Getting flack for killing our meaties -- and need some reassurance!

[Sunny Side Up]

Yay for raising & processing your own chicken dinners!!!

If you're needing support & encouragement for home-grown chicken for your table, you've come to the right place. I'm sorry you're getting so much grief from other folks. In our modern urban/suburban culture it's a real departure from most people's experiences, and some just don't know how to deal with it. I wouldn't waste much time trying to justify it to them. There's a country saying "You can't teach a pig to dance. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig." I would just quickly change the subject & divert their attention to some other topic. Maybe hold up your keys & jingle them. "Look, something shiny!"

With the exception of your closest relatives, it's really really so much NOT anyone else's business! No one should be doing a head-count of your animals and investigating any missing individuals. Should anyone dare to ask you can just say "They found a new home." If folks say they don't want to eat your home-grown chickens, you can just shrug & say "That's fine, it means more for me & my family!" If people get more insistent you can just fix them with a look and say "How kind of you to take such an interest in what is clearly a PERSONAL matter. Please don't feel obliged to concern yourself with it any further."

Check this site: http://butcherachicken.blogspot.com/ to read more encouragement for doing what you've done, you may especially like the part where the author's 11-year-old learns to process chickens because, as he said, "I don't want to grow up to be a helpless man."

 

[pikachupacabra]

I am one of the most squimish people when it comes to food...if my food reminds me that it is something dead, I have a very difficult time eating it, so for me, killing my own meat is right out!

But I think I am the weirdo in this regard, not you...It seems to me that you have a really well considered and practical perspective on how to provide for yourself and your family, and that is awesome!

Very few people are conscientiously and actively involved in the many aspects of their lives, they just eat their mass-produced, cleanly packaged dinners while the tv buzzes away in the back ground, make choices and form their opinions based on the magazine headlines, and think less of anyone brave enough to try some other way.

I, for one, hope I will one day be able to get a grip on my food issues, and be confident that if all the Safeways suddenly disappeared, I would be able to eat.

So in the words of Hunter S Thompson: "Don't take any guff from these bleep swine!"

 

[gpamela3499]

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I think you can get all female meat birds... is the crowing the reason you have none? My meaties have never crowed tho...lol

Not I have a speakeasy coop with laying hens. (illegal) Slaughtering anything with in city limits except maybe live fish is totally illegal. PS I also live in an area where there are more militant vegetarians than any other place in the country. I honestly think if I got caught here I might get some time in prison for animal cruelty. NOT LOL

 

[Wolfwoman]

Gotcha

Well I hope someday you can move where you can do what you'd like to do !!

 

[ChickensRCool]

I, too, have had people question me about butchering chickens and how "bad" it is especially since I have children. I give them all the good reasons as to why we raise chickens. One, we feel that it is healthier than store-bought meat. Two, we try to give our birds a good life -- better than many store-bought. Three, we want our children to know and understand where the food that is on the table comes from. I make sure and tell them that we do not force them to watch or have any part in the butchering process unless they want to, which they haven't. Also, I let them know that studies show that children who live in the country are less likely to shoot and kill other people because they have a more reverence for life. They know that the steak on their plate was once an animal and all the work involved to get it to that plate. And, I also explain that our children are really learning a lot from raising chickens. By the time I am done with all my rambling they don't question me anymore.

 

[MMPoultryFarms]

I had a girl ask me once when buying some chicks from me. Will you ever kill chickens for food? I replied yes ma'am I will even sell you some processed birds if you like. She looked at me in disgust and said " No thank you I will get mine from the grocery store where they didn't have to be slaughtered"

Special people I tell you... Special people!!!

 

[NoseyChickens]

If I thought I could process them myself I would raise my own for meat. I just don't think that I could. Mine all have names and are totted around the yard by my youngest children as pets. Oldest son will not eat meat because of the way large companies raise and slaughter their meat. I would much rather eat a meal I knew was treated humanly while it was alive. I just don't know if I could process the meat myself. If I could find someone to do it for me I would seriously consider it.

 

[Wolfwoman]

Quote:

 

[Tater n Beans]

My wife and I started raising chickens, ducks, and geese about 5 months ago. We have 2 sons, 8 and 10, who we are very adamant about being honest with them and showing them the realities of the world we live in. When we got the birds we very very clear on their purpose and we also don't really name them. They are what they are...livestock, spoiled rotten livestock.
We needed to process six roos that were beginning to cause trouble. I am proud that my children took part. I handled almost all of the process, but they watched and learned what I was doing and why. It is not just a skill that will only become more and more important as they grow up in a world of people that have lost touch with reality but to have the respect for an animal that you are going to eat is just as important. The most memorable part was when my youngest was helping to pluck the first one and he got a bunch of feathers off, saw the skin underneath, and said..."huh, so thats how you make a grocery store chicken." Sure we felt some rumblings in the force for it but, I've never really been one to care what others think of me and I made that quite clear. Even our vegetarian friend was "happy?" (not sure if thats the correct word, lol) for us on our first successful harvest. A little education goes a long way.

So the next time you catch "flack" for caring enough to treat your food humanely, ask them "How many kangaroos and quarts of oil do you think it takes to make your box of "chicken" nuggets?"

 

[Knight Hawk Ranch]

We raise our own beef, pork and chicken. I usually end up selling the extra roos as I haven't the time to butcher and have a LIST of ladies waiting on them for the soup pot.

My 5 year old was about 3.5 at the time and is/was full of questions. We were at the feed store one day and she saw the "whats for dinner" sign with a picture of a steak. She of course wanted to know what 'steak' was. I told her beef....and she wanted to know what 'beef' was. I said honey, it comes from a cow. How? she asks. I told her they kill the cow and cut the meat up. She thought for about 3 seconds and said with force...NOT MY MANNY! (our bull). She understood in about 3 seconds my explanation of where meat comes from. I told her that Manny was not for eating and a 'pet'.

She also questions when someone comes over to buy a chicken and wants to know where it is going. I tell her they are buying it to eat and don't hide it. As long as her 'special' chickens aren't going she is fine with it.

I knew after asking her where chicken nuggets came from and she said Mc Donalds ( my mom takes her not me), that I needed for to explain to her where her food comes from.

With everything that is going on in our world, I feel it is MORE imporant now than ever to produce your own food.

edited for spelling...cause I was not quite consicious