I totally understand. I am hoping that my original comment didn’t come off any other way.

Thanks for reading.

You know I’d never slaughter one for profit either. But what I am learning is that shit happens, and if a cow breaks it’s leg, it’s gotta be put out of its misery. So even if all of my farm animals are pets, stuff like this can happen, and blood and guts may be involved. It was a real wakeup call.

I got a little desensitized to the meat thing when our dog started eating a raw meat diet. It grosses me out to no end, but I hack up those bones and flesh because it’s the best thing out there for our dog so he can fight his cancer.

As a vegetarian, also, I can still appreciate the circle of life and all of that. Honestly, I can. Yet, I still have a lot of trouble digesting situations like this. I keep telling my Jim that when we settle down on some land in a few years that I want much the same as you: my own vegetable garden, a chicken coop, some goats, a few peacocks, a cow or two. But part of me isn’t really sure I could deal with the whole “circle of life” if it suddenly involved my pets. And let’s face it, if I had a little area for some farm animals, it would be strictly for personal enjoyment reasons - not to make money.

You said at the end:

“not all farm animals can be pets if you want to stay in business.”

That’s true. I agree 100%. I still, however, couldn’t justify slaughtering any animal. I’d sale my babies off to someone else who wanted to treat them with love and kindness and compassion before I’d do that.

I guess what I’m saying is that I wouldn’t do well in a situation like that. I do get emotional when it comes to animals. I don’t think there is really any hope of that ever changing. Thank goodness.

And Jim, I couldn’t be a butcher either. Just looking at those photos made me a bit queasy. I could almost smell the blood and raw meat through the computer screen. And that is about as close to it as I want.

Carving up rather large quantities of what Anthony Bourdain would call “nasty bits” for Jerry was was quite an enlightening experience. An exciting one for Jerry, but one I don’t necessarily care to repeat.