eating your pet open discussion

[keesmom]

While I do understand some regard their chickens as pets and will keep them until they die, I have no interest in running a hen retirement community. Nor do I want to feed extra cockerels for months trying to "rehome" them. So I have no problem eating my birds. I know exactly what kind of life they have had, and it has been a good one. I love the chicken stock I get from my older birds. Outstanding. The stock I get from 12 week old Freedom Rangers can't hold a candle to it. The meat goes into chili, soup and enchiladas.

 

[newmarch2014]

My Husaband would learn to kill my chickens if need be but I am fine with a hen retirement community. I keep my chickens for a multitude of reasons eggs just being a small part...in fact the smallest part. I keep them for the enjoyment, for the fertilizer in my garden, for the bug consumption mostly and they do a great job of all of it (including the eggs I end up giving away many times for lack of use). I keep a small enough number of hens to not feel like it is a great burden. If i do happen to get an ornery or extra rooster, I have a friend that will humanely do the deed and so I do feel "ok" about it if need be, but I will feel bad. I don't care that they are now barnyard animals. They were originally wild creatures and are lives that deserve being treated with a respect in killing as are deer or any other animal that gets to that point of death for food.

 

[smudgetool]

I get my first-ever chicks tomorrow. My feed store that will have the day-old chicks said that, approximately 10% of the mail order "sexed" chickens are errors and will be roosters. I asked, "what do I do if I end up with a rooster?"
To which she replied, "Are you a vegetarian?"

Personally, I don't think that I could kill, pluck, prep and cook-up an animal that I have given a name to.

But if I've raised a rooster that makes the neighbors say, "STOP THE CROWING!!," then options need to be addressed. The bottom line is that, "no," I won't be eating my pets.

 

[pingu1]

if it is a pet you don't kill it
if it lives on a nice farm killings fine
if it is battery farmed its unfair
I don't eat meat so wouldn't kill my chickens
still open to all opinions

 

[Melissa F]

I agree with sarahal88 completely. I try to only eat meat that comes from a source I know, and that includes eating our own chickens.

 

[JJSS89]

if it is a pet you don't kill it
if it lives on a nice farm killings fine
if it is battery farmed its unfair
I don't eat meat so wouldn't kill my chickens
still open to all opinions

Why do you care what we think if you don't eat meat?

 

[Spartan22]

Only have my chickens since last spring, fond of them, took care of them good, I didn't name them, they gave us daily eggs. I never butcher anything but when it's time I'll do it, at least I know what they ate and what conditions they grew up in.

 

[pingu1]

i don't eat chickens but what others do isn't my concern but id rather they ate free range than battery

 

[Cearbhael]

While I do understand some regard their chickens as pets and will keep them until they die, I have no interest in running a hen retirement community. Nor do I want to feed extra cockerels for months trying to "rehome" them. So I have no problem eating my birds. I know exactly what kind of life they have had, and it has been a good one. I love the chicken stock I get from my older birds. Outstanding. The stock I get from 12 week old Freedom Rangers can't hold a candle to it. The meat goes into chili, soup and enchiladas.

I

I was included by my family in the slaughtering of chickens when I was a small toddler. I have been seen back then rocking dead plucked chickens to comfort them. I have to say that for a toddler that made pets out of the chicks, it was a good lesson on the wheel of life and death. It also taught me that a chicken is not wasted. They ALL eventually ended up on the table. At the same time I got to witness births and hatchlings. Males of chickens, cows etc ended up on the table faster than females... Only make pets out of the girls. You got to keep them longer.
As a 65 year old, I will grieve for every chicken I cull, but I won't waste them. Old biddies make wonderful chicken stock and chick & dumplings. Young extra roosters make wonderful fryers and roasters. I like cooked chicken and I would rather the chicken I eat had a good life rather than eat a battery chicken who lived confined from day one in crowded conditions! Kuddos to the UK for outlawing factory farming livestock and poultry. They passed a right to have a "decent life" law and laid strict rules about the right to pasture and free ranging before slaughtering.

 

[pingu1]

I think that eating your pet is wrong but eating an animal you brought to eat is ok so long as you don't treat it as a pet