The distinction between livestock and pets is important and a fact I learned early on. I owe this in part to my growing up years on a hobby farm in rural Idaho. Although my father worked full time, he still managed to raise and care for a herd of sheep. In addition we had chickens and pigs to supplement our food supply. My brother and I were told from the time these animals arrived that they were not pets and would one day be on the table. Later in life I raised steers as 4-H and FFA projects and learned first-hand the responsibility of caring for my livestock, but I was also fully aware that I would be selling them come fair time. Case in point, my steers were not pets they were raised for beef.
Although I had pets growing up, I had a different attachment to them, a realistic one. I still remember coming home to find my poor dog had been run over by a car. As Brent Murphree, a former farm kid himself, put it, “One of the first things you learn is that when the old farm house is close to a section line dirt road with no speed limit signs, speeding cars and any number of animal species are attracted to each other like magnets. Family pets are not excluded.” Although it was tragic to lose a pet, it was also an important lesson to learn that we only have our pets for so long and that we have to learn to deal with death and move on.
Fast forward to 2009 and my family farms full time in Arizona, and we still raise the occasional chickens and pigs for our own food. My brother has a family of his own, and I am the proud aunt of a niece and two nephews. Recently, one of our roosters became very aggressive and it was time for him to become “sopita” (that’s Spanish for soup – chicken soup in this case). My niece and nephew were on hand for the processing and were fascinated with everything, including the way in which the feathers were plucked. My mom also spent quite a bit of time explaining the anatomy of the chicken as she cleaned it.
I am grateful that the art of raising livestock is being passed on to the newest generation of my family. In addition to raising livestock, my niece and nephews are learning to care for pets and have already had to deal with unfortunate loss of the family dog…yes, it was run over by a car. Most importantly though, they are learning that everything has a purpose and that everything lives and dies.
~Farming for Life~