1386
Now is not the time
(lemmy.ml)
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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.
Why should they? Adults are more expensive to raise per kg of meat.
I assumed the adults were a lot bigger.
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.
Totally, I didn't realize they grew so fast. And in my head a lamb is like a baby. Guess not really.
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.