Animal Lovers Web Forum

Cedar the goat was part of the 4H program in the USA. Children are given a farm animal to raise. At the end of the program the animals is auctioned off for slaughter. Children learn to accept this. They raise the animal as a pet and then send it for slaughter. It prepares them to treat animals as commodities.

The eight year old girl who raised Cedar was not prepared to do this. Her mother offered to buy Cedar and she took him home. The sheriff's deputies came and took Cedar and had him slaughtered right away. In their minds Cedar was stolen property that needed to be returned.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...livestock/

This whole story really shows up our attitudes towards animals. We think of them as pets to love or animals to be eaten. In order to have people willing to raise animals for food, children have to be trained to think that way.

They would not allow an exception in the case of Cedar. He is just one goat, but if they let one child keep the animal they love, other children might want to keep their animals. The whole system could break down and people might not be willing to raise animals for food. People might not be willing to kill animals for food. One child got hurt to preserve the system, but I think all the children are hurt by the system.

(05-18-2023, 02:17 PM)Catherine Wrote: [ -> ]They would not allow an exception in the case of Cedar. He is just one goat, but if they let one child keep the animal they love, other children might want to keep their animals. The whole system could break down and people might not be willing to raise animals for food. People might not be willing to kill animals for food. One child got hurt to preserve the system, but I think all the children are hurt by the system.

You really get to the heart of the matter in this paragraph, Catherine. The meat industry has billions of dollars invested in its processes and it cannot afford for children to learn to become empathetic towards animals. That could cause a collapse in the number of meat eaters in the future. So it has to push on with its program, including the US Govt sponsored 4H baby-animal-to-plate scheme. I am not aware of any Govt sponsored scheme like this in Europe. Does it exist in Canada, Catherine?

I have never heard of 4H in Canada. I have never heard of a child raising a farm animal as part of a program. I was given seeds to plant a garden when I was that age. I was not told what I had to do with the plants afterwards, they were mine.
I even won $1.75 for my garden. I still feel good about it after all these years.

Quote:The meat industry has billions of dollars invested in its processes and it cannot afford for children to learn to become empathetic towards animals. That could cause a collapse in the number of meat eaters in the future. So it has to push on with its program, including the US Govt sponsored 4H baby-animal-to-plate scheme. 

This program of getting kids to raise baby animals and then getting them to give the animal up for slaughter, is in many ways a form of child abuse.
Many children might act like they are okay with what happens, because they want the approval of the adults involved. I doubt they are actually okay. 
They are not able to express the pain they are feeling when their "pet" is taken away and killed. Any child who doesn't feel a sense of loss is seriously damaged. They can no longer feel empathy for another living creature.

I think the 4H program is geared to kill any empathy the children naturally have.  
Pets teach children to have empathy. Pets help children mature into caring adults.
What do the children turn into if they turn their pet over to be slaughtered for food.

That one eight year old girl threatened the whole system.
I hope she grows up to be someone who can help change the system.