Livestock: Food, Fiber, and Animal Companionship - Exploring the World of Farm Animals | Perfect for Farmers, Animal Lovers & Sustainable Living Enthusiasts

This is a scholarly look at American livestock farming, digressing often into philosophy which asks whether we should think of animals as meat on the hoof, or as sexualised producers of milk, say. And whether our lives are diminished by treating animals the way slaves used to be treated.Fish farming is the unusual start to the exploration. Many issues are aired, not so much the downsides as the farmers won't talk about those. Later in the book we see an identical pattern with chicken farming in immense numbers. Cattle, dairy and beef, also sheep and goats, are taken in separate chapters, and there is one on pigs, while horses fit in and around, usually the mustangs rounded up for meat, nobody noticing the worked-out carthorses or retired racehorses. Brief mentions are given to farmed deer, bison, llamas, rabbits, etc.The author gives us some really nice visits to smaller farms where the people work with the soil. They mostly use rotational grazing and sometimes have sheep following cattle, chickens scratching and eating insects. No mention of ducks and geese, used in damp pasture to eat snails which carry liver fluke. I like that herding dogs are used to guard flocks of sheep or chickens, and predations ceased. Dairying is hard work. Imagine milking seventy goats by hand twice a day. These farms are either organic or nearly, with no hormones used. Farming is hard in general, but the folks enjoy it and lead a healthy life. The author tells us mostly they eat less meat now, but the meat tastes better.See my longer review on Goodreads. Biblography P247 - 254 in my e-ARC. I counted 38 names that I could be sure were female. Index P255 - 263. This book will suit anyone studying American agriculture or philosophy and environmentalism or journalism.I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.