Given his decades of outspoken advocacy for vegetarianism and animal rights, it probably shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that the animals on Paul McCartney's sheep farm don't have to worry about ending up on anyone's dinner plate. In fact, as he revealed during a recent interview, they tend to live to a ripe old age.

"I live on a sheep farm and we shear the sheep, but they die of old age," McCartney mused during a Jan. 27 appearance on the U.K.'s Radio 4. "But it can be embarrassing. People say, 'Look at the state of your sheep!' And I say, 'Yes, they’re very old. There's only one alternative -- to send them off to the knacker’s yard.'"

McCartney went on to wax philosophical about his livestock's existence, adding, "They just die like we do. It's life, it's death, it's what happens," We just give them a good life and I take the wool from them."

The former Beatle was visiting Radio 4 to promote a few things, including his meat-free Monday campaign and a renewed advertising push behind the Linda McCartney Foods line of vegetarian cuisine. "Basically what we're saying with the meat-free Monday campaign is that out of your seven days, you might think of one day being meat-free," explained McCartney. "We're not really pushing it too heavily. We're not saying you should go veggie, it's good for you. We're saying 'just try one day', and a lot of people say that's very do-able, a very accessible idea, and they enjoy it. There are all sorts of economic arguments that in a recession, meat tends to be the expensive bit of what you buy, so generally speaking, I think it's a good idea."

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