When a 9-year-old girl didn’t want her goat to be slaughtered, county fair officials sent deputies after it

[yuna628 9,676]

This story is all around crazy and a bit confusing, and everyone is generally being horrible to this little girl. I don't really understand why a good agreement couldn't have been found for all parties involved. I'd be interested to see how a judge would rule on this case. The suit is now alleging 14th amendment violations and violation of CA child contract law.

Also... good lord, please don't put your child in a 4H program if they are unable or are too young to handle certain potential aspects.

 

Quote

Every day for three months, Jessica Long’s young daughter walked and fed her goat, bonding with the brown and white floppy-eared animal named Cedar. But when it was time for Cedar to be sold and slaughtered at the Shasta District Fair last year, the 9-year-old just couldn’t go through with it.

“My daughter sobbed in her pen with her goat,” Long wrote to the Shasta County fair’s manager on June 27, 2022. “The barn was mostly empty and at the last minute I decided to break the rules and take the goat that night and deal with the consequences later.”

Long purchased the goat for her daughter to enter into the 4-H program with the Shasta District Fair. Children are taught how to care for farm animals. The animals are then entered in an auction to be sold and then slaughtered for meat in hopes of teaching children about the work and care needed to raise livestock and provide food, as farmers and ranchers do.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-30/goat-slaughter-shasta-county-fair

https://reason.com/2023/03/31/police-traveled-500-miles-to-seize-girls-pet-goat-for-slaughter/

[MarJhi 959]

My grandfather who was the nicest guy you could ever meet had a small farm in Alabama a long time ago. He mostly grew corn, watermelon, green beans and some greens but he did raise a few animals. He would raise about 8 to 10 pigs and he built a smokehouse out back, but when it came time to take them to the slaughterhouse he could not bring himself to do it. He had the bad habit of naming each and every animal on his farm, which led him get attached to them more like pets. His solution was that when it came time to take them to the slaughterhouse, he would trade his pigs to the farmer down the road and that farmer would give him the meat from their pigs in return. Even after a lifetime of farming he never got used to the idea of eating the animals he raised. 

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

2 hours ago, yuna628 said:

This story is all around crazy and a bit confusing, and everyone is generally being horrible to this little girl. I don't really understand why a good agreement couldn't have been found for all parties involved. I'd be interested to see how a judge would rule on this case. The suit is now alleging 14th amendment violations and violation of CA child contract law.

Also... good lord, please don't put your child in a 4H program if they are unable or are too young to handle certain potential aspects.

 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-30/goat-slaughter-shasta-county-fair

https://reason.com/2023/03/31/police-traveled-500-miles-to-seize-girls-pet-goat-for-slaughter/

Terrible 

[Mike E 11,739]

It was theft. Proper procedure was for the parent to go to goat’s owner and offer to buy the goat for more than the owner paid

 

Worked every year for a class mate of mine who was in 4H and cried to her dad every year when her cow was sold. He drove into town with his trailer and bought the bovine back. Everyone knew it was going to happen. Every year. She got herself  a PhD in international relations instead of being a farmer like per parents. 

5 hours ago, yuna628 said:

Also... good lord, please don't put your child in a 4H program if they are unable or are too young to handle certain potential aspects

City person I take it.

 

The point is for future farmers to understand that they are raising food not lovable pets. The only way to be certain they can’t part with Bessie the heifer, Sammy the steer, or Boss the hog, is to see if they can part Bessie, Sammy, or Boss. 
 

 

 

 

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

it seems to me that a compromise could have been made, yet the 4h program didn't care to.

[LIBrty4all 3,749]

If the father wanted to keep the goat, he should have won the bid, or never took it to auction in the first place.  What he did was steal from another person because his daughter threw a tantrum.  Please, let's DON'T continue this particular trend.

And this is why America is in the sad state of affairs that it is today.  Between participation trophies and giving kids everything on a silver platter, we have created weaklings in our society.

[yuna628 9,676]

The way I see it is... I don't think I'd ever enter my child into one of these programs without both you and the child understanding what would happen. Next, the winning bid was someone that the family contacted and they seemed to have come to an agreement that the goat could be put to better use alive. The parents then stole the goat. Now, technically the way I understand it, they had paid for the goat initially before the new owner placed the bid - BUT neither the new owner (the bid winner) or the parents wanted the goat to be slaughtered by that point. I wish that there could have been compassion and empathy on the part of the state officials that then spent a great deal of time and resources on killing the goat to ''teach the child a lesson''. Ultimately it does make them appear to be very callous individuals. There should have been some sort of civil legal process for handling such a dispute and civility on the part of all parties involved. 

 

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

it just hit the big time

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Ban Hammer

[Mike E 11,739]

Unfortunately meat comes from adorable animals. Don’t eat meat if this news story breaks your heart.

 

It is better to be predator than prey, to be apex predator than not.

 

On the brighter side I expect before the end of the century we will have manufactured meat that is chemically and physical no different from that we harvest from animals.  If i can eat meat without killing animals, I am all in. Similarly i would prefer to eat food, and use paper and lumber that does come from plants. There is something hideous about eating a carrot: an entire organism dying to fee me.

 

City folk ought be putting their energy into that versus passing laws to regulate 4H

[TBoneTX 45,273]

Vegetables are what food eats.