Hi Jean
I am not happy about Halal killing but I meant more perhaps Polish folk where
the animals go to a normal slaughterhouse but are cooked whole. We did have an
offer where the tup would be killed in the garden and the wool singed off - I
declined that !!
The fact that we now have 4 Soay and one Hebridean tup needing to go illustrates
that I will certainly not just do anything to get rid of them - they are all old
friends! There is a butcher near us who occasionally takes tups for 'mutton',
but not so many at once. I feel that old tups are not the best animals to use
for mutton - no wonder it has a bad name ! When we produce mutton it is from
2-5 year old wethers and is delicious.
We are making sausages from some older cull ewes but I don't want to add the
tups into that in case the taste is too strong - friends spoiled a whole batch
of sausages by adding in one mature tup.
What to do with ones old tups is obviously something we all have to deal with
and, yes, we must do it humanely.
What do others do?
Juliet

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]