The Deed - How to come to terms

The easiest way to for me to get over the actual kill is looking at how loved and cared for this animal was vs. the one in the store.

The one in the store never knew what grass felt like, what it was like to chase a bug, what it was like to get pampered and loved. The one you raised, knew he was loved and cared for. It makes you more thankful for the nutrition that the animal has given you. It's never easy, but it does make you appreciate life more.

I have had my chickens for about 3 years now. When I first got them, the plan was to raise hens for eggs and butcher all of the extra males for food. I read and read when it came time to butch the 1st ones. The anxiety that I worked up was too much. So the first batch, I paid a lady to do it for me. The second batch I thought I'd be more ready for and had an Uncle that offered to help. I couldn't bring myself to kill them. I still can't do the killing, but am ok with the butchering and processing part. I have had to do a couple "Mercy Kills" for ones that were injured or sick, but it is definitely something that I never want to have to do again. I know I will have to occasionally, but I don't even try to fool myself anymore about the killing of the ones I am going to eat. So now, I drive a crate full of future meals to the Uncles house and I sit on the front porch with my fingers in my ears and hum a happy tune until he comes and sits on the porch with me. Then we talk for about 10 mins and we get up and both go to butchering and processing. I am fine with this process. It's the taking of the life that I can't do. I have killed other animals, I deer hunt when I'm ready to restock the freezer. I have no issues with the death of the animal that I will eat. I know that I am not skilled enough to properly and quickly kill the bird with my hands. The one adult I had to put down due to a broken hip, to my horror I found that the first try didn't get it done. I had to finish up with the broom handle. Ugh! I shutter at that memory.

About the meat: I have found that I don't care to eat my extra roosters. I free range everyone, and those guys are just too tough. And there is a lot more dark meat. They do make the best best best chicken stock though. So I boil them up, freeze the stock and the meat from them is dogfood. The broiler's are much more to our liking, and halo nailed it. These birds are very different. It's almost as if they are aware and at peace with their purpose. My first one I grow and frolic, and at about 6 months he couldn't breath very well. He was just too big and his comb was turning purple. He was a bit tough at that age, but still good eatin.

I wish you all of the joy that I get tending and watching my flock. It's a rewarding pastime for me, hope you find it to be the same!

@Mandy

Thanks so much for sharing that, it was definitely helpful and I appreciate your well wishes. Are those pitties in your picture icon? They are a beautiful pair.

I never thought about roosters being tougher, but I guess they would be more muscular. I've been reading up about broiler birds, but I was uncertain as to whether I wanted to just get good layers and slaughter them at the end of the year or not. Definitely as I go along and read more (especially what you had to say about them seeming to know their fate), I'm leaning more towards having two different purposed birds.

Thanks again. I hope I didn't sound like an idiot just then LOL

If I may, what's your preferred method and why? I've read about several: Chopping the head off, twisting and pulling the neck in one motion, cutting from the ear back,cutting the throat from left to right in one quick swipe... etc.

What, in your opinion, is the advantage or disadvantage between methods and why do you use one over the other?

Sweetened, I've hung back on this thread. I'm glad I did so as to be able contribute in what, I think, is the tone it has taken.

Those who have made reference to having had to put animals down for reasons of health or injury have certainly been spot on in the emotions those decision and acts involve. While not on the mark to answer your questionws, their observations have a place in the conversation, too.

I'll just share a story my uncle tells about my grandfather (born Christmas day, 1904), a man as true and dedicated a husbandman as an animal could ever know.

The first tractor did not arrive on the farm until the early forties. Up until then, as you'd suspect, horses did the pulling, and Grandpa spent his youth and some years after on the reins behind them. In those years and up into the early sixties, theirs was a dairy operation.

He farmed on shares with his father and, when the tractors arrived, he argued for the horses to stay on the farm. Not a decision my great-grandfather was eager to buy into. Grandpa learned to weld only so he could build his own sulky, and would work the horses at the jobs they could do pulling the new implements designed to be hauled behind tractors. Those would include the new-fangled hay rake (with wheels instead of the dump rake) and the turd hearse.

It was some number of years, and three of the horses had reached the ends of their lives.

The fourth, and last, was Polly, and the story my uncle tells is about the day she had to be put down. Grandpa, of course, knew the day would come but he didn't put it off for his sake. He did what was right for Polly. My uncle tells of having someone come out with a backhoe to dig a grave for her out in the 20-acre piece where the wheat had already been taken off. Come the day, they put her down humanely on their own, with Grandpa insisting on firing the shot. When it came time to move her into the hole, my uncle has said that Grandpa's words, "Be careful, don't hurt her," still ring in his ears. I recall hearing that story several times before I was old enough to appreciate what it said.

I tell that story by way of getting on to your question. I didn't grow up "on" that farm as my mom had. I spent all my summers there up through high school and a few after. But, when I got old (read "big") enough, I began to go up for a week each late winter to help Grandpa with the butchering. Typically, that would involve one steer and a couple of hogs. Different scenario from Polly's end, obviously, but it was during those visits that I came to see what my uncle had been trying to convey with his story.

These were animals that Grandpa had gotten up every morning to feed before his own breakfast, saw that they were fed in the evening before he came in for his own supper, and checked on every night before he went to bed.

The steers were generally docile and less dramatic but, as I come back to chickens, it was was rare for the hogs to go where they were told for the "event." It was not unusual for it to take the old canvas-flap paddle and much "sooey"ing to get them where they needed to be, but nothing they hadn't experienced before. Still, I saw in Grandpa on those occasions what my uncle was talking about.

It was some years after I started helping him every spring that Grandpa decided to hand me the gun. We hadn't talked about it beforehand. He just handed it to me, told me where to aim, and imparting in his own way the importance that I make one shot of it. He actually said very little, but knowing him to the extent that a kid can really "know" his grandfather, it was all understood.

The care he and my grandmother took of then butchering and putting up each of those animals speaks to a way of life not a lot of folks anymore are exposed to. It was not selfish, as in making sure the freezer was the fullest it could be. It was a matter of respect -- putting an animal you had tended to the fullest use for which it was raised.

I did come to see the ritual in it that you speak of. Some of it somber, some bordering on the comic. (The latter as in Grandma coming down over the back stoop with a paring knife and two bowls. She'd be keeping her distance and watching from the house as the hog was dropped, scalded and scraped but, as soon as we'd dropped the paunch of a hog into the #2 tub waiting to catch it, she'd sail down over that stoop and be right there. She would dive in halfway up to her elbows, working blind, and have the sweetbreads out and in the small bowl before she'd go back in and come up with the whole liver and the heart.) As the quartered creature hung in the winter air, we would move on to trying out the lard. It made for a full day. Typically with the reward of one of the tenderloins for supper.

Butchering is not a pretty thing, and the killing is obviously the hardest part. But my take on it is that the pride that you can rightfully claim in raising a healthy animal to that point will translate into appreciating them having served their purpose. That anyone should take pause about the enterprise . . . the need to pause speaks well of their character.

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Any of these can be done humanely as long as it is swift and sure. I grew up using an axe so I have confidence I can do that humanely. If you are not used to handling an ax, that method is probably not for you. Pick a method that you are confident you can do and do it. Don't close your eyes and flinch. Make sure you have the proper equipment. If you use a knife, that knife needs to be sharp. Your hand needs to be steady. You are doing a disservice to the bird if you can't do it right. I never enjoy the killing part, not even if it is a rooster that has become aggressive toward humans. But it is something I have to do so I do it.

From your earlier post,
Have you been able to find peace in the fact that the bird died, not as a waste and inhumanely, but as a cared for animal that had a decent/great life?

Pretty much. I raise chickens for the meat as well as the eggs. If I did not eat them, they would never have hatched. They would never have chased a grasshopper or scratched for those nasty creepy crawlies. I try to give them a decent life.

I also try to use as much of the bird as I can. I think that is honoring it so its life was not given in vain. I keep the legs, thighs, breasts and wishbone for the table. I make broth from the wings, back, neck, feet, heart, and gizzard. Then I pick the meat from the wings, back, and neck and use that in casseroles, tacos, salads, such as that. I usually give the liver to the dogs instead of eating it myself.

It is quite a departure for most of us reared in a modern urban culture to come to terms with actually killing an animal for its meat, an animal you're not afraid of, threatened by, or disgusted with, one you have known for a while and helped to raise, one you may even be a bit fond of. But I have found it to be rather empowering, leaving me with a sense of satisfaction & accomplishment for having mastered this basic human survival skill.

I have been processing my extra roos for a few years now -- finding them to be really tasty and not at all tough the way I cook them! -- and have found the method that works best for me (slitting the arteries in the necks). I consider it the final kindness I can provide for these animals for whom I am responsible, to give them a quick, efficient, and humane end.

I find that it helps to consider them food from the beginning. I cannot bear to process my oldest hens, the first chickens I ever got, the ones with names, histories, stories, and fan clubs. But now that the charm of chickens is being replaced with their reality, I am reminding myself & my family that any new hens we add to the flock will some day make us dinner after they stop making us breakfasts. We're making allowance for any new hen who especially endears herself to us, but keeping that distinction for only the very few who are particularly personable. (Or who start laying golden eggs)

Just butchered our first rooster today. I'm no stranger to killing animals, have been hunting and trapping for many years but this was a touch different. Took him while they were ranging with a .22 to the head. Kinda like lightning I guess. Just part of farming. If you're serious about butchering your extras, you'll have to get used to it. Do whatever feels best for you.

When hunting I always respect the animals trying to make their passing as easy as possible. I still follow the old German tradition of putting a sprig of cedar in the mouth of a big game animal after the kill. Totally illogical I know, but just something to do to show respect for your quarry.

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HI Scotty;

Thanks so much for that story. Not only was it a pleasure to read, it was humbling and comforting all the while. I am intensely greatful for your time and feel you have just helped confirmed my reasons for embarking on this quest in my life. Thanks for your words, for your time. I hope to speak with you again.