found whose practices you approve of and buy an animal for the freezer?  This is what we do, I count myself lucky to have that opportunity nearby for when we can afford to do it.

Here's a story that is different. I grew up on a property surrounded by three farms, each with acreage in the hundreds, one was a dairy farm, one farmed steers and the other sheep.  The sheep farmers subdivided off a 10 acre piece that my parents bought and not long before I left home they switched to beef and raised bulls.  I spent quite a bit of time with that family, worked for them, hung out with their kids.  One day the old guy (not really old) died on his boat whilst sailing.  Several years later I was talking to his wife, asked her how life was going.  Obviously she missed him and very sad.  Then she said, in one of those flippant kinds of ways that takes the pressure out of an emotional situation, you know, make a joke, she said that at least now she could eat chicken.  I looked at her and wondered what she was talking about and then she said that they had not bought chicken, ever because they raised beef (or previously sheep) and chicken was the competition.  He had vetoed chicken all their married farming lives just because of that, I realised then that I had not known much about him at all.  It does seem narrow minded from an outside point of view but I guess he had a point (I choose to not have a judgement about it).  Times were tough for them on occasion.  My Dad said that in their early days of farming there they had enough money for either a tractor or a car, not both and he said he used to see them driving to town on the tractor to get groceries  -  that's an all day event  -  sixteen miles/27km one way!  Maybe that kind of poverty brings a certain kind of single mindedness.  I don't recall a single pig being raised at their place either, just lambs and bulls.  I used to go pig hunting with their son  -  wild pork is a totally different flavor all together.  I like it.  They had the kill gene in their house.  Got it in mine too but with more of an inclination to share your hubby's way Uno.  I'd rather not if I don't have to.  With the roosters who's numbers are up in a few weeks, kind of feel like I have to and I'm starting with chickens.  Not sure if I can wrap my mind around killing a pig or sheep just yet - that is big. It isn't as if the life of a chicken is worth any less but the process seems much more intense somehow.  Liked your story Uno :-).

Magdelan, both Hub and I grew up on farms. He here in BC on 160 acres, me (in my younger years) in Alberta on 4600 acres. Both our father's raised beef and did their own slaughter.

When I married Hub he laid down a few rules. 1) there will be no making of hay! 2) there will be no shooting of cows! 3) there will be no plaid furniture. And thus it has been.

I would like to raise my own beef, but there is just no way I could talk HUb into shooting it. He only takes up the gun now in times of emergency and still will never take a shot unless he is guaranteed it's safe (other houses near-by) and a guaranteed kill. He is not into winging animals then letting them run off into the bush bleeding and suffering.

I agree, is the life of a chicken less important than the life of a cow? It makes no sense, yet my comfort level with killing a chicken is a little better than with a cow. The worst is when we've had to put down horses! BRUTAL! Yet with chickens...maybe it's that I feel a poor meat chicken is born devoid of any personality. Short lived eating machines with few endearing qualities. But even then, we have to talk ourselves into this every single time we do it. And Horse Daughter, who was forced to witness this, claims she still needs therapy. The day I kill something without it bothering me is the day I need therapy! Humanity is a good quality, as are compassion and care. THe best animal keepers have all of those qualities and forge on anyway.

Uno, much of what you say is very similar to Temple Grandin's philosophy. It is why she spent all the effort to figure out how to handle and manage cows in the most humane method possible. Every animal deserves to be treated well, even if it's destiny is for the table.

I expect much of what a significant portion of the population feels about processing animals is because they can simply pick up the end product at the store. I think many of our current feelings come from, at least in western culture, that most folks never have to grow their food but simply go to the store and pick up a package. All very sterile and without attachment.

I am surprised at how many people who want to buy meat (chickens, pork, lamb) from us are concerned about not just what we feed those animals, but how we care for them - space to move freely, protection from the elements, ability for them to exercise their natural behaviours (scratching and pecking the dirt, rooting, running, lying about in the sunshine), reasonable breeding practices. I have a few folks who have told me that that is just as important to them as what we feed the animals. They have even asked what are the practices at slaughter time.

I understand how, as we move down the species list from mammals, to birds, to others, that the task of processing them becomes marginally easier. Reality, we all squish a mosquito with no regrets. I guess that's seeing our farm mammals with more similarities to us and therefore. more empathy. Especially for those mammals we have as pets - horses, goats, pigs too!