The animals in the novel Animal Farm 2 by Martin Knox seek liberation from the totalitarian hell of George Orwell’s book Animal Farm (1945).  Are the animals right not to accept humans eating them and prevent animal births — even with the kindest treatment? Humans do sacrifice some of their number to military deaths in order to preserve their way of life. The pigs use abattoir deaths to control the other animals. 

Are foraging livestock useful for collecting food from the inaccessible bush and storing it on their bodies to be eaten in droughts when crops have failed? Is meat, after all a processed convenience food, unethical if you revere life of all species.

What would life be like without domestic livestock? If uneaten, animals would have to be fed and cared for on the little land remaining after expansion of agriculture. Animals would be helpless, without survival skills and with physiques disfigured by utilitarian breeding.

How many animals could be liberated? Beef-lot animals and piggery porkers could be among the first. Could dairy cows and sheep be kept because valued highly for their byproducts? Or should all animal products cease?

These questions are considered in Animal Farm 2, with meat eating reduced, the animals finding work in horticulture and coal mining — until they are affected by theories of climate change and fight to overthrow the pigs. This is an entertaining satire, revealing surprising animal ability at logic and science.

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