Beef and sheep farmer Ronan Delany, from Dunshaughlin.
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As a farmer you are often asked “do you not feel bad bringing your animals off to be killed?” Many may say simple answer simple question and in reality it could be a yes/no answer but it's not. Being born a farmer is not something you choose, although more and more people not born into it are choosing to enter the industry. As a farmer one of your biggest tasks is caring for your livestock and that is where outsiders tend to have an issue. "How can you care for them and at the same time load them up to be transported to the sharp end of the butcher’s knife?", they ask.
I have no problem with it for many reasons, it is our job to rear as healthy a product as we can for human consumption and it is our job to ensure that these animals while they are under our care are reared and minded with enthusiasm and compassion in equal measures. Every year we try to rear more kg’s of lamb and beef to a better standard year on year. It is our aim to help them grow faster and get more of them to slaughter. The first thing we look at every time we return from the factory is the kill sheet with the results of the lambs or beef heifers we took to slaughter that day, and we always compare it to last week or last year.
The biggest reason I have no problem with taking our animals to slaughter is that as a farmer it is our duty to ensure they are killed quickly and humanely. Often when I deliver animals to the factory I will wait and see them killed. I am happy then that I did my best to rear them properly and follow them through to the end.
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Recently though I had a small bit of indecision over a ram who had reached the end of his working life. I bought him as a ram lamb in 2008 for €375. He was nothing special on paper, I just liked the look of him and he proved to be a “dinger” - never getting sick or needing feet done etc. In autumn 2014 he was given a reprieve as he was such a good ram, even though he could have gone. This year he had to go, his teeth were nearly all gone and it was the first time after a mating season that he had lost condition. With a small bit of a heavy heart he was loaded up with the last load of lambs and off he went. I watched him walk up to slaughter line with no idea of his impending doom. Next time I saw him was going by the weighing scales as a piece of meat and even then I said, “Jees he was a super ram, look at the shape of him”.
Even in death our animals never stop pleasing us.
Listen to an interview with Ronan Delany in our podcast below:
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As a farmer you are often asked “do you not feel bad bringing your animals off to be killed?” Many may say simple answer simple question and in reality it could be a yes/no answer but it's not. Being born a farmer is not something you choose, although more and more people not born into it are choosing to enter the industry. As a farmer one of your biggest tasks is caring for your livestock and that is where outsiders tend to have an issue. "How can you care for them and at the same time load them up to be transported to the sharp end of the butcher’s knife?", they ask.
I have no problem with it for many reasons, it is our job to rear as healthy a product as we can for human consumption and it is our job to ensure that these animals while they are under our care are reared and minded with enthusiasm and compassion in equal measures. Every year we try to rear more kg’s of lamb and beef to a better standard year on year. It is our aim to help them grow faster and get more of them to slaughter. The first thing we look at every time we return from the factory is the kill sheet with the results of the lambs or beef heifers we took to slaughter that day, and we always compare it to last week or last year.
The biggest reason I have no problem with taking our animals to slaughter is that as a farmer it is our duty to ensure they are killed quickly and humanely. Often when I deliver animals to the factory I will wait and see them killed. I am happy then that I did my best to rear them properly and follow them through to the end.
Recently though I had a small bit of indecision over a ram who had reached the end of his working life. I bought him as a ram lamb in 2008 for €375. He was nothing special on paper, I just liked the look of him and he proved to be a “dinger” - never getting sick or needing feet done etc. In autumn 2014 he was given a reprieve as he was such a good ram, even though he could have gone. This year he had to go, his teeth were nearly all gone and it was the first time after a mating season that he had lost condition. With a small bit of a heavy heart he was loaded up with the last load of lambs and off he went. I watched him walk up to slaughter line with no idea of his impending doom. Next time I saw him was going by the weighing scales as a piece of meat and even then I said, “Jees he was a super ram, look at the shape of him”.
Even in death our animals never stop pleasing us.
Listen to an interview with Ronan Delany in our podcast below:
If you would like to speak to a member of our team, please call us on 01-4199525.
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