A term I haven't heard since reading All Creatures Great And Small , where the local knackerman c. 1930 was described as a walking example of the hygiene hypothesis: surrounded by dead animals, and in the peak of health.
Isn't the whole domesticated animals thing that diseases only rarely cross animals to humans?
I suspect if he had dealt with chimpanzees if the organisms would have been more dangerous.
as to dealing with humans -- infant mortality was cut way down when doctors cleaned up between autopsies and delivering babies. It was a hard battle ("why should I clean up only to get messy again.")
So it's not that of the lithuanian chicken catcher in Wales?
Especially when your boss is not that much interested in animal welfare policies and just a tiny little bit more in occupational health and safety guidelines?
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…
From Thomas Hardy's book it is clear it is important the pig is kept alive until it has bled to death. Jude messes it up because he can't deal with it.
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…
Hear hear. Bumkin born and bred, living on the welsh borders and everyone around us is in farming in some way. I'm genuinely afraid for what the next 12 months will have in store in terms of the rates of things resulting for poor mental health for those in farming professions. It's been a terrible period.
If you’re familiar with George Monbiot’s rewilding efforts, described in his book Feral (and presumably The Guardian articles as well), what do you feel, and what do you think?
My understanding is that the Welsh landscape has changed considerably over the past 800 years, in large part due to logging and sheep, and in its current state it is less resilient than it used to be; more erosion and less diversity of living things. I’m in favor of expanding beaver territory in the USA to change the land similar to what happened in Yellowstone, for example. I don’t have a long family history here, though, which makes it easier to daydream about culture shifts.
Here on the San Francisco Peninsula, we have a couple of veterinary services that specialize in in-home pet hospice and euthanasia: Peaceful Pathways and Restful Paws. (There may be others; these are just the two I know of.) I hope I never have to use their services - may our dogs and cats pass away restfully in their sleep when that time comes - but I will sure choose them over going to a vet's office.
For one dog my parents got the poison and did the injection, the dog dying in my lap, peaceful enough (and very sad—-we had many adventures together). For another dog-companion, this in my adulthood, our regular vet was kind, considerate, and matter-of-fact; verifying we wanted to kill our old dog, injecting the poison as we held our dog, and giving us plenty of time to grieve. If it had been just me I’d have stayed to help move the body, or at least watch, for the extra connection to the lifecycle. I have so many positive memories of both dogs, and accept that I will be part in deciding how and when our current dog dies. I hope you find the right professional to help you and your companions if they don’t conveniently die in their sleep.