• jordanlund@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      Reality is worse: 90% of sheep bred for meat are lambs slaughtered at less than 2 years old. Mutton (adult sheep) is cheaper and less preferred.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        With how industry has changed chickens… I am always surprised they haven’t managed to modify sheep so that the adults are as desired as the young.

            • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              Not a lot. Growth slows down fast when an animal gets older.

              So they are slaughtered at between 6 and 12 months, because that’s the time where the growth slows down too much.

              No point in having a 30% heavier animal if it takes 2x as long to get to that point.

                • squaresinger@lemmy.world
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                  21 days ago

                  Yeah, it’s like with the human term “child”. A child is anything from birth until age 12 or so. There’s quite a bit of a difference in that age range.

                  For sheep, a lamb is anything up to roughly a year.

                  In fact, sheep enter puberty at ~3-4 months, so a lamb will usually be slaughtered during puberty.