So I've been playing around with the idea of raising meat chickens lately but I don't know if I have the guts to kill them when it's time has come. But now I have a rooster that needs to go he is mean. So this seems like as good as time as any to try out the butchering process before I decide to raise meat chickens. Is there any Humane quick ways to off the rooster where I wouldn't have to look at him. I think if I didn't physically see him when I was doing it it would be a lot easier
This is the classic. "everybody loves bacon, nobody wants to smell the pigs" The killing isn't the good part, but you like eating chicken right?
**Cringe warning, there is a point, skip between the ** if you want.
*****Here's one way you can look at it, a chicken that you bought at the store, most likely, hatched, got dumped on a table, was "lucky enough to get thrown in a tote destine for a brooder, (his sister got dropped into a grinder), after two weeks in a brooder with a couple thousand more he gets set down in a saw dust covered barn floor, that becomes increasingly overcrowded as they grow, no roost, no grass, maybe a little sunshine peaking through, that sawdust will not be changed in his 10 week short life, after a while he won't be able to walk as he has been bred to eat until his joints fail, he'll crawl between the feeder and waterer on his knees, until one day he will be stuffed into a crowded crate too short for him to stand, (if he could), he'll be loaded trucked without food or water for up to couple days, sat on a dock, his throat will be cut with a disposable knife before they even lift him out of the crate, hung on a line, and the machines take over. Awful, yes. The absolute brutal truth.****
How does this "support" you? You're chicken, from the moment you got him, has been with his flock, has had room to run, flap his wings, scratch, chase bugs, crow, chase the hens, eat the grass, set on a roost at night, eat treats I'm sure...all the stuff chickens love. It's part of life, and you gave him a good one.
Every chicken meat chicken you raise yourself, is one that has a good short life, compared to the reality of the alternative. The same goes for eggers, instead of having half their beak cut off, set down in a box for two years until they are rotated out and become Vienna sausages and dog food.
Give him a good last day, give him a quick death, teach hands-on your children where meat comes from, one of the reason farm kids are such solid people. You'll be doing more for the welfare of animals than a hundred PETA hipsters holding signs or complaining about it on their iphones.
Just my opinion, not judging anyone for their's.
