Reply #14: My grandfather loved animals of all kinds -- so he became a farmer.

[JDPriestly]

He was wonderful to his cattle, his sheep, his chickens and his hogs, but he butchered them all when their time came.

Back then, he allowed his animals to graze free until that fateful day on which they were slaughtered to be sold as meat. Such is the way of farming. Such is the way of nature.

Remember when you think of that gorgeous young black bull that he would never have been born, his hoofs would never have stamped this earth, had he not been destined for the stockyard and the dinner plate.

Cows don't make good house pets. (Although I believe that I have seen pictures of German households in which a cow is sticking its head into the kitchen through the top half of the kitchen door.)

No one would breed or keep a cow or a bull if they couldn't sell the meat. Cows have been bred for meat for a long time. If you keep a garden or farm, you soon learn that nature is about eating and being eaten -- or a lot of it is.