Little bit of a craigslist rant

See, this is why I ranted here. I know others have seen and perhaps been frustrated by similar things. (not our jedi friends who have no understanding of irritation or anything but passive dismissiveness :P ) And because I absolutely don't want to get irritated enough to say something uncouth to a CL lister. Being able to have somewhere to let off that little bit of steam means I can say, "Well, thanks for your time!" and seem cheery about it rather than give them an unwanted piece of my mind.

I only have baby goats every year because I want the milk production but I am deciding to foray into the world of meat goats in the coming years because I think that means my bucklings will have a better chance to go to good homes if they have a purpose other than yet another mediocre dairy buck.

These pet breeders around here keep going for tiny, blue eyes... too small for much of anything but to be cute--- It's not my place to regulate and I wouldn't but I'd much rather see goats being bred to better their breeds and purposes and pet stock being just from that process. I just can't stand to think of what happens to goats who are pets when their owners can't have them when they move or they lose a job and no one who raises goats for practical reasons will take them because they aren't really good for anything else.

Why not just buy from the auction if you don't want to make promises you can't keep? Or just raise your own? I agree we all have the right to sell to who we want and list stipulations if we choose. No, we can't keep everyone sometimes. You have the right not to buy. It's just as much a waste of our time to list a goat "not for meat" have someone come over to buy the goat and then they try and convince us that they should be allowed to butcher them. It does go both ways.

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http://silvercreek-farm.blogspot.com
Livin' the good life

I look at my job as a mom to be educating them in the world, for good or ill. No life exists without taking life. It does more environmental harm to grow plant crops in an industrial setting to provide a vegetarian meal than to grow as much as one can themselves, meat and vegetable. I understand your position--- but I would hope it's clear and hopefully in the title of the ad, so I don't have to click on it.

Thermo my son knows about life. He's helped pull baby goats out and has watched animals die in front of him. He chooses not to participate in that rather then bury his head in the sand like most people. I respect his decision as it's a thought out decision most people couldn't or wouldn't make. Yes, if he ate meat and then said I don't want my animals being eaten he would be a hypocrite but he doesn't and he's not.

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Livin' the good life

I do raise my own... but they came from somewhere, didn't they? I had to buy them in the first place and if I want different blood I sometimes might still have to purchase, wouldn't I?

It's not about the right to buy, or the right to have stipulations on whatever you sell. Be clear. Don't waste my time. If I am only learning that you won't sell to a family that chooses to cull and eat for meat animals that don't work out when I have come to pick up the animal, that's a fault I will lay directly at your feet. Before I go to someone's place I will already have read their ad, emailed them, and spoken to them on the phone--- then step four is go see where the animal lives and see the state of the animal, cash in hand, to purchase if all seems well. If that's when I find out you don't do meat then yeah I think i have a right to not be irritated or frustrated but actually angry. At that point you have wasted a considerable portion of my time and my resources in the gas it took to get me to your place.

I sure hope that's not how you conduct business...

Actually that's incorrect, it does more environmental harm to raise animals for good pound for pound then it does to raise vegetables. That's fact I'm sorry to say.

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Livin' the good life

Well actually my last ads for bucks state "if you want to eat him please don't mention it in front of my child". I reiterate that in my email correspondence and you would be shocked at how many people still tell my child they are going to shoot and eat the goat. I then have no choice but to refuse sale.

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http://silvercreek-farm.blogspot.com
Livin' the good life

It's not a fact and I believe it's a big fat stretching of the truth for you to use the phrase 'I'm sorry' in that sentence. I hope you know it's also a fact that human brains don't develop correctly or to their full potential without proper nutritional input.

But that's beside the point, isn't it? You do as you please and I will do the same. To me the only environmentally responsible thing to do is to raise what I use (plant or animal) in a sustainable manner and teach my children the same responsibility.

ETA: And you do have a choice, you made it, own it, it's your right to make that decision.

Well it is fact because animals consume more water then plants by far and animals require plants to be grown for them to eat. Animals eat far more then they produce in meat. Think about how much hay you feed a goat in a year. You would eat less then half that if you were eating the plants directly. So say your goat eats 150 pounds of hay in a year, do you get 150 pounds of meat of him? No you don't. That's why pound for pound eating plants is more environmentally friendly. I don't need a tractor to harvest the kale in my garden but I'm pretty sure I'm not harvesting my goats hay with scissors. Plus that tractor needs fossil fuels to run. My legs carry my outside to my garden to harvest and seed save for next year.

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http://silvercreek-farm.blogspot.com
Livin' the good life

Actually, with some methods of animal raising, the idea is that the animal eats plants that I can't eat and transforms it into something I can eat. I have acres of grass, shrubs and pine trees, none of which are edible to me. The goats love it and give me milk, from which I can make many things for me to eat. The cows eat the grass, which I also cannot eat, and turn it very efficiently into meat.

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There are more things in heaven and earth,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet


My attempt at a blog. Hopefully entertaining and useful.
http://senselesslyrandom.blogspot.com/

I don't feed my goats hay... I live where the growing season is year round and I plant so they will have browse throughout the year and do rotational grazing to limit the strain on the land--- note I compared industrial uni-agriculture to me creating a self sustaining little homestead?

But keep insisting upon comparing your apples to my oranges and continue to watch me shrug and say, "Okay, and?"

This was never the point of the rant but you know, I'm pretty easy, I can go with the flow.

Interesting thread drift, no?

__________________
There are more things in heaven and earth,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet


My attempt at a blog. Hopefully entertaining and useful.
http://senselesslyrandom.blogspot.com/

Hey guess what? Because I don't have to mow my beautiful lawn (which is well fertilized and lush) I don't run a mower and don't use those fossil fuels and I get milk and meat from my lawn instead of spending tons on fuel and fertilizers and spreading seed. So... we're a pretty 'green' operation.

I might as well jump on the bandwagon since the thread has drifted so much anyway.

I think that both plant and animal based diets/agriculture can be as eco-friendly and sustainable, or as not eco-friendly and sustainable, as they want to be. Animals live off of renewable resources just as do plants. It all comes down to individual management. If commercial agriculture of plants is compared to sustainable agriculture of animals, then the livestock wins. And vice versa. But that is comparing apples and oranges, as was already mentioned.

As far as nutrition goes, I believe (and there is evidence to show) that we were created to be omnivores and that an omnivorous diet is the healthiest for humans. That said, there's big difference between vegetarianism and veganism, and a vegetarian diet is much more likely to be healthy nutrition-wise. People should follow their personal convictions as to whether or not they consume meat.

Personally, I do feel that many (if not most) vegetarians wrongly assume that by not eating meat they don't contribute to meat production. In most cases, if you're eating dairy or eggs, you're still contributing to meat, because the excess males that were born to make the cow go into milk, for example, are going to be someone's burger. You can't escape the cycle unless you completely abstain (which would also mean never selling excess males, because chances are they will eventually become part of that cycle even if not sold as such). But it sounds like KrisD's child understands that better than most. The masses are unfortunately really disconnected from their food.

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People are delusional if they think they can sell to a stranger and be certain of how the stranger will treat an animal or what they will do with it. You can't even be certain how someone you know will treat an animal. I see so many "have you seen this horse" ads on equine groups. Same story over and over. They sold a horse with the stipulation that it would remain in the same home forever and then got wind that the horse had been sold and resold. If you truly love an animal, the only way to guarantee its wellbeing is to keep it. I would rather sell a goat to someone I knew would care for it well and then dispatch it humanely than sell to a stranger with a "no meat" clause any day.

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"What if I fall?" "Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?"

like, like, like!

Lol, my lawn looks like a manicured golf course. I don't even own a lawnmower.

Now I'm joining the rant, LOL.

It's a fact that raising dairy goats leads to kids being slaughtered. There's no getting around it - if people didn't slaughter them the world would be overrun with bucks and wethers. That's something I had to come to terms with before I decided to breed my goat. I don't like it - I wish there was a way to get goat milk without having to produce more goats, but that's the way it is. So if I'm breeding goats, knowing this, than I'm not above people eating goat meat.

Could I eat goats myself, imagining their cute little furry faces looking at me? Could I shoot one? No. So I'm THANKFUL that there are people out there who can do it. If there weren't, I wouldn't be able to have milk goats.

If someone were to show me that they treat the goats well until they humanely dispatch them, I would give them all my unneeded baby goats for free, to guarantee they wouldn't be abused. Being abused is a lot worse than having a good life right up until the moment you die.

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"What if I fall?" "Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?"

My baby goats go to the stockyards. I have kept a few in the past. But I keep my goats for milk and they have to be bred.
But I would rather sell them at the auction knowing they will be killed, then give them away or sell them to someone. Later to find out the goat was tied out in all kinds of weather, attacked by dogs etc. I don't have children so the decision is only mine to make. And I can live with myself afterward.

But on the flip side...I bought my best goat on craigslist : ) And sold turkeys through cl ads too. Ended up meeting WONDERFUL people in the process. So sometimes cl is a good thing : )

Right on ffarmergirl!