Homesteaders

[OrganicFarmWife]

I just have to ask....I've asked others on BYC and other forums where this idea seems to reign supreme,but they couldn't give me a logical answer to it.  Why does an animal with a name have any greater value or be less easy to butcher than an animal without a name?        It's just a word that one assigns to a creature, but other than that it holds no magical powers that would prevent that animal from becoming food, nor does it put any special value on that animal emotionally...at least, logically it shouldn't. 

Since when are emotions logical? It would be fantastic if they were, I would have kissed a lot less frogs in my single days if I had always been able to use logic
Nah i get what your saying, but giving an animal a name personalizes it, makes it seem to have emotions like a human does. Naming an animal makes it a pet. I think it goes back to humans real need for family, we will create emotions in our animals they are not always capable of.
I do however name mine as a group, they are my Meaties, it doesn't seem to bother me that way.

 

[Beekissed]

True...emotions imparted to humans are not often logical, especially when one is young. But...can one not TRAIN one's emotions to suit the task at hand? If not, every nurse, doctor, policeman, social worker, etc., would be too busy puking or crying to do his/her job properly.

You would think that the logical homesteader would apply it to the job of homesteading. When one undertakes killing one's own meat, emotions are best trained or reigned in so that logic can rule the head instead of emotions....or else you are sobbing or passing out while trying to procure your food or just not killing anything at all, going broke all the while as the animals mount up around you. And old farmer edict states that one cannot farm on sentiment...meaning, one would no longer have a working farm if all the animals were assigned an emotional attachment.

Just wondering is all....these things always fascinate me because they are such a strange concept, that a word can assign special status to a thing. Like naming your car means you could never sell it. Was wondering if, if we can train a young child to accept the killing of animals for food, why then can't we train our own minds to think logically when it comes to our own emotions? Is it a bad thing to exercise some self control in that matter? Just questions to make one think.....

I name every animal that warrants a name....those that stand out of the flock for some reason or other or those that one needs to train to come to their name and such. Those animals taste the same as those who didn't warrant a name, so I'm always mystified as to how assigning a name changes things~some have names, some do not, they all taste like their species should taste, no better or no worse. I treat them all the same, love them all the same, give them all a good life and a good death, be they nameless or not.

But...I'm always trying to understand the thought processes of those who feel or think differently...trying to understand or get my mind around the way they think. It's an education, to be sure.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

I think you are ignoring that fact that not everyone is capable of being a nurse, doctor, policeman, social worker, or even homesteader. Many have tried and failed, because they could not train their emotions. And there are those in that profession that turn to other means, substances, to deal with some of that lingering pain. I do think that how one is raised plays a large role in what they can handle as adults. I personally was raised in a hunting family. From a very young age I watched my father bring home fish, deer, birds, cute little bunnies, and process them. So I have no problem at all processing my own birds. But I do not name them. Wild animals were things I never had a chance to grow attached to, they were dead nameless creatures. My birds, I do not look at as pets, even my layers. I probably could eat an animal I have named, but see no reason to do that to myself. I only name creatures that have earned a life here, my dog, a couple cats, and the layers. Just makes everything easier on myself.

 

[Beekissed]

True...not everyone can do some things.

But the name thing still gets me....it's a word. It has no special powers to change an animal into anything sacred or untouchable. Has nothing to do with if a person can kill the animal or not, but how much significance a person places on a word. Joe, Jim, Sally, etc.....how do these words change the nature of the animal for people? I'm still mystified over that and can't wrap my mind around how a word changes things?

 

[GardenNut]

Wow! Guess I started a good debate, eh?

For me, naming an animal means I've become attached enough to consider it basically a pet. Now, if some catastrophe occurred, and I needed food, I know I'd butcher that "pet" before I'd starve! Realize I say this and only have my first 4 chickens, a rabbit, and 2 dogs! If/when I get a larger place, let's see how many pets vs. livestock I end up with.

 

[GardenNut]

And Happy Fathers Day to all you dads!

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

I have heard of native cultures that would not name a baby until they reached a year or older. It was said to be because if the high death rate of infants. The importance of a name, it's value, is i think ingrained deeply.

 

[2mnypets]

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. Without my father, I would not have a love for the outdoors, digging in the earth or raising all types of animals.

 

[Molpet]

True...emotions imparted to humans are not often logical, especially when one is young. But...can one not TRAIN one's emotions to suit the task at hand? If not, every nurse, doctor, policeman, social worker, etc., would be too busy puking or crying to do his/her job properly.

You would think that the logical homesteader would apply it to the job of homesteading. When one undertakes killing one's own meat, emotions are best trained or reigned in so that logic can rule the head instead of emotions....or else you are sobbing or passing out while trying to procure your food or just not killing anything at all, going broke all the while as the animals mount up around you. And old farmer edict states that one cannot farm on sentiment...meaning, one would no longer have a working farm if all the animals were assigned an emotional attachment.

Just wondering is all....these things always fascinate me because they are such a strange concept, that a word can assign special status to a thing. Like naming your car means you could never sell it. Was wondering if, if we can train a young child to accept the killing of animals for food, why then can't we train our own minds to think logically when it comes to our own emotions? Is it a bad thing to exercise some self control in that matter? Just questions to make one think.....

I name every animal that warrants a name....those that stand out of the flock for some reason or other or those that one needs to train to come to their name and such. Those animals taste the same as those who didn't warrant a name, so I'm always mystified as to how assigning a name changes things~some have names, some do not, they all taste like their species should taste, no better or no worse. I treat them all the same, love them all the same, give them all a good life and a good death, be they nameless or not.

But...I'm always trying to understand the thought processes of those who feel or think differently...trying to understand or get my mind around the way they think. It's an education, to be sure.

It seems for me , to have something to do with they type of people I associated with. When I was a kid we ate our chickens, made food for our dogs from ponies we couldn't sell and gave mercy to the dogs/cats as needed... After I started working it was very hard for me to give mercy to my old pony and horse.. However the work people were not farm people and I believed they influenced my thinking... They were horrified that I put my pony and horse down myself instead of paying $300 a piece. I gave mercy to my cousins cat because she couldn't do it or afford a emergency vet visit. Again I was silly enough to say something at work and one 'friend' threatened to turn me in...Their thinking was that animals that have names are pets and should be treated like furry/feathered children and taken to the DR . Some how over the years it rubbed off... The old dog I even took to the vet to be put down.
I have lived on the same plot of land as my Great grands , which has become almost in the town... So the main thing has changed is going from country people to city people...When I retired in 2012, and didn't talk to the city type people, I started to realize how I had changed... I got 2 roos last Oct to see if I wanted chickens again, train the dog and if I could .do the deed... Well the first 2 went well but I kept find excuses for the 3rd.. I got some hens and then in March I got some CX. I read that the cx were nasty and I would have no problem processing them...But I restricted their feed and let them free range..sweet birds. I did process 2 last Sunday and the spare roo from Oct Thursday. However I had to close my eyes and lop their heads off...I have a couple of Turkeys that follow me around, not sure if I can do them in..no names except group names based on what I would pay at the farmers market...Turkeys are "$5 a LB" and Chickens are' $4 LB"
I have a long way to go to get back to where I should be

 

[Beekissed]

It seems for me , to have something to do with they type of people I associated with. When I was a kid we ate our chickens, made food for our dogs from ponies we couldn't sell and gave mercy to the dogs/cats as needed... After I started working it was very hard for me to give mercy to my old pony and horse.. However the work people were not farm people and I believed they influenced my thinking... They were horrified that I put my pony and horse down myself instead of paying $300 a piece. I gave mercy to my cousins cat because she couldn't do it or afford a emergency vet visit. Again I was silly enough to say something at work and one 'friend' threatened to turn me in...Their thinking was that animals that have names are pets and should be treated like furry/feathered children and taken to the DR . Some how over the years it rubbed off... The old dog I even took to the vet to be put down.
I have lived on the same plot of land as my Great grands , which has become almost in the town... So the main thing has changed is going from country people to city people...When I retired in 2012, and didn't talk to the city type people, I started to realize how I had changed... I got 2 roos last Oct to see if I wanted chickens again, train the dog and if I could .do the deed... Well the first 2 went well but I kept find excuses for the 3rd.. I got some hens and then in March I got some CX. I read that the cx were nasty and I would have no problem processing them...But I restricted their feed and let them free range..sweet birds. I did process 2 last Sunday and the spare roo from Oct Thursday. However I had to close my eyes and lop their heads off...I have a couple of Turkeys that follow me around, not sure if I can do them in..no names except group names based on what I would pay at the farmers market...Turkeys are "$5 a LB" and Chickens are' $4 LB"
I have a long way to go to get back to where I should be

I agree. It seems to stem from a pervasive culture shift from city dweller to urban dweller and their thoughts and ideas that are imposed upon people who were raised deeply in the country. Like peer pressure, if you will. I encountered the same thing at work when someone asked me what I intended to do with all the chickens I was raising(where I lived very few people free ranged a chicken flock, so my house was very much an item of curiosity for the community). I told them we sold and ate the eggs and killed nonlayers and extra roosters for the meat. You would have thought I had told them I was eating human babies after cooking them on a spit over an open flame....the shock, the anger and abuse I took over those simple statements of fact~and this in a previously VERY agricultural community and most of these people owning commercial poultry houses, at that)~was astonishing.

When I pointed out how cruelly were those chickens kept that were raised in their commercial poultry houses and how those people still ate them, they all replied with the same word. Wherever I encounter that attitude and challenge them to think about where their chicken they eat all the time derives they all use the same wording...it's like they've all taken some mind control drug or course that causes them to use the same phrasing.....the phrase? "That's different."

Different from what, I always ask? The reply...."It's just different. Those chickens don't have names and I didn't raise them from little babies or kill them with my own hands!" What really slays me about that kind of thinking is that they justify cruelty to animals if they cannot see it happening or if no one discusses it and they will gladly eat the carcasses of those dead as long as they didn't have names or weren't raised at home. What kind of thinking is that?????

It's definitely a peer pressure thing, driven by the media, to downgrade and call cruel those people who kill their own animals~named or not~for mercy or for food.

I had a discussion with a lady at the Humane Society about a dog, a stray that needed a home~NOT mine. I called them up and they said they didn't have room and if I brought it to them they would just have to euthanize it. I replied that was fine, we'd just kill it here and save me the 20 mi. drive. The girl got really nasty and acted like I was being cruel to kill the dog here instead of driving it all the way in town so THEY could kill it. I asked her what was the difference, either way the dog dies quickly and humanely. She couldn't really give me a logical answer to that, even though I described how quickly they died when shot in the head at close range with a shotgun....by the time I was done she was assuring me I could bring the dog to them and it would NOT be put down at their facility. They threaten to kill the dog and they are good people. I threaten to kill the dog and they act like I'm a murderer.

Logic is dead.