Can you raise chickens to eat, and still love them?

[silkiechicken]

LOL. The poor yongest siblings in the world. Always getting flack from the older siblings. Sure is fun to be an older sibling!

I love my chickens and eat them. How can you not love them? I had a pair of toms who I adored, they were named mr gobbles and mr gobbles, had there been more they'd still be named mr gobbles... and ended up on the table. That was sealed when the order went in months before they hatched.

 

[Beekissed]

I raise them, love them in the sense that I care for their needs carefully and admire their beauty, interact with them when they allow it, watch them all the time for the sheer peace of it all, enjoy every concept of having chickens. To me, being a steward of the land and having dominion over animals is almost a spiritual thing. It brings me great joy and I love doing it.

I eat them. I process my own because I can be sure that they are handled with the same respect I have imparted to them all along. It gives my children and I a respect for life, for each creature's part in this life, and that there will be an end to each life. Whether it is judicious culling or just for producing food, each bird is in my care until the end and are dispatched with as little pain as is possible.

Its a fact of life for all creatures to die one day. Whether we hasten it to provide food for our families or we let them die, sometimes suffering a great deal, of natural causes~the end is still the same.

It doesn't mean that you "love" your animals less if you are the agent of their death. It means you have approached a fact of life with the common sense it requires to care for each animal~from beginning to end~and used their remains to nourish another creature.

 

[curliet]

last spring we dived into chicken raising and got 15 chicks. 13 RIR, and 2 BR. We named them. We played with them, held them and coo'd over them. And today we are still doing that. Shortly after we got those chicks, my DH decided we should have some birds for meat only. So we got 15 of them. I named them Baby Huey. All of them. While they were cute and fuzzy, we did hold and play with them a little, bit not as much as our other girls. By the time they were ready to go into the run that we had set up for them, we were talking to them only on a limited basis, like "move over fatso" or "Get away from the trough so I can put more feed in, Huey" but no cooing. Since they were pretty pooey most of the time there was no real inclination to hold or cuddle with them. We treated them well, and weren't cold or cruel to them, but just weren't overly pleasant either. When it was time to go to the processor that made it so much easier. If I had to think, "Oh, there goes Stinky" and "goodby Poopy" I would have had a real problem with it, not to mention always wondering who it was on the table. And having a processor, what a great idea! I dropped them off on Monday afternoon and picked them up on Tuesday afternoon. I had found an Amish farmer in our area who does all kinds of butchering. His price was $2.25 a bird, and they were so clean I couldn't believe it. We plan to do this again next year again, with more birds. And we will most certainly call this same man to ask him to do our birds.

 

[The Chicken Lady]

I've tossed around the idea of raising birds for meat one day because my DH is a huge fan of chicken. Right now, all of our chicken comes from the grocery store. I think, if I made the choice to raise my own meat, I'd exclusively raise Cornish X because it would be bad *not* to process them (since they eventually suffer and die naturally due to their excessive weight). I think that situation would force my hand to get the job done; I would feel a lot worse seeing them die naturally. (I'd keep a separate flock for eggs -- and no, I just don't think I could slaughter the spent hens...I think those would become like my pets).

After the first time through with meat birds, I'm assuming it becomes easier.

 

[curliet]

One thing that I did forget to say. Those chickens are the best chicken we ever ate!!! They are just amazing. If you can do them you owe it to yourself to try some. Just remember that these are not "free meat". These birds eat non-stop except when they fall asleep with their head in the trough. I think that this coming year will be better, because the feed prices may not be so high, but be ready to pay more to feed them than you pay for your layers. And, they are more labor intensive. If you're going to have them fed on demand, be ready with the feed bag. Everytime you look at them the feeder will be empty. Water too. They are still worth it! They are YUMMY!!

 

[dancingbear]

Absolutely. We love them, enjoy watching them grow up, run around and play chicken games. Ours get to free-range, so they really get a good life. They have plenty of pasture to run around, plenty of shade trees, and plenty of kitchen/garden scrapes. They love to forage for goodies.

Some of those well-fed birds go to the table. A few are due to be butchered soon. The hens we keep a long time, they usually don't get butchered, except on rare occasions. Mostly we kill roos. Unless they're specifically raised as meat birds.

I agree that raising your own makes you less inclined to waste the life you've taken. Though I still see a few who throw away some parts of the birds, even then, which makes me crazy. I hate seeing food (or just about anything else) wasted, but especially when a live creature's life was taken, it just seems morally wrong to waste anything you might make use of. It seems disrespectful to me, to kill an animal and then just throw away parts of it. Even if you don't personally eat backs, necks, wings, or whatever, good grief, freeze them and give them to somebody who will use them. Almost everybody knows at least one person who can cook, and will make soup or something!

Starting this spring we're going to start raising our own pork, as well.

 

[lazy gardener]

In answer to the thread title: sure, I raise chickens to eat, and still love them. I always invite my extra roos to dinner. I love them best with mashed potato and garlic, fresh from the garden, and home made cranberry sauce.

 

[Nupe]

In answer to the thread title: sure, I raise chickens to eat, and still love them. I always invite my extra roos to dinner. I love them best with mashed potato and garlic, fresh from the garden, and home made cranberry sauce.

If you read the OP's first post, it is specifically stated that the love is not the yummy kind...

Anyway, I suppose I should answer the question myself, since I'm here. For me it's a little different but technically I'm not "raising" chickens to eat. I get undersized rejects from my brother's commercial broiler farm. The initial smell is enough to keep my emotions at bay. I do make it my goal to elevate their quality of life with fresh air and enough room to be a chicken. Their health and appearance always improves. They eventually perk up and start scratching around, dust bathing and they act like they're happy to see me. (I'm sure that has nothing to do with the food I'm carrying.) I can't say that I'll ever love these chickens but I am satisfied that I gave them the chance to do what chickens do and that one day they will make an excellent roommate for my homemade dumplings.

 

[Garjzla]

In answer to the thread title: sure, I raise chickens to eat, and still love them. I always invite my extra roos to dinner. I love them best with mashed potato and garlic, fresh from the garden, and home made cranberry sauce.

That's not funny, that's sad.
You can not love something and kill it at the same time, it's just not possible. And sorry but I find that joke sad.

 

[Garjzla]

If you read the OP's first post, it is specifically stated that the love is not the yummy kind...

Anyway, I suppose I should answer the question myself, since I'm here. For me it's a little different but technically I'm not "raising" chickens to eat. I get undersized rejects from my brother's commercial broiler farm. The initial smell is enough to keep my emotions at bay. I do make it my goal to elevate their quality of life with fresh air and enough room to be a chicken. Their health and appearance always improves. They eventually perk up and start scratching around, dust bathing and they act like they're happy to see me. (I'm sure that has nothing to do with the food I'm carrying.) I can't say that I'll ever love these chickens but I am satisfied that I gave them the chance to do what chickens do and that one day they will make an excellent roommate for my homemade dumplings.

How is that funny, joking about death? Sorry but really, to me that's sad.:'(