That's probably pretty obvious.
I post ads on Craigslist sometimes. I think I've found a few new customers that way, it's free, and so I do it. Not too long ago, someone lambasted me via my craigslist ad for how high my lamb prices were. This individual took the energy to make a fake gmail account just to tell me this. I posted my response to that email here.
So I got another one last night.
From Rebecca Boyce: "How can you raise those precious animals and then kill them to eat them!!!
Here was my response to her.
I really presume you are not at all interested in a response.
I am not a vegetarian. I raise these precious animals myself, and I process them myself, because I know they have had a good, healthy life. They live outside, in the sunshine. They get to play, eat, sleep. They are protected from predators. They are not raised confined to a feed lot, or inside a concrete building. They are not over crowded, they are not sick, they are not deformed. Because I do eat meat, I want to make sure that the animals I eat live a good life, not a horrible one. I don't ever buy meat at the grocery store. I know how my animals are treated, even up to the end. And yes, I cry when I say goodbye to them. But I am not a vegetarian. I care about these animals. Most of them would have no life in the wild. So they get to live with me. And then I eat them.
If you are a vegetarian, good for you. Good for you for the discipline to eat healthy enough and find enough protein sources to stay healthy. If you are not a vegetarian, then do some research on where your meat comes from, and you'll be shocked at what you are supporting by eating at the grocery store.
I don't know what she expected. Was her email going to make me suddenly go "OH NO! I can't eat them! They must all live!" I hope she didn't think that one email would suddenly turn me into a vegetarian. My response won't change her mind, either. But I come from a long genetic line of folks who like to have the last word. I'm not good at bypassing that urge to speak up.
The other thing I do know is that there is this fantasy that animals can live and awesome life without us coming along to eat them. Well, without me and my livestock guardians, if my sheep were out in the wild, many of the lambs would succumb to predators. My chickens would do the same. And the ones that were super smart and agile and everything - yeah, they could live for some time in the wild. Until they got old and frail. The reality is that all of these animals would either succumb to illness or predators in the wild. Wild animals don't get the joy of peacefully passing away in their sleep. HECK, most animals don't get that privilege! Even my pet dogs and cats don't get that privilege.
If I were to quit butchering my animals for meat right now, most of them would live nice happy lives. Until the end. When they got sick and suffered and died, or when the coyotes finally figured out that they could grab one. All life ends. ALL OF IT. If you are a vegetarian (you're killing that carrot every time you eat one) you may still feel morally obligated to convince the rest of us not to support the slaughter of animals for our food. Those animals will still die. And instead of being carefully handled, and dispatched quickly and as painlessly as possible - they will still die. And they will suffer when they do. Whether you eat animals or not, animals all die. So will we. But I can treat my animals with love and care.
If you are a vegetarian or vegan - again, good for you for the discipline you have in eating healthy and replacing those proteins with other sources. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, you don't need to come to my farm, you don't need to respond to my craigslist ads. I can still respect you and your decisions and have conversations about it, but it is unlikely you will change my mind. Or change my farm.