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The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

theguardian.com

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Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#61

Post by throwawayfarmer »

lostlogin wrote: post #34
throwawayfarmer wrote: post #13

This is a good article. I'm a livestock farmer and a few lines really stuck: 1. We are incredibly grateful to our knackerman. The old one retired at about 70, and the newer guy is spot on. Calm, patient and pleasant to people and animals. 2. British farming (focusing on Britain here as the article does) has a crap safety record. Follow lens_leg[1] for a feed of UK farming casualties. It's saddening. But over this las…

Thanks for this. Regarding your point 4 - has the progress reducing antibiotic use continued post Brexit? I was under the impression that there were moves to slow/revert some of that once the EU had less say.

I’m not sure about the whole of UK agriculture, but in our bit things have got even tighter.

That’s a good thing!

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#62

Post by Daub »

nickkell wrote: post #57
Daub wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work on a farm run by vegetarians. As the only meat eater, they all thought it should be my job to do the dirty deed when any animal required killing. One thing I learned pretty quickly was that no animal wants to die. Killing the chickens was bearable, by I came to the end of my tether when I was called upon to help in the killing of a pig. It knew it was going to die, and fought it with all its might. Lef…

Wasn't it a bit hypocritical of the vegetarians farming animals?

Could not agree more. I was young (18) and was easily impressed by fatuous reasoning. These people would feed the farm animals, profit by their sale, yet not eat or kill them. Weak reasoning at best, hypocrisy at worst.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#63

Post by Daub »

hutzlibu wrote: post #54
Daub wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work on a farm run by vegetarians. As the only meat eater, they all thought it should be my job to do the dirty deed when any animal required killing. One thing I learned pretty quickly was that no animal wants to die. Killing the chickens was bearable, by I came to the end of my tether when I was called upon to help in the killing of a pig. It knew it was going to die, and fought it with all its might. Lef…

"One thing I learned pretty quickly was that no animal wants to die" I would say, no healthy animal wants to die.

Agreed. I have not worked with animals for much of my life, but recognize an animal that knows when it’s time is up. For my experience, there is something very dignified about such cases.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#64

Post by Daub »

nradov wrote: post #47
Daub wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work on a farm run by vegetarians. As the only meat eater, they all thought it should be my job to do the dirty deed when any animal required killing. One thing I learned pretty quickly was that no animal wants to die. Killing the chickens was bearable, by I came to the end of my tether when I was called upon to help in the killing of a pig. It knew it was going to die, and fought it with all its might. Lef…

Why would the pig know if was going to die? I've seen pigs butchered on a farm. The butcher just shot then once in the forehead with a .22. Instant lights out.

My memory is hazy on this. I remember the pig being hung upside down, and this would have been a clear cue that something was going to happen. However, this may have been after it was killed. The reason it was hung was to drain the blood.

Related... the silence of the lambs thing I witnessed first hand. A bunch of sheep taken off to be slaughtered, standing in complete silence. Welsh sheep are never silent, so it spooked me a lot. No visual cues as to their impending doom, yet they all stood there like ghosts.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#65

Post by nickkell »

Daub wrote: post #62
nickkell wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it a bit hypocritical of the vegetarians farming animals?

Could not agree more. I was young (18) and was easily impressed by fatuous reasoning. These people would feed the farm animals, profit by their sale, yet not eat or kill them. Weak reasoning at best, hypocrisy at worst.

I'm curious as to whether you still eat animals, knowing that you couldn't stomach slaughtering them?

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#66

Post by Daub »

nickkell wrote: post #65
Daub wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not agree more. I was young (18) and was easily impressed by fatuous reasoning. These people would feed the farm animals, profit by their sale, yet not eat or kill them. Weak reasoning at best, hypocrisy at worst.

I'm curious as to whether you still eat animals, knowing that you couldn't stomach slaughtering them?

Good question. Shortly after that experience I became a vegetarian and stayed one for many years (with many small relapses). Around five years ago I rescinded, mostly because of health issues. Also... it is very difficult to be vegetarian where I now live.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#67

Post by jt2190 »

xnyan wrote: post #26
hkt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the structure of the industry: American farms are (as I understand it) not generally family affairs and are run by big companies. In the UK there's still a heavily feudal element in terms of who owns the land, with many tenant farmers etc who won't have press offices and the like. Willing to bet it is that.

>not generally family affairs You're absolutely right in that most of the food we eat in the US is grown on a relatively small number of huge commercial farms, but interestingly enough about 80% of the ~2 million farms in the US are classified as small, which means they earn less than $350k annual revenue. That's 1.8 million small farms in the US, by comparison there are ~200,000 farms total in the UK. It's just a nu…

> I live in a semi-rural area that's close to a high-income metro and there's always been a constant stream of people retiring from city life to go live in the "country" and farm, in most cases they have savings or other income and only sell their produce to offset some of the cost of production or just because they are proud of their produce.

Not to mention that there are numerous ways to shelter savings from taxes by having a bare-minimum farm.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#68

Post by aivisol »

nradov wrote: post #49
TylerE wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigs are extremely intelligent, on par with dogs at least, and I've seen rankings that place them as high as 4th, behind only apes, dolphins, and elephants.

Sure pigs are intelligent but a pig that's never seen a gun before doesn't know it's going to die.

The whole concept of thinking about animals dumber than they are makes killing them more acceptable.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#69

Post by rodjons »

I agree that it is one of the most challenging jobs. You get to deal with farmers, the emotional toll on you, the cry of the animals, you get to experience that awful dead smell. One will only last long in this job if they have patience. A genuinely sentimental job that only a few can last.

Re: The knackerman: the toughest job in British farming

#70

Post by nradov »

Daub wrote: post #64
nradov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the pig know if was going to die? I've seen pigs butchered on a farm. The butcher just shot then once in the forehead with a .22. Instant lights out.

My memory is hazy on this. I remember the pig being hung upside down, and this would have been a clear cue that something was going to happen. However, this may have been after it was killed. The reason it was hung was to drain the blood. Related... the silence of the lambs thing I witnessed first hand. A bunch of sheep taken off to be slaughtered, standing in complete silence. Welsh sheep are never silent, so it spo…

In butchering on farms, carcasses are hung upside down after the animal is killed.
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