Taking a life to sustain my life. How the hell could I do that?

Yesterday, I took three lambs to a small abattoir in Combe Martin to be killed & processed into meat. Today I collected their skins. I have never done this before.

I can't believe I have written that. To write it down is to make it real, it actually happened. I was responsible for the deaths of those lambs. It shocks me to think I could do it.

The build up to this experience has been drawn out over at least 24 years & has resulted in an incredibly hard decision. One that, having seen it through to it's conclusion, I feel better placed to understand the complexities. 


The three lambs were not the Shetland sheep in the previous post. These three were from the small flock of Hebridean/Suffolk crosses I bought a few months ago.

A Bit of History

I've been battling as an animal activist since I was in my early teens, my greatest passions where fighting against the battery farming of chickens & pigs, hunting with dogs/poisoning/gasing/cubbing and animal vivisection for medical/cosmetic testing. 

When I was 11 I begged my mum to let me be vegetarian. As soon as I learned that in order to have dairy, the unwanted, young male calves are slaughtered, I became vegan. 

How the hell have I ended up killing three sheep?!

How could I do it?

It started when I looked at the effect my vegan diet was having on the countries it was grown in. 

The devastation of precious Rain Forest & decimated indigenous beings, the poor diets & living conditions of the farmers, the lax pesticide/herbicide controls, the incomprehensibly huge swathes of grains/soya monocultures managed with heavy fossil fuel belching tractors tearing up the forest soil & of course the air/boat/lorry miles to get it to the supermarkets. 

The negative ecological effect is staggering.

I felt incredibly selfish at my luxurious choice not to eat meat, not all are so lucky to choose. So I turned my mind to having a local vegan diet. This became increasingly difficult to achieve the deeper into winter I went & the more I worked outdoors. So I became vegetarian again. However, I couldn't help but think about the male animals being slaughtered so I could have cheese. This begged the question.. "Why don't I eat meat? If I'll eat dairy, why wont I eat meat"?  

So, was I just being emotional about eating an animal? Was it due to some 'spiritual' reason I didn't want to eat meat? No other reason seemed logical. The taking of a life to sustain my own is a big deal. A very big deal. If I am sustained by the taking of a life then I feel a responsibility to be worthy of that death. At the very least, not to take it for granted.

Well, I don't know what's right or wrong. All I feel is that there is NOTHING more important than our environment. It must be protected. If that means I have to eat locally/home reared meat, at lean times of the year, then that's what I'll do. Whether I like it or not.

One thing I do know, if I'm going to eat meat, I'm going to see the process through from beginning to end. I want to feel truly connected to the fact that this animal is going to die in order that my life is sustained. That way I will be forced to respect the animal, to be humbled & to take responsibility for my actions. A full awareness that the meat on my plate was once an inquisitive, social, living, breathing animal will stop me eating meat too often. I'll only be doing this when I need to.

I recently bought a timely copy of Simon Fairlies new book, "Meat- a benign extravagance". It is full of facts, figures, respected peoples assessments of the meat issue & all the things that are missing from this blog post. The science I suppose. It did settle me that there was someone out there, way cleverer than me, that was thinking on the same lines that I am. 

Buy Simons book here: http://www.green-shopping.co.uk/meat-a-benign-extravagance.html
To get a good idea about the content of Simons book, read this article he wrote for Permaculture Magazine: http://www.permaculture-magazine.co.uk/articles/articles_65.html

Taking the three lambs to slaughter

For the past 2 weeks I've been feeding the lambs twice daily in a pen we had set up as a trap. We couldn't herd these wild hebridean sheep! A mixture of our inexperience & their suspicion of all things human.  The night before I was taking them to the abattoir we sprung the trap. 

I kept them in the pen over night where they could go in and out of the trailer. I gave them willow forage & a bucket of fresh rainwater. I felt sick, heavy & very emotional. However, I wanted to look at them, to see their personalities, the quirky nature of their faces, the different way their fleeces hung. I wanted to face them I suppose, look them in the eye. Looking away felt like cowardice.  I let them be for the night.

After a very difficult evening I woke up feeling strangely calm & centred. I wasn't doing this mindlessly, I wasn't doing this as a point of principle. I was doing this because I had reasoned over many years that this was the most sustainable I could be, here on Exmoor, here in the UK.

When I went to check on the sheep they were all sleeping in the trailer. I let out a sob. No. I was NOT going to indulge my emotions now. I owed it to these three sheep to be as calm as possible. I again spent time with them. I took in their personalities, sheep do have them you know, Fattie, 2 Horn & Runty (its impossible not to tag animals with a name, no matter how hard I tried). 

Runty was the most inquisitive, the most easily confused by the world, Fattie just wanted food & 2 Horn was pushy to be first all the time.

Some of you will think I'm daft but to bring balance to my emotions I meditated while I was stood with them. I created a warm, light, loving space in my mind & held them there. It was all very calm. One of the sheep sniffed my hand. It was the calmest, closest we had ever been around each other. Tears fell freely. Tears are falling freely now. I seriously questioned what I was doing. I nearly didn't go.

The Abattoir

We arrived at the abattoir 20 minutes after loading the sheep. Well, they loaded themselves actually. I admit that I felt sick, my entire body shook & I was finding it hard to focus my eyes. I took a moment to compose myself & went into the office.

A lovely scottish woman greeted me & said "Oh, you caught them then?! Martin, this is the lady that couldn't catch her sheep last week!" Yes, I had been booked to take the sheep to the abattoir the week before but didn't manage to catch them! I'll admit, I probably could've tried a bit harder...

Again, I felt calm & centred. I was here now, it was happening. I stopped worrying for myself & stepped up to face the reality of eating meat.

In the office we sorted out the forms. They were a bit surprised when I asked if I could see the sheep being dispatched (killed).  They wouldn't let me though, saying that when they allowed a 'burly male, new farmer' in to see, he fainted. They did agree to let me go in to the leirage, the pens that the animals wait in before going into the dispatching pen.

While I waited with the sheep in the leirage, (they were totally relaxed by the way), I chatted to the abattoir owner. An organic farmer called Martin. He told me about his disgust for large scale animal farming, about how he invested a lot of money in upgrading his abattoir a few years ago but that at least 4 others in North Devon had closed as they couldn't afford to upgrade. He connected the pieces for me by pointing out that if all the small abattoirs close there wont be anywhere for small scale farmers/self sufficiency farmers to bring their animals. The supermarkets, he pointed out, were mostly to blame. This small family run abattoir has the same charges as the industrial, supermarket funded abattoirs.

As all this chatting was going on there was no noise at all from the dispatching room. No gruesome sounds of death & no bad smells.  All my worries about welfare were appeased.  A vet came through to check all the sheep were ok.  

Finally the sheep went through. I left.

Collecting & preparing the Skins

So, as I want to make the most out of all parts of the sheep I asked to have the skins returned to me. They told me to bring some bin bags. I had to buy the bin bags from the local shop.  As I paid for them the lady behind the counter was chatting about the weather & all I could think about was that I was buying bin bags to collect the skin of the lambs I had killed yesterday. I felt dirty somehow. If she knew, what would she say? I had to stop myself from telling her.  

I got home with three bin bags, each containing a lamb skin. It took me a while before I could take out the first one. I had no idea what to expect. I unrolled it, fleece down, on to the table. 

The skin still had the ears & tail attached. Straight away I knew this was 2 Horn's skin. 

I broke down. It was just too much. 

What the fuck had I done? I'd taken the life of this sheep. Who the hell did I think I was, why is my life more important than 2 Horn's?

I steadied myself & cut off the tail, ears, bloody bit where the neck would have been & the bit of the sheep where the leg joins the belly, as it had lumps of fat on. I also cut off the tuft of fleece from the top of her head. Carefully I covered the skin with salt. 

Next was Fattie. I knew what to expect & so I just got on with the job. I decided to let my mind remember Fattie the sheep. To see how I reacted. I was sad but ok. Whatever that means.

Finally, I took out Runty's skin. It was sodden in blood stained water. Just horrible. Absolutely horrible. The others hadn't been like that, I don't really know how I'm going to dry it. I went through the process of trimming her, like I had the others. Much quicker this time.  It's amazing how the human mind adapts & gets on with processes that would otherwise horrify them.

Conclusions

Well, next week I collect the sheep in little packages of cuts that probably wont make me react emotively. I've been conditioned to see my food packaged in this way, without associating it with the animal.

Killing these three sheep for food has taught me infinite things. One big thing is that I will not be selling animals for meat. However, I will be feeding myself, my friends & my family with sheep that I can't breed from or sell. These sheep will only be killed in the cold months. I wont be eating any other meat other than meat I have taken through the process myself.


It makes me uncomfortable that we will allow someone to take the life of an animal, on our behalf, when we don't need to. That we have allowed ourselves to have the messy, painful, difficult part of the process to be done behind closed doors, with only the shiny packet of chops on show. I don't expect everyone to do what I have but I do expect everyone, you & me, to show respect to the animal that was killed to make your burger. Be mindful.

Whether we eat meat, are vegan, vegetarian or fruitarian.. it's intention that's important. I will never expect others to agree with me & this time next year I may have changed my mind completely. My intention is to do the least harm to the most things as possible. That is my intention. That is all I'm working towards.  The Worlds quite complicated though, so it takes time to understand. Hopefully one day I will.

I never want to lose that awareness, of the life taken to sustain my life. 

hen xx