I always help with chores if I am there and things need to be done. It doesn’t need to be a holiday. But, this weekend I helped with chores one day and finished chores so they could go home early one day. Plus the usual Christmas card with cash + small gift.
What did you expect? That we’re all a bunch of entitled slackers and never lift a finger to do any real work at the barn? So you could criticize us some more?
We are the barn help cuz it’s just us lol. DS12 and I busted through 6 inches of ice in the big tank to haul to the horses in the stalls because my sister accidentally let the faucet and hose freeze up the day before. We took care of horses in the a.m. then mama and I went back over after presents and lunch to thaw out faucets and get the horses settled for the night. Feed,hay, water, etc. Got the faucet working but hoses were still frozen so we hauled water to the stalls by hand. Then came home and snuggled my baby girl who wound up running a high fever in the middle of our get together. Says her ears hurt too so I’m thinking ear infection again.
I’m sad that no one did 
I was just puzzled by the question and its relevance. It seems as though it was an attempt at a gotcha regarding the OPs hypocrisy but it seemed like such a stretch that I thought some clarity would be nice.
Big suburban self board barn here. My excitement was findimg a local building supply store carries the same wood pellets as the feed store! So I was able to strip and rebed my stall after maresy had been locked in 4 days for cold. No way to get out to the feed stores for anythhg, the exurbs are a skating rink.
Who goes to building supplies at 2 pm on Christmas Eve in the middle of a snow and slush travel advisory event? Men. Gloomy looking middle aged men. Middle aged men are usually fairly glum. These were more so. They were wearing their grey PJ sweat pants shoved into winter boots and rain parkas. And what were they buying? Not gifts or decorations. They were buying things like one furnace filter or one gutter downspout pipe. As I left someone came in asking for sandbags. Nobody was there voluntarily. I felt lucky I was just stripping stalls. I had new cleats for my boots and I could walk around the barn yard without falling and breaking my wrist.
I stripped and rebedded one stall Christmas Eve and one Christmas Day, too icy around the barns to get the horses out.
Those who were so moved by the spirit left little token giftie treat things on each other’s stalls. Some people made horse treats that were actually almost like bad vegan baking for humans, so I had to check everything before doling it out horse or me.
So no goats were roasted or tips paid. I do tip (and pay) the teens who power wash my stall in the summer (required annual upkeep).
Here in WA, if you are river fishing for steelhead (an ocean going trout) and snag a native, you must release. The hatchery fish are fair game though. You can identify a native as it still has one of the upper fins; hatchery fish have them removed. There are big fines if you are caught keeping a native steelhead. The same restrictions do not apply for salmon - coho, pinks (or humpie), chinook, sockeye et al, however, there is a limit as there is with Steelhead. However, the tribes have a treaty that they can take and keep both natives and hatchery fish when fishing as a commercial enterprise with no limit. The pink salmon when they are running, there is no limit for the sport fishermen. They don’t make as good a table fare as chinook or coho but are fine for smoking. Now you know more than you ever wanted to know about catch and release.
It is not a reason to move? I raise goats but we don’t eat goat but I know some of my goats go for food and that is why some goats are raised.
I don’t agree with no food and water or being tied indefinitely but the animal was at the edge of the property and I doubt it will be slaughtered anywhere you can see it. Goat meat is very popular among several ethnic groups the US and if the barn help lives on site where else would they keep it. That is their home.
I know it can be upsetting to those who don’t raise their own animals for food but there is nothing wrong going on here. People eat meat .
People were concerned Grooms and farmworkers would not be able to celebrate since their goose was cooked… Err their Goat was saved.
I thought it would be an interesting segue, considering.
Also working in the barn in the frigid temps.
And exhausted when I got home.
Hm. Normally I follow your line of thinking but I do think this was a stretch.
I do not begrudge anyone their Christmas, Eid, or Hanukkah meal, whether it be tofu or turkey, seitan or goat, or whatever else might be suitable or traditional.
Hopefully the OP has also learned that perhaps others have cultures and traditions worth respecting. And that meat, if we will continue to consume it, comes from animals that are slaughtered. That the grocery store packaging and processing is not kinder, but instead only whitewashed, designed to hide reality from us.
I wish you well.
Think what you wish.
I’m sure we’re all aware where meat comes from.
Doesn’t mean we’re required to see it personally just because we consume (another form of) it
No, actually, I know many aren’t aware and truly believe that morality does mean we should understand and accept it. Not that we must witness it, but the OP witnessed no slaughter. The outrage was about the thought of slaughter, which is a direct denial of reality.
Denial of reality is dangerous.
Hey, if you think living in delusions where your steak comes from a happy cow that gifts it to you magically from the grocery store is happy, you do you.
However, how many times do we see animals endangered because humans can’t see reality in front of them? From being overhorsed (and the horse ends up at a sale because of the lack of training) to animals being “saved” from hard work to be put in kennels and later euthanized because a hound is a poor choice as an inside pet?
I’ve seen many of these cases, have you?
You would not believe how many rational, college educated, people don’t know that chicken eggs are unfertilized ovum, or that male dairy cows aren’t used to make milk. It’s a surprisingly large portion of the population.
Once I bought my farm, I tried to do the right thing and raise my own meat. I purchased some meat birds as chicks, made them a nice coop and raised them the best I could. It came time to process them and I decided to do it myself so I wouldn’t stress them with transport. I made my husband help me who is also an animal lover and he hated it as much as I did. Being involved in the process literally made me squeamish to eat the chicken, even though it was really nice chicken. I still have hens for eggs but sad to say, raising my own meat ruins the meat for me. I am really happy to buy perfectly packaged meat from the grocery store as much as I hate the thought of mass meat processing. Ignorance really is bliss.
I am the farmworker, but in the past when I have been just the boarder, I always offered to help so that everyone could leave earlier. If denied, I always went and at least brought in my own horse so that it was one less.
We don’t close on Christmas. Only two people came, one lady, who is so horrible that I pretend she doesn’t exist, and then another guy who seemingly just came to be annoying and set his horse free in the parking lot while I was trying to bring horses in causing me to almost get trampled. Then 5 people texted me asking for blanket changes (or one asking if I could feed the “special treat” she left outside the horses stall…) for their horses. This was so not the case even 5 years ago, but most of our barn consists of self entitled older people who didn’t grow up with horses and don’t “get it”. They were never barn rats, they think they are paying for a service and that’s good enough. Then today I went to help the weekday guy and boarders were like “oh you guys don’t get a holiday?” Who the hell do you think is going to do it?
But also, I will say, if a boarder complained about my dietary preferences, I would just laugh. If you can’t kill it yourself, don’t eat it then. Goat is delicious.
Deliver me from the self-righteous self-appointed animal saviors, please. They can be terrifying in their singleminded pursuit of their goals.
Once I was on a road trip with my two corgis, who were comfortably crated in my minivan while I ate dinner at a restaurant. Coming out with the remains of my steak wrapped in a greasy napkin for them, I found an unsigned note on my van, which informed me that I was abusive and cruel to my dogs for crating them, plus I had the windows rolled up (it was a cold night) so they couldn’t get any oxygen! Thank God the car was locked, otherwise I am sure this nutcase would have stolen my beloved dogs and I would never have seen them again.
And there are many other stories I could tell, those I’ve heard and those which happened to me.
Once again you make many assumptions.
I know where meat comes from.
I’m pretty sure most do, we just don’t flog ourselves over it on the daily to assuage your issues with it. 
Our performance dog club had to get security during our obedience and later agility shows because well meaning crazy animal saviors would sneak in the show venues and start letting dogs out of their crates, some ran out in the street where they could have been lost or killed.
Common sense is just not that common. 
Best advice, then - stay in your lane when on other people’s property.
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