Do you let your children watch you butcher a chicken?

[SIMPleChick]

My dad told us stories of when he visited his cousins on the farm and they as little boys would have to go out and chop off a chicken head so they could have dinner. It has been happening since the beginning of time. I think it is how you prepare your kids for it, it is ALL in the RESPECT. We do this for our food, they are here for our food and use, but we treat them humanly.... We thank them for their life.....I think if they want to see then let them see but leave at any time.

 

[toby1959]

My great grandparents, grandparents, parents, me, my sons, and my grandchildren all participate in the "cycle of life". The continuity of this will go on as long as I have anything to do with it and my sons feel the same way. We processed chickens yesterday and both the 3 and 4 year old grandkids wanted to watch and asked questions. Just like their Dads did when they were that age. This is done in a reverent way no matter what it is we are working up. We thank the animal for giving up its life for us so that we can live another day. The three year old said our "prayer" for us yesterday. All tasks are performed with skill born of long practice and I'm sure the grandkids will be doing this long after I am gone. They will teach their grandkids the same prayer I was taught.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

My children (7 and 4) have been involved since the very first time we butchered our own chickens. My son (7) has always been more involved than my daughter (4). He helps us catch them up the day before, and this year decided it would be his job to bring them from the cage to the chopping block. My daughter is content to say a little prayer and thank them for the meal they are giving us (every one of them). They stick around to watch the entire process, but don't get involved with the dirty work. They get excited when its time to butcher, because even to them our homegrown birds are better then what I have to occasionally buy at the grocery store. We never asked them if they were interested in the process, they expressed that on their own. I remember helping my aunt process birds on her farm when I was small- its not a traumatic memory for me. Its actually a very fond one. We'd process a bunch of chicken, then my very large family would all get together and have a big cookout after.

 

[LaceFarms]

All 4 of my children (8,10,12,14 all boys) are involved in some way or the other. My 2 youngest trade off eviscerating the smaller birds because my hand wont fit. My oldest pack the birds in vacuum sealed freezer bags and my 2nd son is our record keeper and gatherer. "Chicken Days" are family days and sometimes a few of the kids friends stop by and help. We always try to put the bird at ease before they are inverted and put into the cone of death. To make it easier on everyone, everything of the farm has a number or letter rather than a name. Only the cats and dog have names. In fact, last Saturday, we butchered chickens 1-30 and goat "3E", chickens 31-60 and goat "3F" are in 2 weeks.

 

[rgrillo]

My neighbor's 3-year-old child came to visit my hens the other day. "I don't eat chicken because I don't want them to die for us," he said.

I write about humane education so I think I would be the odd man out here to tell you that we need a very different kind of teaching for our children, one that teaches how we can create a healthier and more humane world for people, animals and the environment. See http://freefromharm. In any case, I will share this anecdote with you from one of my readers that still haunts me today:

"When I was very young a pet pig who adopted me was taken to the slaughterhouse. It was humanely treated but it was stunned, decapitated and hung up by its legs and hacked apart lengthways. This pig was my best friend, it was entrusted to me and I felt I had betrayed him. I was too young to realize that my parents would not do the same to me or my brother, so distrust, fears and nightmares were a regular occurrence for me."

 

[rgrillo]

I have to assume that you are asking this question based on your apprehension about traumatizing your children over seeing the killing of a sentient being, chicken or other? That is a moral dilemma that I personally find fascinating and write about. If you have an open mind, take a gander at my latest article, "How We Teach Children a Separate Morality for Food Animals" at http://freefromharm.org/farm-animal...hildren-a-separate-morality-for-food-animals/.

 

[Rathbone]

Quote:
I couldn't say it better than this.

 

[snydedawg]

My 8yr old just took part in her first chicken butchering.

She had been cleaning ducks and geese (wild ones... I have an addiction for waterfowl hunting) and helping with deer as well.

She has asked me daily when we were going to "lop their heads off" and when the time came she was there..... for a while.

Right until I started pulling guts..... then she was done!! It wasn't the smell, or the sight.. it was the sound that got to her.

I've raised all five of my daughters to be independant, to be able to think for themselves and to do for themselves. I'll always be here to help them with anything as long as I'm drawing a breath, but someday I'll be gone and I want them to know how to do things, when to do them and why.

Raising chickens for food is a part of that teaching to me. They know animals are on the Earth for us to harvest and enjoy. They are mindful and respectful of how anumals are raised and how they are butchered. I'm proud of that fact. It would be one heck of a lot easier and cheaper to catch fryers on sale and buy in bulk!! But, this way they learn and can appreciate what it takes to bring a bird to market. They get the benefit of healthy fresh raised poultry by raising their own and have a responsibility to their flock.

We have layers as well and collecting eggs and feeding and watering are now normal parts of their lives.

Like all parents I suppose.. I'm proud of my kids and I try to do something together with them every single day. Whether it is messing with the garden, our chickens, riding four-wheelers, basketball, volleyball, soccer or out shooting I try to have a little bit of what I call MDT.. Maximum Daddy Time... every day!!!

 

[Rathbone]

Snydedawg said: I've raised all five of my daughters to be independant, to be able to think for themselves and to do for themselves. I'll always be here to help them with anything as long as I'm drawing a breath, but someday I'll be gone and I want them to know how to do things, when to do them and why.
Raising chickens for food is a part of that teaching to me. They know animals are on the Earth for us to harvest and enjoy. They are mindful and respectful of how anumals are raised and how they are butchered. I'm proud of that fact.

What a beautiful gift you have given your children.

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
When I was 3 my job was to hold the heads down while my mother swung the axe.. used to scare the heck out of me that she was gonna miss (especially when it was a tough old rooster that required more than one whack). After the beheading I had to help pull feathers and gut.. not sure how good of a job I did back then.. just know that I got better at it when time went by. The worst part was my mom didn't care if they were pets or not. But you can be sure she marked their names on the freezer packages.. and at the end of dinner would announce who we had just eaten.. hey.. never said she wasn't a mean sick individual. But I do have to give her credit. She raised us hard; and thanks to that upbringing I can go out and butcher whatever it takes to put food on the table. None of my other relatives can ... but I think I was just the weird gal in the family who actually learned from it.
I do agree that the part I hated the most was the singeing of those darn pinfeathers.. so now i skin my birds when we butcher! We were trapped too, my mom was a farm girl, and kids were the farm workers.. if you didn't help out you got beat for it.
As for me, I don't have kids.. just my husband, me and the critters.. it's all the family I need!