It's not only a shaky metaphor from the sentimental aspect, it's a downright bad one from the economic point of view. Individual cattle are expensive, and as a result, it makes economic sense to invest in their care. Even a ruthless person would not let a sick cow go without having a professional take a look to see if there was a way to restore it to good condition, but heartless or broke people often do decline to pay for veterinary care for a pet.

My relations own a pig farm with 10k pigs, they don't have names.

Fun story, my employer once had a contract with a huge pig farm like that and whenever we went on site we had to strip nude and shower off and then dress in clothes they provided, so we didn't contaminate the pigs with anything.

Yup, having to kill and discard all your product by hog cholera is not a joke.

Dairy cows are not usually referred to as cattle.

Of course they are, at least in my experience working at a dairy feedlot with thousands of head of dairy cattle.

Huh, I guess you're right. My context was family farms in the northeast/mid-Atlantic, where cattle always meant beef.

IIRC this was litigated by k8s years ago, hence we don’t have pet sets. But the metaphor is still in use because it’s so vivid and memorable. Is there a recommended replacement metaphor?

Garden vs Farm

Restaurant vs Cafeteria

Espresso vs Drip

Cafe vs Starbucks

Backyard BBQ vs McDonalds

I actually think that garden vs farm is a good choice. The others are a bit funny to me :)

Another thing to consider is international cultures. There’s been concern around calling servers cattle and saying to just shoot them in the head during work meetings. Some cultures may have issues with that.

Can confirm, when you have a small number of cattle at least some of them end up with names.

It's an effective and well-understood term.