The Cows · Page 24
The men who care for us every day of the year take their own lives in despair.
Livestock raisers have one of the highest suicide rates of any group in society. As economic pressures push them further along the road to the industrialization of their livelihood, they are often overworked, estranged from their animals, indebted and unhappy; it is a seven-day-a-week affair, poorly paid with little vacation, replacement, or retirement facilities.
Small-scale animal farmers often do their job for the love of the animals and are more often able to give them appropriate living conditions.
They all deal with birth, death, and illness in the herd and often have to make hard choices. The life cycle of domestic animals has become one of the only instances in the modern developed world where we can come to terms firsthand with birth and death as it exists for all living creatures, including us!