Is there a reason? Is the meat nasty as they grow older? I doubt it’ll get us sick, lol. I’m just curious.
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In addition to all thr comments about meat quality animal health quality would likely suffer as many livestock animals are bred to put on excessive muscle and fat because they are not expected to live long enough for it to seriously affect health.
Letting most meat livestock live longer lives is just means suffering and lower meat quality.
Ever try veal? Younger meat is almost always more tender and flavorful than older tougher meats.
This actually does happen but it is the exception instead of the norm. Cows who calve well will be kept for many years. Eventually, once they are too old or weak to hold a calf, they will be sent to slaughter too. Same thing goes for bulls who’s knees aren’t very good anymore or are shooting blanks. Many times these animals don’t go to auction but straight to the butcher for the farmer’s own freezer. Source: many years of raising cattle.
because it’s more profitable to do it the way we currently do it. the meat tastes better, we can get bigger / better yields, from killing them precisely when we do. if we waited and did it later we wouldn’t make as much money and it wouldn’t taste as good.
An ethical hunter will harvest older or injured animals who have had a chance to reproduce.
What others have said about feeding and housing and meat texture are also true.
Most answers miss the biggest factor: if all your animals live 10x as long, to have the same amount of meat each year, you need to keep 10x as many animals, give them 10x as much food, 10x as much water, 10x as much land, etc. It would be stupendously costly.
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