Profit before animal welfare

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s we come round to lambing time again (which should be starting in the next 24 hours!), I start to worry about what to do if we have to intervene directly. If the lamb doesn't come out head and forelegs first, then we'll have to get involved in pushing the little lamb back in again, and trying to  reconfigure limbs to get the lamb out in the best way possible...or just out. However, having done an evening on lambing at the local vet's recently, I learned that the above situation is not that likely to happen to primitive and hill breeds (our Herdwicks being one of these breeds). Intervention is, however, far more likely in modern breeds of sheep where large tups are crossed with smaller ewes, and due to the size of the lamb, the farmer has to get involved in the lambing process. These situations are much more risky for the ewe and lamb, and sometimes only one can be saved.

This led me to thinking about meat production in modern society, and how we push to get the maximum possible from the resources available. This can be an admirable human trait. But it can, as in the case of the sheep, be done at the expense of other living beings. It feels like the welfare of the animal is put secondary to the commercial value. A large lamb which gains muscle quickly will be ready sooner, and will sell for more. Smaller primitive breeds, such as herdwick or swaledale, have smaller lambs which grow much more slowly. Thus, the time taken for them to be ready for slaughter is much longer (maybe one year compared to five months for texel/mule cross breeds), there won't be as much muscle, and so they cost more to keep and will sell for less.

The same 'commercial-value-over-welfare' theme can be seen in broiler chickens (chicken raised for meat). The breed 'Cornish Rock' is a bit of a freak. It has been bred by humans to grow muscle (the bit that we eat) extremely fast. A Cornish Rock will be ready for slaughter at six to twelve weeks. In reality, it is still only a chick in an adult body. We kept three of these chickens. After approximately five weeks of life, one of them died unexpectedly (probably of a heart attack), and so we slaughtered the other two soon afterwards so that they didn't succumb to organ failure as well. This is common in this breed. They put on muscle so fast that their organs cannot keep pace, and so fail. These same chickens are marketed as 'free-range' and 'organic' in supermarkets, and they may well be. However, what quality of life do these birds have? Research from the Aarhus University in Denmark has shown that these birds are likely in pain due to their fast growth rate, when compared to slow-growing heritage breed broiler chickens.

I know some farmers who do put animal welfare at the top of their priority list. But, they still need to sell their produce to make a living. Since supermarkets and people want cheap, abundant meat, farmers will opt for the large lambs and fast-growing chickens; and this inevitably leads to a lower quality of life for the livestock and birds. One solution would be for people to eat less meat in their diet, thereby reducing the need for the mass-production of meat. This would mean that farmers would be put under less stain to produce more meat per lamb or chicken in order to make a living. I do wonder if we, as a society, could change our attitudes to having so much meat in our diet?

Reading List

http://www.herdwick-sheep.com

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poultrynews/29349/slow-growth-means-higher-welfare-for-chickens/

Me(at) and the Pigs

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aving almost finished all the butchery, processing, packaging, curing and freezing of our two pigs - Ray and Kevin - whom we home-slaughtered last Wednesday, I have become aware of several things.

1. I have seen a lot of ligaments, muscles, cartilage and organs from our two pigs over the past week. Every time I see these different parts I link it straight to my own body: "Does the heart/muscle/knee joint in my body look the same as this?". Invariably the answer will be yes, or it will be at least very similar in construction. Yes, the cartilage in my joints would be the same. Yes, my heart would be made up in a similar way. And yes, my lungs, intestines, liver are probably all nearly identical to those of the pigs. It is a humbling realisation. I am a mammal, and hence I have blood, muscle, and organs just like all other mammals. If I was butchered by some other species, I would look exactly the same. So, whilst I had the power to end our pigs' lives, I do not feel all-powerful as a result. In fact, I feel smaller and more like every other mammal.

Kevin, on the left, and Ray having breakfast.

2. The strong pang of sadness that I felt in the moment when we killed our first pigs last year, was not so strong this time. However, what I was left with was the guilt of having done it. The question running through my head: Is taking another animal's life justified so that I can eat meat?

3. The further from the time when we kill a lamb or a pig, and the further down the processing line the meat is, the less connected I am to that animal as I eat it. When I cook up carbonara with our dry-cured bacon (it takes several processes to get the meat to this state), I am not constantly thinking of Penny or Bernie. However, when I was skinning and boiling up Ray or Kevin's heads, all I could think of was the two of them. Their death was, almost literally, staring back at me.

4. And lastly, I am always shocked, in a practical sense, at how easy and quick it is to take life. It is over in seconds. In fact, it could probably be measured in tenths or thousandths of a second. Life and then death. Gone. This on/off distinction is so stark. There is no slow move from life to death. It really does feel like switching off a light.

People often say “Oh no, you don't name your animals for slaughter, do you?” But, for us the relationship with our animals is at the heart of this. I could do all this more easily if I was disconnected from the animals; if I didn't allow myself awareness of their personalities and quirks; if I didn't allow myself to get in touch with my feelings about them. But, for us this is a move closer to buying meat in a supermarket. We went into this to be more connected to the process of eating meat, not to find the easier way of doing it. That said, I wonder if my desire to eat meat will eventually wain, in favour of not having to kill another animal. The jury's still out on that one.

Autumn on the farm

Deep thoughts come and go, but life on our smallholding keeps going on regardless, so I thought I'd write about that: a pragmatic post.

We have borrowed a herdwick tup (male sheep) from a local farmer for four weeks in order to mate with our herdwick ewes. Hopefully he'll do his work, and we should expect lambs at the end of March/the beginning of April. Ewes have a 17 day cycle, and are only on heat for one to two days, so he spends a lot of time smelling the ewes to see if they are on heat yet. He is much calmer than the tup that we bought and sold last year (Stan!), and as he is only a shearling tup (approximately 18 months old) this is probably his first time coming into contact with ewes for procreation. I have become aware of how instinctual it is for him: he doesn't need to be told how to do it, nor does he read it in a book, or see a film. He just knows. Innate knowledge or maybe instinctual drive.

We have put this year's lambs in a field out of the way of the tup, as he will, if he smells females on heat, jump over any wall or barrier to get to them, regardless of age. So, our young female lambs are safely out of his reach...hopefully! We are also getting ready, emotionally, for slaughtering our first lamb - George. He is the second oldest of the lambs, and we castrated him a few days after he was born, as per regulations, as we did not have the space then to separate male from female lambs, and did not want any female lambs getting pregnant. So, all the male lambs were castrated. (As a man, I did feel for the poor sods. They looked in pain for a couple of hours, but within a day they were back to their spritely selves. Non-human animals do seem to deal with pain differently compared to us.) So, I'm not looking forward to slaughtering George, but I am looking forward to eating lamb. He is a lovely character and we spend much time with the lambs, so it will be hard. The other three boys will be slaughtered over the course of 2016. Well, depending on how we feel after George.

Winter will also see us slaughtering two pigs again, like last year: Raymond and Kevin. Just like George, we will do it ourselves as they eat their breakfast. It's the way I'd want to die, really: not being aware of it coming, and enjoying food. I'm still not sure it feels ethically right, but it is the best way for them to die if we are choosing to eating meat. Without a doubt.

The chickens have started to lay again after a sporadic break from August onwards. They moult and lose a fair load of their feathers, and then expend a lot of energy growing them back again for winter. They look so ill when they moult, but look healthy now, thankfully. Each year when the first of them moults I think "Oh no, what's wrong with her?", only to remember, as another one starts to moult, that it is just part of their yearly cycle.

As the nights draw in, the animals spend a lot more time sleeping. Yet we humans continue with our 9-5 attitude, regardless of the long nights and change of season outside. It always takes me time to adapt to winter, and to change my mindset and approach to life. In winter I have more time to contemplate, write and read, as there is simply not enough light to do any big projects on the farm. How does the change in season affect you and your life?