Yes, it is amazing how attached we become. Even my husband is getting that way. Big Bad Army Sargent has started bringing the injured to me for nursing. It's taken time, but he's even gotten affectionate with the horses.

Kitty

I called it to work with a colicy horse and my boss told me that I could take care of the horse after work on my own time. Needless to say I didn't go to work that day. When the pigs who are being butchered when they grow up got sick and almost died I realized that I want the animals to be happy for their whole lives no matter how it will end. No one gets out alive anyway. A good life is what you have to offer.

i know what you mean. i took a chicken in the house the other day for a minute that the puppy had chased. i couldn't tell if it was dead/dying or just in shock. i sort of warmed it up for a few minutes and then it sort of popped alive again. and i popped back to normal and went hey chicken get the hell out of the house. ;)

But just try telling City people that you care. I live in California and I have people that treat me like I'm the devil becuase I raise animals for consumption. I guess if they are a nameless faceless slab of meat grown commercially, it's ok to eat them but if you raise them by hand they are off limits.
The truth is that my wife and I spend alot of time caring for and about all of our animals up to and including butcher time. It is a nice change of pace to have a group like this that is able to understand that.

oh. wow. i have a hard time in ca. seriously. i lean so far left i have to only wear right shoes so i don't topple over and they made me feel like a member of the klu klux klan. i truly sympathise with you.

This is an area I am still working on and have a long way to go. My dh (and I) raised 4 production turkeys this summer, they went to be processed two weeks ago, I felt just horrible about it but of course I eat turkey weekly! We also eat lots of chicken but I have yet to eat one of my own. It makes perfect sense to raise and care for healthy animals that you know lived humane lives in contrast to factory farms. It's just really hard for me to not feel like their mother :( but then again I grew up in the burbs where I thought my food just came from the grocery store. I hope to try one of the turkeys this winter, they are in my MIL's freezer right now.

-Sheila

I know what everyone means...I had pretty much stopped eating meat because of factory farms. They just sickened me. So now we are raising our own chickens and it was hard to send them to be butchered, but at least I know what I am eating, and that they had a very happy life running around on the farm instead of in cages where they can't even move. We also bought a hog from a farmer who raises them naturally without hormones or antibiotics and they live out where they can root around. We raised a steer once, but that was just too hard for me. I ended up giving most of the meat away because I just got too attached to him.

i was vegan for like ten years because of the whole factory farming thing. but then had to switch back for health reasons. my family is like i never thought i would hear you saying things like...yesterday, when i was removing the animal's head. eeek. me either.

but, it IS good to know they had a good life. for sure, no ifs ands or buts.

i had a neighbor once who said to me, i would like to be one of your animals. i would come and live in that pen. lol

i try to keep boundaries (okay a farming letter using the word "boundaries". are you laughng too?) with the ones who i know from the start i'll eat. some unexpectedly i wind up eating due to it being the right choice for that situation.

I even know my stinking fish in our pond by name. Silly I guess. I remember having the pond crash on us and about 200 or so of the 300 in the pond died. I was morbid for a couple of weeks. I usually go out every morning with my cup of coffee and toss in some feed. It was a terrible week having to take out the dead ones.
Now our pond is healthy again (that happened several years ago). I learned some things and one of the most important things is not to let the pond get overpopulated, which it had. Harvesting some each year helps keep the pond healthy. I know every fish in there by name. I still eat them thought.
Pass the okra and hushpuppies, will you?

In all fairness to factory farms, I think I should add here that I work on a mega-dairy and see about eight thousand head a day. I know who all of the gentle ones are and I still make the time to give a scratch behind the ear.
A significant amount of time and resources is devoted to cow comfort and the staff spends most of their time attending to a few cows that have health issues.
Keep in mind that in order for any animal to be productive, they have to be healthy and happy. That fact is not lost on the big guys.

hi. dont' want to offend. myself, i was thinking of chickens. but good to hear all sides of it so i dont go making generalizations. thanks. i had no idea that stuff like that was even a concern, honestly. tell me more.

oh my goodness. i do miss okra. and hushpuppies!!!! i should make some tonight when i get home from work. i have cornmeal!

Well, I still refuse to condone factory farms. What about pigs who have to stand in cement pens and can't even turn around? Or veal calves? Or chickens stuck in tiny pens. I grew up on a dairy farm and our cows were all out on pasture; not standing in a feed lot like most do now. After living in California for 5 years and driving by the huge mega dairies with cows standing in feed lots; that's when I basically quit drinking milk.

cymraes, I can in all honesty say that I have seen more animal abuse on small operations than I have large. Sometimes things happen out of lack of resources and sometimes out of ignorance. I'm not saying that large operations are always better, I'm just saying they usually have the resources to deal with the problem and that the didn't get big by abusing their animals.
Not to be argumentative but I haven't seen any hogs that can't turn around in their pen. Hogs, when given a choice, will lay on cool clean concrete before any other option. In the natural world, cows take their calves out and hide them in the grass in an area about the size of a calf hutch and they're very hard to find for the first few months.
The cows and chickens are a special strain bred for production. I've had white leghorns and holstien cows on pasture and neither one performed as well as they do in a commercial setting. ( I'm not saying that that makes it O.K. to crowd them into a closed setting, just that it doesn't make them happier to turn them out. I don't like commercial egg operations either)
Alot of the standard practices on large opererations that are abhored by the public are actually based in animal comfort and well being. Again, the big guys are big because they were successful and no livestock operation gets to be successful by abusing their stock.

Pickles, my apologies for turning your post into a rant.

hey. it's cool. i DID title the post emotions and farming. ;)

My rooster died about 3 weeks ago and I'm still mourning him every time I go out there :( he had such a presence..

Cymraes, I believe the hog pens you refer to are farrowing crates which are used to protect newborn piglets from being smushed by their mothers. The crates confine the sow while allowing the newborns to nurse. When the piglets are old enough to get out of mom's way they are usually transferred to a larger pen until weaning. I've heard CA has outlawed farrowing crates. Another example of animal rights people who have no practical knowledge of animal husbandry passing laws that are actually detrimental to the animals.

cpp6318, don't know about where you come from but here Holsteins do quite well on pasture and cows do not hide their calves in an area the size of a calf hutch for weeks. Our cows might hide their calves for the first few days of its life but you can bet that the calf is somewhere near the mom. Its quite common to see one cow babysitting several calves while the other moms are grazing. I'd like to see the statistics on the productive lives of dairy cattle kept on pasture vs those kept in the huge feed lots. I'm willing to bet the pastured cattle have longer productive lives.

I just read all the follow-up postings, and noticed all posts had one thing in common. Everyone is very passionate about animal welfare. Isn't that a wonderful comment on farm life?

it's true. we all come at it differently, but most people i know who keep animals for food don't have any intent on harming the animal. of course, we kill them, so that obviously is harm, but i guess i should say no harm during their lifespan. if you had told me before that would be true i just coulnd't have believed it. but i am older now, gray hair and such, and much better at the uh, gray areas. lol.

We are in the animal rescue business and it is amazing what you see out there. Humans can inflict such abuse and torture its hard to describe. Every animal whether raised for food or pets should have the same quality of life you would expect to live. Don't feel bad about eating them by raising the food yourself you may put out of business the likes of factory farming. If you have questions on factory farming go to PETA.com check out their videos, only if you really really want to know, you may have nightmares for a long time. Marlingardener you are right everyone here seems to love their animals, I know we do. Keep up the good work the rewards are undescribable.