[merpnderp]

I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this? Because around here feedlots are only for finishing cattle and typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch.

[throwup238]

> I keep seeing people make this claim that cattle spend their entire lives on feed lots, but I've never seen this anywhere and I've been all over cattle country. Where do they do this?

Nobody does that, it’d be way too expensive. People here on HN have absolutely zero knowledge of how industrial cattle farming operates and have some really bizarre beliefs about the process. Largely because their only experience with it is the supermarket meat section and passing those massive stinky feedlots along the CA I5.

For everyone else: After a calf is raised and weaned from their mother, they are sent to “background” on pasture and the last few months a cow spends packed in a feedlot is just to fatten it up for human consumption. These are usually steps done by different companies altogether. The whole point of beef is utilizing marginal land that can’t grow human food. It converts tons of grassland to usable farmland, and that pasture makes up 2/3 of the total agricultural land in the US.

[Sightline]

I agree with everything you said except:

>"The whole point of beef is utilizing marginal land that can’t grow human food."

FYI: 36% of corn is grown just to feed cattle/livestock. I'm trying to breed chickens that are less dependent on commercial foods, so I'm somewhat familiar with the topic.

Also if anybody is interested in reading about how cattle are raised just read the USDA's page on it: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/...

[adolph]

I'm not here to police tone, but it sounded like you were disagreeing with the parent comment but your factual claims do not appear to disagree.

>> typically only spend about 2-3 months there after having very happy lives as calves on a ranch.

> After a calf is raised and weaned from their mother, they are sent to “background” on pasture and the last few months a cow spends packed in a feedlot is just to fatten it up for human consumption.

The only difference is the introduction of "sent to “background” on pasture" which arguably is not different from "happy lives as calves on a ranch" given different interpretations of calf to distinguish between baby and adolescent cattle.

[toolz]

There is no hypocrisy in cattle farming. No species on earth other than humans care about another species existence other than how it will benefit their own species.

I'm not saying humans shouldn't be different, but there is no hypocrisy in keeping in line with every other species in the known universe.

[pests]

No one said that.

They did not live the entire lives in the feedlot.

Anything else, you read into.

[samatman]

> Ah yes its fine to kill them

Yes. Fundamentally, most people, including myself, believe that it's fine to kill animals and eat them.

There's no hypocrisy here, disgusting or otherwise. You have your own concept of morality, I have mine, yours is considered extreme by society at large, mine is a shared moral belief of the great majority.

That's all that's going on here.

[adolph]

What is the "disgusting hypocrisy of cattle farming?" The term "happiness" is an anthropomorphic emotion term to describe animals not living in the distress so well characterized by Temple Grandin. The theory is growing the animal in a low stress environment leads to a higher quality product. Given the scary prions which spread in part by feeding cows to themselves, it makes sense to avoid some of the conditions humans often find aesthetically or morally objectionable.