Sometimes you can handle something morally but you can’t handle something emotionally.
Like, I know if I were to raise my goats for meat, they would be better cared for than many other animals being slaughtered.
Most animals are slaughtered before adulthood. The reason for this is because, as the animal gets bigger, it takes more and more food to keep them alive. This is worth it while they’re going through growth spurts, but at some point, the growth slows down and now the little amount of meat you’re gaining isn’t worth the feed.
For goats, the typical age for slaughter is around 3-5 months, but it can also depend on the time of year; if a goat is pasture-fed, feeding them isn’t very expensive, but once winter hits they require hay and grain, so many farmers just slaughter their goats as winter approaches, so the age might depend on what time of the year they’re born.
Now, if I was making good enough money in my career as a whole, I might be able to afford to slaughter them a little later in life, but how much later? Maybe 1 year? I still don’t think I could send a goat to his death at 1.5 years of age, and financially I might even be losing money.
This is even though I know that people are going to buy meat no matter what, and I would be providing a more ethical alternative to other sources. Ethically, I know I might actually be doing some good in the world... but emotionally, I just can’t handle it.
