Posted on 09/14/2009 12:14:20 PM PDT by ShadowAce
LONDON (Reuters) - A group of schoolchildren who reared a lamb from birth and named it Marcus has overridden objections by parents and rights activists and voted to send the animal to slaughter.
Marcus the six-month-old lamb has now been culled, the head teacher of the primary school in Kent confirmed on Monday, after the school's council -- a 14-member group of children aged 6 to 11 -- voted 13-1 to have him killed.
The decision has provoked fury among animal-loving celebrities, animal and human rights campaigners and the parents of some of the children, and led to threats against Lydd primary school and its teachers, according to a member of staff.
Around 250 children at the school take part in a program designed to teach them about rearing and breeding animals.
The educational farm was started this year, with Marcus being hand-fed by the children. The children also look after ducks, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs.
The intention had been to buy pigs with the money raised from slaughtering Marcus, but those plans have been put on hold following the furor created by the lamb's culling. The school said the program may now have to be stopped.
"It's all up in the air," said a member of staff. "There's been so much pressure on us as a result of all this."
Despite that, the school said there had been overwhelming support among the children, the staff and most of the parents to have Marcus -- a castrated male who could not have been used for breeding -- sent to the slaughterhouse.
But opponents branded it heartless and cruel, with animal rights campaigners asking why Marcus could not have been used to teach the children about wool, and human rights campaigners worried about the emotional impact of Marcus's death on...
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Mmmm. Lamb. Good stuff.
}:-)4
Seems the kids had more sense than the parents.
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Somebody explained the circle of life to these kids, well done!
Really? wonder how many were muzzies
Vegans consider all animal products (even bee honey) to be "exploitation" of animals.
They would move the football downfield and complain about the gathering of wool next.
In Scotland they could have kept him around to teach sex ed.
I prefer my lamb a bit rare!
Mary had a little lamb
She ate it with mint jelly
and everywhere that Mary went
the lamb went in her belly
Love Lamb Chops - Leg of lamb, etc...
If all the high-falutin ones don’t want to kill the animals that were bred by the school kids-—
Have the kids breed purebred dogs next time.
Then the puppys and the kids can share Marcus’ BBQ ribs. (Before the puppies are placed in new homes) Tasty -
No, Marcus was castrated while still a kid.
Reminds me of a true story...
I knew a girl that had a calf when she and her brother were young. They named it “Cuddles”. Plenty of wailing and crying when dad had Cuddles slaughtered. He got them a new calf, but he took over the naming duties: “Mr. Steak”.
ping
only 2 mountain oysters - Not even a decent hors d’ourve
Across the pond the term “rare” is unknown I do believe.
Put a nice rare steak in front of me with a bit of garlic salt and I’m a happy camper.
HOLLY: Everybody like mutton?
JERRY: Um, mutton! Hope you didn’t cut the fat off.
Wouldn’t stop a Scot.
Spoken like a true drunken Irishman.
LOL, our neighbor names his cow T-Bone for the very same reason.
Seems like the kids got the point of why animals are raised on a farm.
We got our kids a calf last year.
They first named it Mookie.
After tromping out in the snow to feed and water the damn thing all winter, one of the kids renamed it Cheeseburger.
Eventually, even my youngest daughter walked into the house one cold evening and said, “CAN WE EAT IT YET?”
Amen to that. What the heck are you supposed to do with domesticated livestock?
The school missed a teaching moment. They could have just launched into “Marcus is a surplus male. There only needs to be one sperm donor per herd.”
Then all the little boys in the class could be looking over their shoulder the rest of their lives.
At least 13 kids understand that lamb stew is delicious, as are lamb chops.
We raise some animals as pets and some as food.
There's another kind? :)
LOL!
Never could develop a taste for mutton! Good on the kids, they show a maturity that the grownups can’t seem to muster.
I'm game...
Mary had a little lamb
Her father shot it dead
And now it goes to school each day
Between two chunks of bread
I’m a big sucker for animals and don’t even try to name anything that I’m going to eat.
An old boyfriends mom (back to the land type) bought a pig to raise for meat and named it “Porky”. Needless to say, the pig died of old age LOL.
LQ
LISTER considers, takes the spoon out of his mouth and throws it away. Then he empties most of the bottle into a glass and starts gulping it.
RIMMER enters, dressed as a chef.
RIMMER: Well, a highly enjoyable meal all round. Obviously you can't expect perfection first time but I was quite delighted with the way my dumplings went down.
LISTER: Rimmer, real dumplings, proper dumplings when they're properly cooked to perfection, proper dumplings, should not bounce.
RIMMER: True, but compared to what I thought they were going to be like they were quite superb.
LISTER: So how's the Cat?
RIMMER: He's just sleeping off the stomach pump. He'll be alright. The lamb was a bit of a flop though.
LISTER: The lamb? Everybody thought the lamb was the cheese and that lemon meringue pie, man, what was in that?
RIMMER: I thought you liked that, you brought some back.
LISTER: Yeah, I wanted to try some on my athlete's foot.
RIMMER: It's not easy, Lister, cooking. When you're dead, when you don't exist, when you're made entirely of light.
LISTER: That's your excuse for everything isn't it -- being dead?
When my kids were little, we got chicks - both for laying hens and broilers. It was explained to them what was going where. They played with the laying chicks and called the others “noodle soup”.
No problem. And darn, that was good chicken...
How vicsious and cruel! I'll bet they even plant seeds to grow plants with no plans for said plants other than to eat them! Slavery! Vegans make me sick. They act as though plants were put on this earth for no other purpose than to fill their nasty guts.
MMMMMM. Rack of Lamb. Roasted, with rosemary. And mint jelly.
And lamb chops.
When I was growing up on a farm in Iowa, the standard rule concerning edible livestock was that any critter that has a name is safe from becoming Sunday dinner.
My sister and I had a pet turkey named “Tom” (how original...hey, we were kids) that we raised from a ‘chick’ and he was imprinted with the image of us being his mom.
He followed us around constantly like a spare shadow and always came out to meet us, getting off the school bus each afternoon. He’d come out and fan out his feathers and strut around a bit. It was his main, possibly only, talent.
In early November, word leaked out to us that he was going to be the main course for Thanksgiving dinner. The old rule had been over-ridden and Tom was about to be “axed” literally.
Come the day before Thanksgiving, we all dreaded what was about to happen and nobody would volunteer to be his executioner. Just thinking about it spread through the family to where we were all nearly in tears.
Happy ending:
We couldn’t bear to kill Tom for dinner, so we ate the dog.
Just to let you know-—I had tears coming out of my eyes, I was laughing so hard.
(Hic)* I wouldn’t know. LOL
Ask vegetarians if they feel any sense of loss when vegetables are harvested.
Then ask them if they feel any sense of loss when a forest is harvested.
Awww, that’s nasty LOL.
A friend of mine is currently raising three beef cattle - their name are “Big Mac”, “Quarter Pounder”, and “Double Cheese”.
LQ
13 out of 14 voted to have him killed. What emotional impact is there for the children? The one child, perhaps.
Mary had a little lamb
It’s fleece was white as snow
But when she slit his little throat
My, how the blood did flow.
*shrug* yeah, well, we shoulda named the dog...
well, what was the dog’s name?
No problem! --- He'd named it Barbecue ---
Hey, it is England. Maybe that kid wanted to wait until the lamb became mutton.
one post too late LOL!
Don't you mean, "the pigskin"?
Fair enough. As for Marcus- I appreciate the lesson that the kids learned, and I don't disagree with doing it, but I couldn't do it, for just that reason. If it has a name- it's getting perilously close to 'pet' status.
I'm not a vegetarian or an Animal Rights loon by any means. But I avoid lamb and I avoid duck, just because I like them too much.
We couldn’t bear to kill Tom for dinner, so we ate the dog.
How was it?
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