> And I will go one step further and say that this short story has not convinced me that the other <10% would choose to. Is this based on your own experience w

> And I will go one step further and say that this short story has not convinced me that the other <10% would choose to. Is this based on your own experience with pasture-raised farm animals, or reading in your own feelings into it? My great aunt raised sheep for a while, and I spent a couple of summers as a farmhand. From what I can tell, those sheep lived reasonably happy sheep lives. Ewes had babies that grew up with them in the flock. They all hung out together in a big flock; they were rotated around a number of different fields on a regular basis, fed hay and other feed as supplements, given a shelter to stay and regular medical care. The rams were kept separate from the ewes most of the time so that births happened in a predictable fashion; but other than that, the sheep were given what sheep need. Where I live now I'm a short drive from free-range cows and chickens too; the cows seem about as happy wandering round fields eating grass as the sheep did. I've certainly seen depictions of factory farming that make me sick; I'd be happy to have those kinds of practices banned. But I don't see what my great aunt did as unethical at all: if anything, I think the lives of those sheep did have value, and the world was a better place because of their little sheepy lives than it would have been entirely without them.