During my time in Northumberland I lived in a house with a
field opposite, in which the farmer used to graze his flock of lambs during the
spring and early summer. I often used to watch them playing, and was constantly
surprised at how like human children they were. I even saw them playing a game
of King of the Castle one day, just as I did as a kid.
Two evenings ago I was watching the ewes and lambs in the
field at the top of my lane. There’s a tub of feed close to the gate, and two
of the lambs, now almost as big as their mothers, were playing push and shove
with their heads, each trying to gain access to the narrow opening. Eventually
one of them won, and the other retired a pace to watch and, presumably,
consider his next tactic. His next tactic was to lift one of his front legs and
try to pull the other’s head out of the tub with his hoof.
‘Cute’ is an overused word, and it carries an unfortunately
superficial connotation, but this was undoubtedly cute. I smiled at their activities, until it occurred to me that
these little guys have only a matter of days, or a week or two at most, before
they will be taken from their homes and mothers, crammed into lorries with no
room to move about, pushed and bullied through a concrete and steel-encrusted
market, herded into more lorries, and then forced into another shed where their
brains will be blasted with a stun gun.
I once knew a man who said he was vegetarian, but then told
me he’d just had some chicken McNuggets. I asked him why he ate chicken if he
was vegetarian.
‘Because it tastes nice.’
I’m not preaching here, just saying how I feel. Everybody’s
conscience is their own affair. Mine is one of the reasons why I’m vegetarian.
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