Lady Cooper, 49, says she will offer sanctuary to any animal, but would never knowingly allow any of them to be slaughtered. She said: "The cheek of these people is amazing.
"They'll call round or phone and say they are interested in taking one of our rescues cows or pigs or goats or whatever, then within a minute or two they'll ask if the animal they have chosen is safe to eat. I tell them to sling their hooks and suggest they call at the butchers on the way home. These animals are my pets and I would never allow anyone to eat them.
Photo from here.
"But the people who enquire here tell me they've been hit badly by the recession and need cheap food. I suppose they are just being resourceful, but there is a limit."
Lady Cooper, whose farm nestles in the Carmarthenshire hills near Llanelli in South West Wales, says she receives up to a dozen calls a day from people wanting to dine on her stock, which also includes geese, turkeys and chickens. She said. "One guy turned up and had the brass neck to eye up one of my beautiful ginger Tamworth pigs and say to me: 'Could I take her for the freezer? She'd be lovely between a few slices of bread.'
"He was totally serious. I showed him the door. I've spoken to others in the business and they all report the same experiences as me. I've been operating through other recessions and this has never happened before. Perhaps people are more desperate this time - or thicker skinned."
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