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A farmer in the U.K. took 20 male lambs nearly 200 miles to Goodheart Animal Sanctuaries instead of a slaughterhouse after he “couldn’t cope” with sending animals to their deaths. The sanctuary looks after about 220 animals but had never received lambs from a farmer.
Sivalingam Vasanthakumar, who worked as a dairy farmer for almost 50 years, said that taking lambs to the slaughterhouse upset him and he hated seeing “animals going through that stress.” Because the emotional toll had weighed on him, Vasanthakumar decided to change his career from animal farming to vegetable farming.
In an interview with the BBC, Vasanthakumar stated:
I just couldn’t cope anymore and I had to say no. … I will still be in the farming world, but not livestock farming anymore.
It’s heartwarming to see more farmers choosing compassion and saving animals.
In 2018, a farmer in Derbyshire turned his farm vegan after many agonizing years of sending cows to slaughter. Jay Wilde, who inherited the farm from his father, proclaimed he could no longer support industries that killed the animals he was raising.
In an interview with Inews.com, Wilde explained:
We did [our] best to look after them [the cattle], but you knew you were going to betray them. You really couldn’t look them in the eye.
Wilde also said that he felt killing animals for meat was “morally indefensible and that the cows on his farm sensed their fate. After 60 “years of turmoil,” Wilde and his wife, Katja, sent the majority of their 70 cows to a sanctuary in Norfolk, England. Twelve cows from the original herd stayed with Wilde as companions.
While these lambs and cows will spend the rest of their lives at sanctuaries, most are not as lucky. Mercy For Animals has conducted more than 65 undercover investigations in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Brazil. Each time we’ve revealed horrific conditions and painful procedures that are standard in the animal agriculture industry.![]()
But it’s not just Vasanthakumar and the Wildes who’ve had a change of heart. Millions around the world are trading meat, dairy, and eggs for a compassionate vegan lifestyle.
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