Me too. But I prefer mine killed in an abattoir, not by a witchdoctor.

There's a business local to me called Bakers of Nailsea. Owned by three brothers, one a beef farmer, another a pork farmer and the third runs a small abattoir and wholesale / retail butchers.

Needless to say they supply most of the butchers in North Somerset and Bristol and their meat is superb.

Sadly they had to close the abattoir recently because of the cost of hiring two vets at £50 / hour whenever they were operational. Some kind of EU regulation I think. Or perhaps DEFRA?

They now have to ship all their animals for slaughter to the abattoir at Bristol University Veterinary slaughterhouse about 9 miles away.

They used to lead their animals straight off the pasture and into the abattoir so negligible stress and better quality meat.

I went to quite a few pig killings in Hungary. Up early about 4am when it's still dark outside. Couple of plum brandies to keep out the chill. Hook up with the local butcher who was on hand to supervise. Hook up a car battery to some kind of prod, stun the pig between the ears and then slit its throat with me and a couple of other people attempting to kneel on it so it can't run off. Bucket to catch the claret for blood sausages (and fried blood a traditional pig killing breakfast).

Then the entire family was employed for the next 16 hours manually processing the entire carcass. Great fun but I can still hear the squealing victim's pitiful cries in my imagination. Nothing that a few more plum brandies couldn't sort out.

All went pretty much like this..

[Link]

..except we used a modern blow torch to get rid of the bristles instead of the more traditional cover it all in straw and set it on fire.

Suffice it to say I don't really have a problem with the witch doctor. But where can you find a witch doctor in Somerset when you need one?

I am coming to Somerset this weekend you make it sound like the Wicker Man.

One more point

But be sure they're facing you before you pick them up by the front legs and put their back legs down the front of your wellies.

Otherwise you can't kiss 'em.

True. Luckily my parents took me out of Bridgwater to Croydon when I was still a baby.

It's Wiltshire where they still go at it from behind.

Not really - they have uglier sheep in Dorset. The Somerset ones are really, really cute.

A stairway to Heaven and a Highway to Hell give some indication of expected traffic numbers

I will let you know I am staying on a country estate with a working farm so I assume there will be some MPs sorry I meant sheep.

One more point

Hot on the tumultuous events regarding the invasion of the UK by an arab family in a foreign dinghy, the BBC has even more distressing events to report.

Tony Blair's daughters extension plans rightly outrage the nation.

It is one thing to offend people by extending neighbours sight lines, but do we realise, that as a peace-loving democracy, this involves moving a gas meter?

Is nothing sacred ?????

Teuchter

One more point