Did you end up eating them? I'd find it hard to eat them as I'd end up feeling like they were pets. Do you have any photos of them standing on your car or bike??!!
We also sold a number of them to Muslim friends and their associates for Eid al-Fitr, and even allowed them to consecrate part of our property to do the sacrifice. Previously they could find no place within hundreds of miles that would allow them to do that. That we were (and are) Christians, who not only allowed them to do this, but even encouraged it, kind of blew their minds. :)
I'll see if I can dig up some pics. It's a funny thing how so often you don't end up taking pictures of really neat, but daily things, but wish you did.
Not only "ritual" and "slaughtering" are words that should give goosebumps when used together, but even encouraging it, when you don't even believe in that barbaric procedure, it's frankly inhumane.
As for slaughtering an animal that you've enjoyed the company of, I'm not sure how it is any worse than slaughtering an animal you didn't enjoy the company of. The former will give you a more intimate understanding of the impact your eating habits have, if anything.
My grandmother was utterly sentimental; they always kept a calf, which was always called Bully, which was slaughtered after a year or so. She was quite capable of chomping though a steak while saying 'Bully was such a lovely calf that year'...
They did, however, tell stories (possibly true) about another couple of smallholders down the road who could never bear to slaughter their own pigs. So what they'd do was swap.
These days we are completely out of touch with where our food comes from.
> I don't think that the ritual slaughter of islam and conventional slaughter are different enough for the line between barbaric and non-barbaric to coincidentally somehow end up right between them.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/outcry-after-...
> As for slaughtering an animal that you've enjoyed the company of, I'm not sure how it is any worse than slaughtering an animal you didn't enjoy the company of.
If you actually believe that which you're saying, you'd have no problem slaughtering your dog.
I'm really not trying to make a true scotsman argument here, but unnecessarily brutal treatment of animals is prevalent through the whole meat industry and sadly can't be pinned down to a particular religious practice or tradition.
I personally believe that this is an inherent problem of the industry. I think that repetitively performing these jobs hundreds of times a day requires that you have absolutely no emotional investment in the animals. Add to that otherwise stressful conditions, and you have to take care not to develop sadistic tendencies and loathing of the animals.
> If you actually believe that which you're saying, you'd have no problem slaughtering your dog.
I'd have a problem slaughtering my dog, but that's besides the point. I just don't believe that it would somehow be less humane than slaughtering some other animal. In fact, if I were to slaughter my dog, I'd probably take extra care to do it in the most humane way possible.
This isn't really a binary situation; we were friendly with our goats, but our dogs were practically members of the family.
Having said that, I'd have no trouble raising dogs for food if it made sense, and if we liked the way dog tastes, which we don't. Which has all kinds of cultural relevance.
I have always felt slightly conflicted about killing another living thing to eat it. But, if we are going to eat meat, I think there is some value in seeing where it comes from.
As far as the animals end, I always ensured the animal was eating some of its favourite feed, out by itself, when I shot it in the brain, top to bottom, with a .30-06. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1903_Springfield)
I'd argue that there's no easier way to die; the animal feels nothing. Though the shooter has something of a mess to deal with.
All in all, I'm kind of ok with this.
(Two Anglo-Nubians, long dead now).
The pics are here: http://www.realms.org/selling/
None of the goats are on conveyances, and you'll notice the fences and ropes, because this was pretty early on while we were still securing the borders of our property.
More importantly, there is a lot more cultural diversity out here in Santa Clara County, California compared to McDonald County, Missouri. We prefer that our son grow in a more diverse environment.
Send me an e-mail if you want to chat more about living in the country; to me, it's a very interesting topic. We spent a lot of time exploring various aspects of sustainability.