I was visiting my grandparents on the farm. I remember being real upset by it. I saw the whole process from the animal being alive and petting it [to] then seeing it butchered. I have vague memories of it now, but I remember it happening and refusing to have anything to do with eating animals after that.

People who are raised on farms have a good deal of exposure to farm animals. Having the opportunity to experience an emotional bond with an animal, only to see it later sent to slaughter, can result in a strong predisposition to vegetarianism later in life. Jenny, a dietician, recounted a particularly painful experience from her past:

I was raised on a farm and did not like killing chickens from an early age. I exhibited a champion Black Angus 4-H calf who cried when I left it. Actually, we both cried. I knew then that he knew what was in store for him. I didn't eat meat for a long time after that.

The above accounts suggest that children are especially sensitive to the killing of animals.

Perhaps this is because they, unlike adults, have not yet been strongly conditioned into believing that slaughtering and eating animals is normal and appropriate. Over time, the ability of most children to empathize with animals becomes blunted by a culture that treats animals largely as objects to be used.

For many adults, however, the sight of animals being slaughtered can be just as upsetting as it is for children. A visit to a slaughterhouse, in particular, is a grim experience that can make a vegetarian out of the hardiest meat-eater. The following woman visited a slaughterhouse to find out for herself what happens:

I decided to take a visit to one of the abattoirs just down the road from where I lived at the time. The smell of blood and fear made me so ill I had to cut my visit short. I went out to the car and threw up, and cried for ages. I have not eaten meat since that day.

If the impact of slaughterhouses is so powerful, then how do people manage to work in them and continue to eat meat? First, there is probably self-selection occurring, such that workers who are sensitive to the suffering of animals quit after a short time and find employment elsewhere. Secondly, after working in a slaughterhouse for a period of time, most people become emotionally desensitized. Although the first few hours and days might be difficult, after witnessing thousands of animals being killed, even a sympathetic person would exhibit little emotional reaction. Nevertheless, we encountered a couple of ex-slaughterhouse workers who later became vegetarians, so not everyone is able to habituate to the daily carnage.

Given the emotional impact of visiting a slaughterhouse, it seems likely that many people would become vegetarian if animals were killed and processed in supermarket parking lots instead of behind closed doors in remote country areas. For some people, however, witnessing the slaughter of animals is not necessary; merely the sight of animals being transported to slaughters common experience in rural areas - is the final straw. One respondent, an English Rastafarian, had already taken the first tentative steps toward giving up meat when he had an unsettling experience. As he said, "During a car ride following a cattle truck, a cow looked straight into my eyes, and I was certain it knew that it was going to its death." After that, he became a vegetarian.

Two individuals in our sample were influenced by the killing of companion animals. One man, a university student, worked for a time as a veterinarian's assistant and had the unpleasant duty of euthanizing animals. Similarly, a woman who managed an animal shelter became concerned about the "massive killing of healthy pets and ex-pets." For her, vegetarianism "helps to compensate for all the animals I must kill as part of my job."