Ignorance is Bliss

An Innocent Beginning
Robin Hoselton

Until we started raising cattle, I didn’t give much thought to buying hamburger at the supermarket meat counter. Now I wonder who I’ll be eating.

Contrary to common sense, which dictates that you don’t give names to livestock; and in spite of my friends’ admonitions not to get attached to the animals we raise for food, I did just that with our first herd of feeder calves.

It began innocently enough when my husband remarked that one of the young steers must have been bottle fed because it was a regular nuisance of a pet. It followed us around the barnyard like a big, black dog. One day when I reported to Tom that one of the calves had nearly knocked me down while I was carrying a bucket of grain, he asked which one it was.

Without hesitation, I answered, “Pet.”

That was how I began using names for identification. Of course I wouldn’t presume to name 50 animals that all look alike. My downfall came about, though, when I noticed that they didn’t all look alike.

How Else Will We Tell Them Apart?

For instance, one blue-eyed steer I named Sinatra. Another’s ears were unusually large and round–the logical choice: Mickey Mouse. A small heifer that had inadvertently been mixed in with the steers I called Little Girl.

The calf always poking along behind the others at feeding time was referred to as Tag-End Charlie by Tom who remarked that there was one of those in every herd. The lovesick steer that thought he was a bull, I called Humperdink. Just plain Humper sounded like the title of an X-rated movie. Besides, I didn’t think Englebert would mind.

Another steer whose hump was a physical deformity on its back, rather than a description of his activity, resembled a buffalo so he became Bill. The half-wild animal that shied at our every movement was appropriately designated Spook.

The trouble with naming animals, however, is that once recognized as individuals, they take on a personality and intelligence previously ignored. How can I eat meatloaf now knowing that I may be putting ketchup on Sinatra or Bill or…?

 

Tagged beef, livestock, supermarket