Hold my hand...

[Cluck4Me]

I want to order 25 Cornish Crosses here in the very near future....to feed my family, blah, blah, blah...but on the eve of doing so, I chickened out!
I've butchered before...why am I getting so mushy all of a sudden??
I need someone (who loves cluckers but still processes broilers) to offer some advice to shake me free of this weird displaced guilt I'm feeling all of a sudden!!
I've lost a few beloved pet layers this year (dogs, coyotes, etc..) so I wonder if that's why I'm feeling hesitant.
Any advice would be so appreciated!

- Sandy

 

[justusnak]

Sandy,

I hope you DO decide to get them. THey are really different from raiseing layers....they eat alot, and poo alot..and the smell....UGH!! BUT!!!!!! Just knowing you are feeding your family fresh, farm raised meats...its worth it all. I have to admit...I have raised broilers several times...and the first few to get processed are a little hard, but then you just go into a zone..and knowing the freezer will be full soon is a great feeling.

 

[Beekissed]

I agree. I just butchered young cockerels and had to cull my favorite hen, Fanny, because she never has layed an egg (she's over a year old). It hurt to kill her but I determined that I was not keeping any more pets, I couldn't afford to feed extra mouths. It was difficult to do and my teenagers helped....they didn't want to either. It was a good lesson for them to understand that, sometimes in life, they will have to make tough decisions that just have to be made. Now I feel a warm satisfaction about all the meat that is safely in the freezer for my small family and that we were strong enough to provide it. I miss Fanny but I know that, in the new batch of chicks coming in July, there will be that one...you know that one, that follows you around and acts like she's trying to tell you something. There will be another little Fanny one day soon.

 

[Salt and Light]

I am new to the whole chicken thing, in fact I'm still waiting on my birds. However, I will butcher my own birds and I imagine I will have some sense of remorse about taking their lives. However, I feel that as a meat eater, the MOST humane thing to do is raise your own in a good healthy fashion and then kill them quickly. I feel that killing an animal that has has a "nice" natural life is MUCH better than eating a commercial animal which has been raised in an absurdly inhumane manner and killed in an even more inhumane way.

I think taking a life should be a time for reflection. Killing sort of puts our own lives in perspective and often that's not something we are good at accepting. I also believe that God gives us dominion over animals and that means treating them with respect, both in life and in death. I haven't always done that, but I think as humans, it's what we should strive for!

 

[kees]

There's no reason to feel guilty at all. If you were to buy birds they probably would not be treated as well as the ones as you raise yourself. In all probability, they woudn't be processed as kindly either. Don't get attached to them, think of them as food for your family and don't name them!

 

[Salt and Light]

My ex-wife's uncle raised birds for Campbell's soup. Talk about nasty!! There were 30,000 birds in a coop. Of course the coop was huge but come on! Those birds were fed so much steriod, antibiotic, etc it was just amazing. One year, the pickup for slaughter was one day late, it was a typical S. Carolina summer, about 100 degrees, and before anything could be done, about 10,000 birds were dead. We picked those poor birds up with a front end loader!! Commercial chicken growning is not a pretty thing!

 

[Cluck4Me]

Thank you so very much friends, for your support!
ALL of you are absolutely right - by raising them under our care, dealing with the mess they're famous for making (ha), the ability to control their humane processing - I couldn't ask for better reasons to help me get my courage back. Thank you!

- Sandy

 

[greyfields]

Go for it! Once you start producing your own meat, you'll never look back. However, be aware, meat broilers are different animals than other chickens. Their lives are short and generally stinky.