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Once upon a time, sheep were always raised outside in the fresh air, in a system that would, in today’s terminology, be called “extensive”, even “organic”. More than ten million sheep are now stuck in factory farms worldwide; sheep are also used extensively in biomedical research.
About 24,000 are used annually for a range of purposes, from the study of Huntington’s disease and heart conditions to orthopaedics, organ transplants and genetic research (including cloning). There was a time when sheep were used in Argentina as fuel, their bodies thrown into furnaces. Like logs.
My family began farming them 800 years ago. Since I started, 25 years ago, I have learned that sheep are curious things. And sheep farming is a curious old business, where one can become attached to, loving, even, of animals raised for sale, for the pot.
That has always been the case. As the Old Testament, which knew a thing or two about shepherding, tells it in II Samuel:
https://unherd.com/2022/04/why-we-shouldnt-eat-lamb/