i’m the biggest hypocrite on the planet.
i love my meat based dinners, but couldn’t do livestock haulage, and take my hat off to those that do.
i do abit of work now and then, that is delivering containers to a big processing factory. 1 side is packing etc, the other is the slaughterhouse. every now and then as i’m coming out of the outgate, i’ll meet a livestock wagon going in, i have to look the other way, i just can’t look the animals in the eye.
i also heard that there isn’t much of an animal thats wasted, once its been slaughtered.
chilistrucker:
i’m the biggest hypocrite on the planet.
i love my meat based dinners, but couldn’t do livestock haulage, and take my hat off to those that do.
i do abit of work now and then, that is delivering containers to a big processing factory. 1 side is packing etc, the other is the slaughterhouse. every now and then as i’m coming out of the outgate, i’ll meet a livestock wagon going in, i have to look the other way, i just can’t look the animals in the eye.
i also heard that there isn’t much of an animal thats wasted, once its been slaughtered.
I wonder what they do with the offal nowadays after all these scares? I think in the old days they used to save a lot of it, people would eat parts of animals for which there isn’t much market in this country now, tripe, sweetbread, chitterlings and lights to name a few. Presumably a lot of this stuff goes in dog food now?
I sometimes go to a proper old school butchers where they are actually preparing and cutting the meats on wooden blocks in the shop, making their own pies and everything. Lovely.
I bought my first car from a bloke who, in his words, used to work “on the knives”, (in a slaughterhouse) I was half expecting a pigs head in the boot 
I’ve never done cows or pigs but I’ve transported turkeys ducks and chickens, I now work for the 2 sisters food group, and i’m currently sat in the lairage waiting for my trailer to be filled with empty mods so I can go off to Lincoln for another load, I can see the chickens going into the killing machine from where i’m sat, I do feel a little bad for them but I live in the real world, I like to eat meat and therefore it has to come from somewhere and be processed etc - it was the ducks I used to feel for the most, they seemed to have more personality than the others, but again, I like duck. out of all the road haulage I have done, livehaul is by far my favourite,there are a lot of rules initially but you soon get the hang of it all - and not all of it is necessary on the job, so it just doesn’t get used. one major plus - you never have to sit in a drivers waiting room - EVER.no ignorant goods in staff either, - everybody is generally pleasant and most of the farms have a microwave etc that you can freely use and the factory also has a nice canteen not to mention a wealth of ladies from eastern Europe to oggle at lol. 
all that said, I can do this job and sleep well but I cant go to places like the RSPCA cause i’d end up wanting to bring all the animals home with me! 
My first driving job was collecting the offal from slaughter houses about 5 or 6 collections a day on like a milk run,some days if you were early you would get there before the animals 
got to be honest it did get to me sometimes and I never regretted leaving that job
Having seen almost all aspects of the meat industry during my career I hate the fact I eat meat but find it so hard to give up. I’m cutting back bit by bit with a view to stopping one day.
I go to a lot of abattiors on fridge work, what amazes me is the constant flow of trucks that bring livestock in for slaughter. I got talking to one fella who worked in one plant in Ireland which slaughtered pigs, he’d said the ‘beasts’ were salughtered quickly after their arrival as stressing them out could damage the meat, then they were left to hang a few days so they could cool down before being made into pork chops, etc…
Farmers son and truck driver - and proud of it as well.
Been there for the whole process - right from watching the Bull and the Cow mate to the calf being born ( and having to assist the birth ) to the taking the calf from its mother to hand rear it (dairy herd) . Hand feeding , dehorning, castration (for the male calves) making silage to feed them ,mucking them out and spreading the slurry right up to the time when you decide they are heavy enough to slaughter . I’ve loaded them on to the cattle trailers and taken them to the slaughterhouse . I’ve even reared some for my own freezer so I’ve eaten it as well. I know exactly what the animal has eaten , how it’s been treated and that it was cared for as best it could be and I have no problem eating it - I find if you know the history it tastes so much better . And yes - they get "pet " names , they have characters and you get to recognise certain ones who always appear first or last in the group who seem to be more “friendly” than the rest. Certain animals will be leaders always first to a trough of meal or first into a new field of grass. Somebody said “When you have livestock you eventually will have deadstock”- I just try to make sure the time they are alive I do all i can to make sure they are well treated and looked after .
Well said, beefy- I suspect most people who have or have had agricultural experience will echo your views. I certainly do. I recall a cow who seemed to take a fancy to me: I called her “Jock” as she was endowed with a drooping udder that would have put a set of bagpipes to shame!
Livestock is best hauled by those who have an affinity to stock and were brought up in a livestock environment. Hauling a fridge of carcass’s would hardly give insight to the job.
switchlogic:
Having seen almost all aspects of the meat industry during my career I hate the fact I eat meat but find it so hard to give up. I’m cutting back bit by bit with a view to stopping one day.
How is that post relevant to the thread?
puntabrava:
switchlogic:
Having seen almost all aspects of the meat industry during my career I hate the fact I eat meat but find it so hard to give up. I’m cutting back bit by bit with a view to stopping one day.How is that post relevant to the thread?
How about you read what others have said on this first? Several have talked about how they feel about eating meat and I joined them. You’ve been on here a while, unfortunately, you must know by now threads go off in tangents. If you don’t maybe you should open your eyes. Have a nice evening.
switchlogic:
puntabrava:
switchlogic:
Having seen almost all aspects of the meat industry during my career I hate the fact I eat meat but find it so hard to give up. I’m cutting back bit by bit with a view to stopping one day.How is that post relevant to the thread?
How about you read what others have said on this first? Several have talked about how they feel about eating meat and I joined them. You’ve been on here a while, unfortunately, you must know by now threads go off in tangents. If you don’t maybe you should open your eyes. Have a nice evening.
Would make for an interesting vid Luke, preparing a salad
Instead of a slab of cow!!
I eat meat but hate it when they pass me and stare at me!!
switchlogic:
puntabrava:
switchlogic:
Having seen almost all aspects of the meat industry during my career I hate the fact I eat meat but find it so hard to give up. I’m cutting back bit by bit with a view to stopping one day.How is that post relevant to the thread?
How about you read what others have said on this first? Several have talked about how they feel about eating meat and I joined them. You’ve been on here a while, unfortunately, you must know by now threads go off in tangents. If you don’t maybe you should open your eyes. Have a nice evening.
The post makes you look like a politician doing ‘his bit’ so to speak, smacks of Clinton and his ‘I didn’t inhale’ statement. I will do my bit also 
I wouldn’t haul livestock because I haven’t got the experience or knowledge to treat them well. I don’t feel hypocritical about eating meat. I worked for a water supply company years ago. I’d imagine a lot of folk wouldn’t work down the sewers but it doesn’t stop them ■■■■■■■■. Everyone has a job they do which other folk wouldn’t stomach but they all have to be done, that’s why we get pay. Otherwise it’s a hobby.
I’ve always had the utmost admiration for livestock truck drivers and the job they do. Many of them do come from farming backgrounds so are brought up with animals from a young age. I am the son of a farmer who had to give up farming through ill-health and even though we had left the farm before I was even in my teens I was fully aware of why my dad was rearing cattle and pigs, so I don’t think it would have been a problem to me becoming a livestock transporter driver. When I worked for Turners I once did a week at a very large abbotoir / processing plant (then owned by one of the big four supermarkets) and was working at the abbotoir end moving various “unwanted” parts of the pig carcasses to other parts of the plant. I didn’t particularly enjoy it because it was a 12-hour shift with nothing to do but sit around for most of it waiting for the lorry to be loaded. The last job of the shift was to take tubs of warm blood from the day’s killing to the black pudding plant. That made me think a bit, I must admit.
I have driven a livsestock wagon but only been driving , i have not been in charge of loading or unloading and thankfully not had to wash out, i would like to get involved but havnt got the experience or knowledge to handle the animals. The animals are treated with so much respect at both ends they are never forced on or off the trailer and theres often a vet at the delivery point. You adapt to a whole different way to drive a truck by that i mean speed when coming up to bends, roundabouts and junctions, i try to keep the truck moving so theres as little pulling away as possible. Livestock drivers are a good bunch and very profesional i take my hat of to them
I did chickens from farm to factory or a couple of years, used to feel a bit sorry for them. but it was all very humane and strictly regulated. The worst thing was the smell, her indoors used to make me strip to my skiddies outside the back door! Only got a load of abuse once from a swampy type person in a Citroen Dyanne.