Animal Farm

Meandering through the livestock section at the Ventura County fair yesterday, I was struck by something a 14-year-old (I'm guessing) girl told us in a conversation about her beautiful, freshly sheered lamb. The girl was visibly proud, and happy to answer whatever questions we had. Absent-mindedly, I asked, "Will the lamb grow much bigger?"

"She would," the girl replied, "if she weren't getting sold to market."

Duh. I should have known that. They auction off all the animals at the end of the fair. But I was struck by how nonchalant this girl was about the imminent death of her beloved, prized mutton.

For those of us who grew up far removed from rural life, we tend to think of animals as either companions or food, but never both. We could never imagine eating our pets, and try not to think of our food as once having had any of our pets' endearing qualities. For us, it's hard to imagine loving an animal and, at the same time, raising it for slaughter.

But for people like this girl, who grew up farming, the distinction isn't so sharp. Animals can be both companions and food. The result is, I think, a healthier attitude than the two extremes that often develop among we city slickers: vegetarianism (the belief that eating meat is morally wrong) or indifference to animal suffering (such as many of the abuses associated with factory farming). Put another way, people with real agricultural experience tend to maintain a healthy respect for animals that our society too often lacks, without going to the other extreme of thinking animals have the same rights as human beings.

Still, for some 4-H kids, it's a struggle. We talked to a 10-year-old boy who raised his own pig. "You can't get attached," he said, "because they're going to slaughter." For him, he said, this is especially hard because his pig was like a pet. "She likes to give kisses," he explained, wistfully.

"But," he added stoically, "she's going out to slaughter."

(Postscript: One of the 4-H moms told us that most of the fair's livestock buyers donate the meat from the animals they buy to groups that feed the hungry. I would imagine that for the young farmers, knowing their animals would be going to a worthy cause would help mitigate any sense of sorrow.)