04/28/2026
Some people tell me they couldn’t eat lamb because they are cute.
I understand that reaction. When you see sheep out on pasture, raising babies, grazing in the sun, and living a good life, it feels personal in a way grocery store meat never does.
Most meat we buy comes wrapped in plastic, disconnected from the animal it came from. Distance makes food easier. Seeing the actual animals makes it harder.
The meat purchased in the grocery store often comes from systems we never see. Beef cattle frequently spend their final months in feedlots. Pork and poultry are commonly raised in large confinement systems.
What I find interesting is that people still eat beef, pork, and chicken without thinking much about where those animals lived or how they were raised. But seeing sheep on a small farm changes the emotional equation.
Raising sheep and getting to know other small farmers has made me not want to eat meat when I don’t know how it was raised. I like knowing whether hormones or routine antibiotics were used, how the animals were fed and cared for, and what kind of life they had before they became food.
My sheep are Katahdins, which are hair sheep rather than traditional wool breeds. The meat is milder than what many people remember from older lamb or mutton experiences. For people who think they do not like lamb, it is often a completely different experience than they expect.
If you want to support small farms, it also means being closer to the reality of where food comes from.
