did anybody watch this week's trading spouses??

[Flatcoatluver]

omg it was so sick they had this family and there kids where like 17 and 14. (a girl and a guy) they were talking about how the kids raise 100 and spent it on a baby calf and then butcher and sale the meat. I just really can't understand how a girl would actually save money and raise a calf and then butcher it. maybe it just me. But wouldn;t you think of it as a pet. then the mother said i don't know but it just taste good having home made butcherd meat that you raised from babies. or something like that.

[CathyBogart]

I raised a lamb to be slaughtered....I dunno, I was happy because he would have been slaughtered around the time he was pretty much no matter what, but I gave him a wonderful life while I had him.

I would much rather eat meat from an animal I knew had a great life than one where I had no idea what its life had been like.

[Corinna]

It's called farming. I raised cattle for my 4-H project it was also my school clothes money . No sale no new clothes fact of life.

[Allecto]

Why should it bother the girl any more or less than the boy?
I have also raised livestock that ended up on my family's dinner table, or was given away to needy families. Pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, etc...
Maybe there was some level of sadness the first time or two, but like they've said, I felt better about eating that meat than I did anything that was run through a slaughterhouse.

[Flatcoatluver]

I can't really put it into words what i mean. Maybe because I am a vegetarion and I have had cows before that got butcherd when I was a little girl, so yeah I guess we have all had differnt opinoins. I get what your saying about atleast there in a good place. nvm just never mind this thread

[Suki Wingy]

I'm getting a 4H calf this summer... I raised $700 for lease of it. She's a holstien though so she'll be a dairy cow.

[Allecto]

Most dairy cows don't have great lives either. And really, that is all we're trying to say, Flatcoatluver. Some of us who choose to keep meat as a part of our diets simply feel better that the animals we consume suffered as little as possible. Every animal that I raise for my table is one less animal doomed to the stockyard, slaughterhouse, meat factory, etc. You may still see it as sick and wrong b/c we don't choose to be vegetarians like you, but at least we're a more responsible breed of carnivore.

[LKPike]

i'm not a vegetarian, and still understand/agree with your opinion. Don't see how you can raise something knowing every day your planning on killing it, even if it is for life. I bet Jillian doesn't taste any different than chicken and I've seen tribes in africa that sacrifrice/regularly kill and consume dogs but imagine how furious you'd all be if I popped online and said "well we decided on something different for Thanksgiving...". I'd imagine somebody whos had cows as pets would feel the same way when it comes to somebody saying they raised then purposly killed a cow.

I'll leave it up to a professional butcher whos business is to raise cowS(plural), not just ONE which could easily bond with you even if you don't with it which is how it sounds to me from reading everyones posts.
but thats my 2 cents.

[Flatcoatluver]

i'm not a vegetarian, and still understand/agree with your opinion. Don't see how you can raise something knowing every day your planning on killing it, even if it is for life. I bet Jillian doesn't taste any different than chicken and I've seen tribes in africa that sacrifrice/regularly kill and consume dogs but imagine how furious you'd all be if I popped online and said "well we decided on something different for Thanksgiving...". I'd imagine somebody whos had cows as pets would feel the same way when it comes to somebody saying they raised then purposly killed a cow.

I'll leave it up to a professional butcher whos business is to raise cowS(plural), not just ONE which could easily bond with you even if you don't with it which is how it sounds to me from reading everyones posts.
but thats my 2 cents.

thank you!! that was basically what I was trying to say, I don't know about some people, but I personally would get attached and cry my eyes out when we would butcher them. ok let's pretend I wasn't a vegetarion shall we. I am just saying no matter what I would get attached. I mean I thought you guys would kind of understand. but i guess not

[areias]

I could probably raise some livestock, and then send them off to the butcher for money...but I don't think I could eat it myself. Although if I got really attached to the animal I'm not sure if I could do it. I understand what your saying, flatcoat.

I would get ticked off and upset if I sold an animal as a pet, and it ended up being someone's dinner. I previously had a mouse-I couldn't take it with me in college, and my mom wouldn't look after it-she made me get rid of it. I gave to a friend of mine who said she really would look after him, (he was really really tame), but she ended up feeding him to her snake. I was very upset.

[Corinna]

My mom had a good way of thinking about it , you may or may notagree. God gave it to me to play with and take care of in return it gives it's life to feed me and help be able help others.

[Suki Wingy]

I understand your way and the farm way, it has to be a way of living. I used to be a vegitarian. My calf "AStarAndAHalf" will be raised at the local historic farm for the summer and then go live in a yard at a dairy farm with the other 4H cows and be a dairy cow for a while. Otherwise she would just live in this guy's barn/field.

[jackie]

I don't see any problem in raising your own meat.

[Allecto]

i'm not a vegetarian, and still understand/agree with your opinion. Don't see how you can raise something knowing every day your planning on killing it, even if it is for life. I bet Jillian doesn't taste any different than chicken and I've seen tribes in africa that sacrifrice/regularly kill and consume dogs but imagine how furious you'd all be if I popped online and said "well we decided on something different for Thanksgiving...". I'd imagine somebody whos had cows as pets would feel the same way when it comes to somebody saying they raised then purposly killed a cow.

I'll leave it up to a professional butcher whos business is to raise cowS(plural), not just ONE which could easily bond with you even if you don't with it which is how it sounds to me from reading everyones posts.
but thats my 2 cents.

I don't know of any butchers who raise the meat they prepare. It comes from the slaughterhouse and factories.

And, to be perfectly honest, I don't get furious when I hear of people eating animals I consider pets. I mean, I eat animals people consider sacred, who am I to force my morals on another? I couldn't ever bring myself to eat a duck short of avoiding starving to death, but that doesn't mean I guilt trip and look down on people who enjoy it. I would consider eating your Jillian less cruel than eating your average slab of veal.
And I always raise my cows at least in pairs. There's still a bit of a bond, but there is a greater understanding of nature, the cycle of life, and gratitide for what you have, and the expense at which you have it. My parents raised me to be a meat-eater, but also to look upon the meat you ate with respect, gratitude, and almost a feeling of reverence for the animal. So much so that it actually depresses me a little to hear people talking about using slaughterhouse meat that lived and died miserably, unhappy, and unhealthy because it is so much more moral and just than raising your own animal. Those animals are only different in the qaulity of care they are given before giving their lives for human consumption. The feelings a human has towards them is not what should make one animals life more important than another, and is not what we should base our respect for the animal on. Looking upon store-bought meat as only a mass-produced resource to be used and wasted at your whim just because you didn't know the animal personally is one of the big reasons my parents wanted their children to raise animals for meat, to avoid that ridiculous, callous, and selfish point of view.

[.sarah]

I know where you're coming from, Flatcoatluver. I would never be able to kill anything that I raised, I would definetly become attatched.

I am a vegetarian too. If I ever went back to eating meat (which I doubt I will, I am so much healthier and feel 100% better as a veggie) it would have to be meat that I know the source of. It'd have to have been raised well or have been wild and also be killed fast with the least amount of pain. That was the reason I went vegetarian, because the animals from factories suffer while alive and suffer while dying.

I think people like Alletco who want to know the source of their meat and/or raise it are awesome. It's so frustrating when I talk to people at work about meat (they always bring up the fact that I'm a vegetarian and that they CAN'T live without meat). They won't listen to me when I say that I am only a vegetarian because I can't support cruelty to animals. Dr. D is the only one that raises cattle for meat, but she will also eat meat at restaraunts and such. You'd think people from a vet would at least try to understand you're point of view. They don't look down on me, and when we go out or order food they try to think about a place where I could eat, but gaah it's still frustrating ... especially since they're the ones that bring it up!