The Circle of Animal Projects

A few days ago, a picture of a 4-Her with his steer popped up on my Facebook feed. The young man has his arms around his steer and is obviously upset at the idea of selling him. I thought it was a great picture capturing the emotion behind 4-H market livestock projects. It brought up a lot of memories. Selling an animal that you have put so much work into is not easy and I am sure it will not be easy for us to put Tatum’s steers on the truck at the fair.

Tatum’s steers this year are named Bert and Ernie and they have been pretty good steers throughout the last nine months. When you care for animals it is easy to get attached to them, especially when their personalities have been as good as Bert and Ernie’s have been. For the most part, they have been easy to take care of, even if they were a little lazy and ornery at times. The last day of the fair will not be easy for us even though we have been through it many times. I fear that I might have to find a pair of dark glasses to wear as I hand the steers over. It doesn’t get any easier whether it is your first time or your……. well let’s just say I have done it several times.

The fact that it does not get easier is a good thing but it is the hardest thing for our non-farm friends to understand. I saw a piece on the local news and the family said that they had gotten many responses back from the picture, some good, some not so good. I went back and read some of the posts and it was as I expected. Many posts were sympathetic, they had been there, felt the pain and understood. Others, ranged from disbelief to outright anger.

The anger is hard for us to understand as farmers and ranchers, this is all part of the circle of life that we have been raised in and is part of our inner being as a livestock producer. We raise our animals understanding that it is our duty to provide them the best care and attention we can. However, we know the end point and understand why we raise livestock. They are here to provide us with food. It is the hardest part of this cycle to understand, I admit that I feel a little sad each time I drop a load of lambs off at the locker plant. That is good, empathy is normal and it means that we care deeply about our animals

I also understand why it is so hard for our non-farming and ranching cousins to grasp how we can do this. Their only point of reference probably is a pet. They did not grow up with the deep understanding of the cycle of life that we have and we must understand this, appreciate it and help them to see things from our perspective.

I am worried about some of the stronger responses. The idea to threaten, belittle and criticize something you don’t understand is concerning to say the least. I know it is a bad by-product of social media, it is easier to be mean and nasty when you are somewhat anonymous and that is a sad statement about our society. It is also troubling when it comes to our profession and way of life. We need to make sure our consumer and the public in general understand how we raise our livestock and that we genuinely care about the well-being of our animals. We also need to make sure they understand the difference between pets and livestock meant for food and more importantly the line between animals and people.

It is a line that is becoming blurrier and less defined over time. This is because of the disconnect from farm and ranch to the urban dinner plate. With fewer direct connections between country and city cousins we need to make sure we reach out and tell our stories and welcome people onto our farms and ranches. Either physically or, as this picture did, virtually. I am so glad this picture was shared and that is reached so many people. While it may have brought out the worst in some, it also opened an opportunity to have a candid discussion and allows us to share something so basic and valuable that all of us involved in youth livestock projects understand.

I was encouraged to see the response of so many to try to help explain why this was important and, in the end, necessary.  The overwhelming majority I saw were positive, understanding and patient with their responses and that is what we need. This picture will be played out many times in the next few weeks and I hope that we can use this as an important teaching moment to share just how deeply we care for our animals and how we pass that compassion on to the next generation of farmers and ranchers.