Farmer Spares his own Lambs from Slaughter

​worldanimalnews.com/emotional-farmer-chooses-compassion-over-killing-saving-the-lives-of-20-his-lambs-in-the-uk/

A farmer who'd been raising lambs for slaughter for over 47 years decided to bring his latest group of lambs to an animal sanctuary instead of the slaughterhouse costing him in upwards of 10, 000 pounds. He states,

"“It was approaching autumn, the time I would usually take my lambs to market. I realized this year, I couldn’t do it. For many years, the issue of killing the animals played on my mind. I used to unload sheep at the abattoir and witnessed first-hand how they would huddle in terror at the back of the lorry. They knew what was going to happen.”
Sivalingam Vasanthakumar

He has since gone vegetarian and plans to sell plant based cuisine at local farmers markets and pending his success, hopes to open a plant based restaurant in his hometown in the near future. What an inspiring and wonderful story of compassion. You know, it's never too late to make the right choice and as he said, the knowledge of bringing his animals to slaughter and witnessing them huddle in terror knowing what was coming was eating away at him. As someone who has never witnessed that sort of life, I can't even begin to imagine what that feeling must do to you over so many years of raising animals and delivering them to their deaths.

I truly believe that someone who works in a slaughterhouse or in this case, a farm where you raise animals and deliver them to their deaths, must have to seriously detach themselves from their work much like a police officer for example. The things you must witness on a daily basis would otherwise take such a toll on you so the only way to make it through is to try and remove yourself emotionally from the situation. I would expect situations like this with the farmer who has a change of heart to happen more often but the fact is, people still see farm animals as nothing more than products which is where the problem lies.

As he states, he witnessed the lambs huddled in terror because they knew what was coming and that speaks to me. These animals most definitely feel fear and they can always tell when the fee;ling of the atmosphere has changed. They can sense when things are about to get bad and this causes them immense fear and emotional distress. It's indisputable the fear they must fear as they are lead to their deaths and to be able to do that on a daily basis is simply too difficult a thought for me to bear.

The good news is, stories like this are not as unique as you might think. I've reported before on situations like this where farmers have a change of heart after years of leading animals to their deaths and frankly, it needs to happen more often. If you spend enough time with these animals, you cannot deny their sentience. They feel fear, love, distress, sadness, happiness etc., so once we recognize on a global level these things about animals, we will hopefully see more and more farmers turning away from raising livestock for slaughter.

Kudos to this man for his change of heart and I hope these lambs enjoy their new lives on a sanctuary where they will live out their remaining years being happy and well taken care of.

HAPPY VEG