Marcus auctioned to pay for more farm animals
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Independent Minds
Lovingly hand-reared by pupils in a Kent school, Marcus the lamb met his end in an abattoir after the children voted to sell his meat in a raffle.
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Marcus the lamb, who was hand-reared by children at a Kent primary school, is dead. The school's headteacher defied protests by a small number of parents, backed by animal rights groups and animal lovers, and yesterday stuck to a decision to have Marcus slaughtered. His carcass will be auctioned to pay for more farm animals.
Andrea Chapman, head of Lydd Primary School, Romney Marsh, appealed to the public yesterday to "move on" for the sake of the children's education.
"The decision to send the wether lamb for meat, which has the support of the school council and staff, the governing body and the majority of parents, has now been carried out," she said. Ms Chapman added that the children have had it explained to them ever since the school began rearing pets that animals such as Marcus are eaten as meat. "When we started the farm in spring 2009, the aim was to educate the children in all aspects of farming life and everything that implies," she said.
The school has been the centre of controversy since a small group of parents protested last week about the decision to kill the lamb. The television chat show host Paul O'Grady offered to buy Marcus, as did several animal sanctuaries.
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Comments
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That's disgusting. Andrea Chapman, head of Lydd Primary School and her blabbing ,sounds to me like a Hyena's hysterical laughter to say the least.It is Repugnant Really.
The children at this school have been encouraged to pet this lamb, call it a name and regard it as a pet. It was spitefully slaughterd and the ensuing auction is sickening in the extream. It should be bought to a halt immediately.
Many children will be damaged by this experiance, the whole fiasco should be investigated so lessons can be learnt.
School animals are not farm anmiomals, there is A CLEAR DISTINCTION!!!!
However, I have a problem with killing and eating pets.
Especially with children.
Children come to see the pet as a friend.
Then the friend gets sold to be slaughtered for food.
I can see that confusing children.
In our cities we live in a complex societies. For such social complexity to exist, we must be sheltered. We cannot live with the morality of ancient Romans. In fact, we can't really live in major cities with the morality of modern ranchers.
It is that the enormously broad tolerance and acceptance of others with very different appearances, languages, habits, and an extreme reluctance to harm anything, is essential for successful life in a major city.
On modern farms, we can live more naturally.
But I predict this school has messed up its students emotions.
I predict, having had a loved one yanked from them, many of the children will have trouble making long-term emotional connections later in life.
Why are people so outraged that children should be exposed to this fact?
I'm a vegetarian, so dislike the slaughter of animals in general. However, unless the angry masses who are so vocal about this matter follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, their comments are pure hypocrisy.
If you're going to eat meat, you should accept the facts of its production. Perhaps the parents at this school are so angry because they're concerned their kids may now go veggie!
human consumption works. The very idea of it is disturbing, even for an adult. This has nothing to
do with discipline and moral-building, as some pro-culling enthusiastic mums have implied.
This ordinary sheep out of many other sheep was chosen as the sacrificial lamb for Ms Chapman's
very questionable real-world-food-cycle experiment for the three year old youngsters and over.
This sheep became a "pet" the moment it was given a name, Marcus, thus individualizing it.
In the Animal Kingdom paradise, Marcus the sheep must now be commenting its fate with a loud
BOO instead of a BAA!
paramount, rightly said, but this should have been carefully thought over BEFORE carrying out the
school experiment. One will see how the pupils will react emotionally after all this.
http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Ab
Over a SHEEP..
All I can say is how glad I am you have no say at all. And I hope you dont manage to incite a mob of similarly minded dullards to take this creative, strong teacher away from doing what you must have never had.
A balanced education
To those crying out about animal welfare, that sheep had a good life which came to an end. Seriously people its not like the sheep was butuchered in plain view of all the kids.
The various bleaters should spend their time putting their voices behind some thing that matters, Like perhaps the carbon foot print of this pointless list of comments.
B
On the other side about 30% of farmers are not fit to keep animals.The suffering I have seen is appalling and it is happening everywhere.
Young children form very close bonds with animals, I know this as an experienced parent. Has anyone ever tried to soften the blow of a dead pet by pretending its gone to a better place?
If the school pet had been a dog or a cat would the head have decided to send that to slaughter after keeping that for several months as a pet, of course not! So why should Marcus the sheep be any different at all, a farm animal stops being a farm animal and starts being a pet, just like a cat or dog, when its given a name, bottle fed, humanised and fussed by children or people on a daily basis, and i cant thing anyone would have there own dog killed, would they? When i first read this sorry on the front of the Independent on Tuesday i was so shocked and upset it was all i could do not to burst into tears there and then, but now all i feel is utter anger, how parents can keep their child in that school after me is beyond me, the poor things must be so distressed, esp those who arent allowed pets, cant have pets to them that sheep would have been really important and now he's gone. I truly hope the headteacher at Lydd school cant sleep at night knowing what she has done and what she has put the children, parents, staff and members of the public though, she really should be sacked or forced to resign over this. If murdering the sheep wasnt bad enough auctioning off his meat to buy pigs to turn into sausages in so incredibly sick. Doesnt she realise she runs a school not a farm and last time i checked hand rearing an animal then sending it to slaughter wasnt actually on the national curriculum. Iam so appauled this has happened in our country, im disgrased by the cold hearted nature or what charman decided to do and can only wonder, if she can sanction a pet sheeps death could she raise a hand to a child, is she actually safe to work around children?
And before anyone calls me a hypocrite, i am a vegetarian and have been for many many years.
By giving the subsidies to have sheep , we are also allowing an inneficient,irrelevant,useless way of life to continue when what should be happpeninmg is crofters should be payed to find new ways to nake a living off their supposedly beloved crofts , so they can pay their own way, I won't get started on the housing grants or the vehicle subsidies they get as well.
Sheep are useless,unhiegenic,filthy and a menace, holding up progress and intefering with peoples lives and health.
So you see it's all a matter of perspective and where you live , though I do know one thing . Never give an animal a name if you intend to eat it, I used to fatten heffers for beef and they were always "the heffer".