Entrenched Attitudes

In the activity of the sheep farming industry are displayed ‘we have always done it this way’ embedded attitudes. Change is necessary and overdue. 

Sheep farmers, as people working with living creatures requiring attention daily, have routines. The various elements comprising the ‘sheep farming year’ also have their place. And the year’s seasons impose what is to be done and how. So, there is both context and cause for the existence of an accepted approach in the activity of sheep farming. Additionally, farming of sheep is an endeavour usually happening in rural, quite remote, even isolated, places. Therefore, sheep farmers’ contact with a variety of people and viewpoints may not be huge. The general scene is provided for engendering attitudes in common to exist, and for leading to these to remain unaltered. 

The thought and manner of the sheep farming industry can lead to sheep being regarded as humans’ property and as items for humans’ use.

The attitude manifests outdated-ness. It is out of sync with latest, modern-world, thinking on animals and their welfare. That sheep are sentient is now recognised. Therefore, to ignore the recognition that sheep can feel, to treat them as if they are unfeeling objects, is unacceptable. For example, handling of sheep, in every situation, must be gentle, caring, considerate, respectful. 

On the part of sheep farmers and all those in the sheep industry, a change of thinking about sheep is required. Towards the required change, seeing sheep fundamentally differently is needed, then as an outcome of this, change and improvement of procedures is demanded.

Let us consider, more, and across the board, what is likely to be contributing to the formulation and maintenance of entrenched attitudes, and what needs to change.

Considering animal welfare laws, Gary Francione opines
‘… the law almost always defers to industry to set the standard of “humane” care. This deference is based on the assumption that those who produce animal products - from the breeders to the farmers to the slaughterhouse operators - are rational actors who will not impose more harm on animals than is required to produce the particular product, just as the rational owner of a car would not take a hammer to their car to dent it for no reason. We assume that whatever level of protection for animal interests that producers are providing is the level that is necessary to use animals for that purpose. The result is that the level of protection for animal interests is, with rare exceptions, set by the industry and is linked to what is required to exploit animals in an economically efficient way. And that allows for a standard of treatment that, if applied to humans, would clearly constitute torture.’
(Why Veganism Matters: The Moral Value of Animals, 2020, pp 31-32)

Sheep farmers and their associates such as auctioneers and their personnel, slaughter houses and their operatives, shearers, are working to cater to customers, humans. They form one sector of society in society as a whole. So, all humans need to change what they are demanding from sheep farmers and those others in the sheep farming industry. Moral philosopher Peter Singer, saying that habit ‘is the final barrier that the Animal Liberation movement faces’, continues thus:
‘Habits not only of diet but also of thought and language must be challenged and altered. Habits of thought lead us to brush aside descriptions of cruelty to animals as emotional, for “animal lovers only”; or if not that, then anyway the problem is so trivial in comparison to the problems of human beings that no sensible person could give it time and attention. This too is a prejudice…’. (Animal Liberation: Preface to the 1995 Edition)

Roanne Van Voorst considers ‘How can we live and eat in a way that does not exploit or wipe out other species?’. She says, ‘This thought experiment is difficult not only because it could mean we have to critically rethink our entire economic system but above all because it forces us to look at ourselves in a different way; to look at what a human is, and what a nonhuman animal is, and what animal rights could look like as a result, and how these differ from human rights, and the meaning of all these laws in relation to one another in an age in which humans have long since stopped behaving humanely.’ (Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals: The Future of Food, 2021), p 213. 

It can be seen that is not just sheep farmers and the entire sheep farming industry who need to review their attitudes to sheep. All of us need to open our minds and lose traditional perspectives that are inappropriate and causing sheep harm and suffering.