School to Slaughter Pet Lamb, Sell Meat
Categories: In The News, Weird But True
A British school plans to slaughter a lamb living there and sell the meat for money. Credit: Getty Images
Break out your "Meat is Murder" T-shirts, folks -- a school in England plans to kill a lamb living there and raffle off it's meat in order to raise money to buy more animals for the school's farm.
Lydd Primary School's council voted 13-1 in favor of slaughtering the lamb, and the decision has some parents in an uproar. According to the BBC, parents said the children have been encouraged to treat the lamb named Marcus as a pet and have grown attached to him.
And it doesn't end there. The pigs that the school plans to buy with the proceeds from Marcus' untimely demise will also meet their maker at Lydd Primary -- the BBC reports that they will be made into sausages.
School officials told the BBC that the decision to make Marcus into mutton will teach students valuable lessons about farming and the economy, as well as where food comes from.
Ashley Byrne is a senior campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and she told ParentDish that schools would be better off teaching children to have compassion for their four-legged friends.
"This is inhumane and irresponsible," Byrne said of the school's plans. "There are much better and healthier ways to teach kids about the economy of food, like planting a vegetable garden. Animals are living beings, and children identify with them."
Our prediction? A whole new wave of vegetarians will be graduating from Lydd Primary School in the very near future.
Recent Posts
- G.I. Joe, My Little Pony Invading TV With New Children's Network (2/09/2010)
- Movies May Influence Children's Food Choices, Study Shows (2/09/2010)
- Report Cites 220 Cases of D.C. Teachers Abusing Students (2/09/2010)
- Chicago Candidate Drops Out of Race With Tearful Child On Display (2/09/2010)
- Juicy, But Not Juice (2/09/2010)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Melissa 9-14-2009 @ 5:35PM
This is worse then when they made us name our pig fetus and our frog only to have us disect the damn thing a week later! Sick and wrong and just nasty! The lady from PETA has it right, teach them about farming and such with a vegetable garden for God's sake! Don't let them become attached to a poor innocent animal and then kill it!
Reply
Pinky 9-14-2009 @ 5:47PM
I'm not sure if any of you have ever heard of 4H or FFA (Future Farmers of America). Kids in these organizations are taught to care for a lamb, pig or cow/steer and then it is auctioned off at the local town fair for slaughter or whatever the new owner would like to do with it. This is not unusual.
Reply
bgbassmom 9-14-2009 @ 5:47PM
I think the main problem here is that the school encouraged the children to make a pet of the lamb and then made the decision to slaughter it. Our family raises a hog for slaughter every year, but both of my children know before we even buy a pig that its purpose is to become food for us. Of course, we live in the middle of farm country, and my kids have always known that the steers in the pasture next door are not just cute calves - they are aware that hamburgers come from cattle. If the school had made their intentions known and had not encouraged the students to make it a pet, it wouldn't have been such an issue. But as it stands, it would be a lot like telling the kids they would have to slaughter the class hamster for meat.
Reply
Jason 9-14-2009 @ 6:14PM
I'm not sure why there's SUCH an uproar. As previous commenters mention, this is commonplace in various places--in rural homes and in groups like 4-H. Kids need to learn the value, the cost, and the source of their food so that they can have respect for what they are choosing to eat.
Reply
SKL 9-14-2009 @ 9:59PM
I find this reaction really scary. Have we gone this far from reality that now grown people want to deny or hide the link between animals and food? I mean, we're not talking about a vegetarian society. The whole point of a farm is to raise animals that will be eaten. Should kids not know that?
Seriously, if this reaction were seen, say, 100 years ago or more, it would be considered lunacy.
I think it's healthy to teach kids where "meat" comes from . . . and conversely, where farm animals end up. If you feed them meat, I don't see how you can do otherwise and still consider yourself to be honest to your kids. Now if you are a vegan, I could see your concern, but then you wouldn't send your kids to a school with a farm attached, would you?
I don't know what they told the kids about the lamb, but it's not unusual that young farm kids see farm animals as "pets" up until the time for slaughter. Having to say goodbye to someone/something you've learned to love is part of life. I agree they should have been up-front about the lamb's destiny - and maybe they were.
Reply
Maureen 9-14-2009 @ 11:16PM
Since having kids, I rarely eat meat. It's one thing to just eat a delicious steak with a nice glass of red and quite another to have to describe to my child where that steak actually came from. Let's just say it's easier on my psyche to cook vegetarian.
As far as this issue goes, I'm not sure. I would never eat or serve lamb.... Yes children need to be taught where our food comes from, but they have become caretakers of this animal. My mom told me an interesting story -- when she was a child they had a chicken. The chicken laid eggs and they appreciated it. The children named the chicken and fed it and looked at is a pet. One day the chicken was old and no longer laid eggs. My grandfather went out and cut off the chicken's head. The whole family stood around and watched while the creature ran around with no head. No one in the house ate chicken that night.
Reply
realmama4 9-15-2009 @ 11:49AM
Give me a freakin' break, this article makes it sound like they're going to process the lamb right in front of the kiddies. Ask most kids where food comes from and they will say "the grocery store." Children are not too delicate to understand that human beings are omnivores, and meat comes from animals. The only problem here is that the school did not tell them up front that the lamb would be sold for meat. But I grew up raising livestock projects in 4-H from the age of 9, and I am not a vegetarian, for meat's sake.
Reply
Lincoln Yue 9-17-2009 @ 9:37PM
I can relate, something similar happened to me when I was a kid. But i'm not traumatized and neither will these kids. And i'm the furtherst thing from a vegetarian! Yes, I agree that the Lydd Primary School teachers could have been more sensitive and not encouraged the children to treat the lamb like a pet. However, at the end of the day, people come first and we homo-sapiens are happily on top of the food chain. Meat comes from animals.
http://www.guessyourbaby.com/babypool/blog/2009/09/mmmm-burger.html
Reply