butchering wilbur January 23, 2012 7:03 PM   Subscribe  How do
small farmers not become sentimental about killing the animals
they've raised and nurtured, even though they've done it
expressly for that purpose? posted by crunchland to Pets &
Animals (37 answers total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
Maybe they don't name them? posted by Fister Roboto at 7:12 PM
on January 23, 2012  I have friends with a small hobby farm,
from whom I've purchased beef on occasion. They don't get overly
sentimental with the cattle. Neither do we, for whatever that's
worth. I met these steers. Our kids got to bottle feed them. Now
half of one of them is in the freezer. To the extent that they
receive names, their names are food: Chocolate, Big Mac, etc.
They don't really act very much like pets, either, so it's not
like one day you've got an full-grown Black Angus licking your
hand and the next day it's in the kill chute. These friends have
pets, too: dogs and cats. The pets are treated like pets. The
livestock are not treat