Please help me understand meat eaters not wanting to process a chicken!

[Mr King]

I've raised chickens and lots of other livestock over my 60+ years.  As an omnivore, I eat meat as I believe all people should.
I'm an organizer of a backyard chicken meetup group.
I also teach classes on backyard poultry.
The majority of people in classes want to learn about processing.
I have taught processing with tremendous turnout. 21 people are braving the ice and snow to help process chickens tomorrow.

All that said, there are people in our group, including other organizers that are extremely put out by this processng session.
I would understand if they were vegetarians but they eat chicken from grocers and at fast food places.
How can adults, that eat chicken be so disturbed about processing humanely raised birds by the label rouge standard, pastured freedom rangers, be so hypocritical that they will leave the event after believing they should attend because they can't wrap their heads around killing a chicken? Yet the same people, knowing how commercial cornish rocks are raised and processed will continue to eat them with impunity.

I don't get it.

Funny but So true, they're weird i guess.!

 

[nimopiba]

Heheh I'm sorry, this sounds so much like MY first time!!

I took shots of vodka before trying.
I took one of my kitchen knives.
I studied many youtube videos.
The first 2 cuts didn't touch the skin AT ALL.
Went back for another shot. Was shaking like crazy. Then finally got it...


What I learned was (i was butchering a duck) that the feathers are very hard. You must get the knife on the skin, near the ear of the duck/chicken, like on the image above.



I find meat eating people so dishonest when they don't want to know where their food comes from. I stopped trying to convince them, their arguments are so lame. "If I don't know about it, it doesn't happen".
Yeah...

I was seriously shaken afterwards. It was difficult to take those first few bites of chicken. It was such a difor rent experience eating a chicken I raised as opposed to getting one from the store. Also eating the eggs is a different experience. My mother dropped one and was upset because she knew the chicken that laid the egg. Things like that just make me realize just how detached most of us are about where our food comes from. It really is pretty sad

 

[Beekissed]

I've raised chickens and lots of other livestock over my 60+ years. As an omnivore, I eat meat as I believe all people should.
I'm an organizer of a backyard chicken meetup group.
I also teach classes on backyard poultry.
The majority of people in classes want to learn about processing.
I have taught processing with tremendous turnout. 21 people are braving the ice and snow to help process chickens tomorrow.

All that said, there are people in our group, including other organizers that are extremely put out by this processng session.
I would understand if they were vegetarians but they eat chicken from grocers and at fast food places.
How can adults, that eat chicken be so disturbed about processing humanely raised birds by the label rouge standard, pastured freedom rangers, be so hypocritical that they will leave the event after believing they should attend because they can't wrap their heads around killing a chicken? Yet the same people, knowing how commercial cornish rocks are raised and processed will continue to eat them with impunity.

I don't get it.

This describes my entire chickening life, even amongst my own family, who were raised on homegrown and butchered chickens but who will now call me a chicken murderer when I do the same thing. And they eat meat like it's going out of style, particularly chicken. Just not their own. Won't protect them adequately from predators and won't give them the hand of mercy when they suffer...they just buy more and extra when they order chicks "for attrition", meaning "I expect my flock to die untimely deaths that I will not prevent or manage, so I'll order extras for that very reason".

I have worked with people who own commercial broiler and battery operations and will get tears in their eyes when they find out I eat the chickens that I raised from a chick. I kid you not...it happens all the time. These women don't even go IN those buildings so they can deny what is happening there and they even say they "get used to" the stench that is so strong in the summer time that it makes your eyes water when you drive past those places. When confronted with the fact that they are indeed eating what they have raised each and every time they eat store bought chicken they always say~across the board and as if they all took a class on it~"That's different.". Different from what? I ask. They never have a good answer for that, they just keep repeating that phrase like a litany and keep saying "I could NEVER do what you do!" like I'm killing young children at my place.

People are seriously twisted in their thinking and how they justify their distant~ but definite~ cruelty to their food before eating it.

 

[Sabz]

I was seriously shaken afterwards. It was difficult to take those first few bites of chicken. It was such a difor rent experience eating a chicken I raised as opposed to getting one from the store. Also eating the eggs is a different experience. My mother dropped one and was upset because she knew the chicken that laid the egg. Things like that just make me realize just how detached most of us are about where our food comes from. It really is pretty sad

OH! I can imagine. I froze mine, so I ate it maybe 3 months after, which probably made it a lot easier.
I feel really stupid for doing my first duck myself. I should have had someone with me to help.. but, I don't know anyone that does it, so I thought I would manage myself. At least we learned from that first experience and that's what counts.

Now it is way easier on me, but most of all on the chickens. I've gained experience and it is a lot better. Also, I give them a bit of alcohol before processing, so they are less stressed when put in the cone. I feel it's a bit more human this way!
I also train them to be picked up, so when I take them in my arms to bring them to the cone, they aren't as stressed as chickens that are not used to being hold.

I agree, it is really sad how people are detached from their food. I laugh at myself from my first butchering because I think I was stupid and probably really really "naïve" to think a little vodka shot would help me through the process. I think fully drunk and not even able to walk I would have been sad.

I will never ever again take alcohol thinking that it will make the pain or sadness easier to manage! Doesn't work at all (for me).

 

[ChickenCanoe]

This describes my entire chickening life, even amongst my own family, who were raised on homegrown and butchered chickens but who will now call me a chicken murderer when I do the same thing. And they eat meat like it's going out of style, particularly chicken. Just not their own. Won't protect them adequately from predators and won't give them the hand of mercy when they suffer...they just buy more and extra when they order chicks "for attrition", meaning "I expect my flock to die untimely deaths that I will not prevent or manage, so I'll order extras for that very reason".

I have worked with people who own commercial broiler and battery operations and will get tears in their eyes when they find out I eat the chickens that I raised from a chick. I kid you not...it happens all the time. These women don't even go IN those buildings so they can deny what is happening there and they even say they "get used to" the stench that is so strong in the summer time that it makes your eyes water when you drive past those places. When confronted with the fact that they are indeed eating what they have raised each and every time they eat store bought chicken they always say~across the board and as if they all took a class on it~"That's different.". Different from what? I ask. They never have a good answer for that, they just keep repeating that phrase like a litany and keep saying "I could NEVER do what you do!" like I'm killing young children at my place.

People are seriously twisted in their thinking and how they justify their distant~ but definite~ cruelty to their food before eating it.

Wow!
Yes, it's twisted logic. When anyone questions me about processing a chicken I raise, I ask them if they eat chicken. If the answer is yes, I proceed to describe how the chicken they eat was raised and they inevitably hold their ears and say they don't want to know. But they question me!

 

[CrazyTalk]

I find meat eating people so dishonest when they don't want to know where their food comes from. I stopped trying to convince them, their arguments are so lame. "If I don't know about it, it doesn't happen".
Yeah...

I don't understand why people have such an issue with this. Why do you care?

This isn't really any different than all the people on this forum who don't know how/can't write forum software. Try explaining complicated software design to most of them and you'll get eyes glazing over and an "I don't care"/"I don't want to know"/etc - you don't see software engineers complaining about it.

People have different needs, wants, and desires, and there's no reason why everyone needs to be comfortable with killing their own food, or writing software.

 

[Beekissed]

I don't understand why people have such an issue with this. Why do you care?

This isn't really any different than all the people on this forum who don't know how/can't write forum software. Try explaining complicated software design to most of them and you'll get eyes glazing over and an "I don't care"/"I don't want to know"/etc - you don't see software engineers complaining about it.

People have different needs, wants, and desires, and there's no reason why everyone needs to be comfortable with killing their own food, or writing software.

Why do we care? Because we are routinely attacked, maligned and accused of being hard-hearted and cruel because we choose to kill and eat our own animals~ by the very people who contribute to the cruelty of CAFOs by eating commercially raised meat. Now, if they want to just shut up about how compassionate they are compared to those of us who actually take responsibility towards our food animals, by raising them and killing them humanely, then I would venture to say that no one would have one single problem with them at all.

I don't think software engineers have the same difficulty. No one's accusing them of cruelty when they program their own computers.

 

[CrazyTalk]

Why do we care? Because we are routinely attacked, maligned and accused of being hard-hearted and cruel because we choose to kill and eat our own animals~ by the very people who contribute to the cruelty of CAFOs by eating commercially raised meat. Now, if they want to just shut up about how compassionate they are compared to those of us who actually take responsibility towards our food animals, by raising them and killing them humanely, then I would venture to say that no one would have one single problem with them at all.

I don't think software engineers have the same difficulty. No one's accusing them of cruelty when they program their own computers.

The person I quoted was talking about trying to convince people who eat meat that they should be more comfortable with killing animals. That's a very different thing than you're talking about.

Edited by Staff

 

[Beekissed]

The person I quoted was talking about trying to convince people who eat meat that they should be more comfortable with killing animals. That's a very different thing than you're talking about.

The OP sets the tone for "what we are talking about" and the post you quoted was just a continuance of that theme, wherein the discussion is people who get upset about people killing and eating their own chickens and cannot seem to see the integrity of doing so if one is to be a meat eater.


Edited by Staff

 

[Beekissed]

You know what, I'm just going to avoid threads that you're participating in.

You don't seem to be able to have a conversation without misrepresenting people and then insulting them.

No one has insulted you at all, at any time. But, I'll help you in your efforts. If you'll look beneath my screen name there is a list and you can choose to "ignore" me from now on. Then you'll never see another one of my posts again unless you wish to do so.