Homesteaders

[Woodsdweller]

A bit off subject, but what and where does everyone go to buy processing equipment? What we have desperately needs replacing, it is a hazard.
I was looking at Cabela's, they have propane cook stoves, but I want to make sure if it spend the money I get exactly what I want.
Specifically I need something to boil my water and good knives, my kitchen knives are lacking.

I use Henckel knives. They are good quality, hold an edge and easy to resharpen. They can be found relatively inexpensive on eBay. As for a scalder I have a King Kooker 30qt. propane turkey fryer I picked up new for $25 off Craigslist. Works great for scalding and shrink bagging. I have a small stainless steel table that's easy to sterilize and keep clean. I made killing cones with 16" & 24" flashing. Add a garden hose and you're all set. These work for me. A plucker would be nice, but when I think of the cost, hand plucking works too.

 

[Woodsdweller]

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. 

I raise chickens for food be it eggs or meat. Chickens provide food or become food it's that basic for me. I do name them..... food names... cacciatore, dumpling, fricassee, penne, Dijon, etc. That doesn't make it harder to turn them into what "I" meant them to be. Growing up on a farm most learn to realize it's better to raise/slaughter/eat animals/produce than to depend on a store to provide meat/produce as you know what the animals have been fed, how they've been taken care of, if they had any diseases and what or if chemicals have been used on produce. Some people don't have a problem with it.. some do. I see many food products from stores that have been recalled for various reasons. Follow your own path and don't fuss about what others do. Oh.. btw.. I consider myself a functioning sociopath.. I resent being labeled a psychopath just because I don't anthropomorphize animals.

 

[rancher hicks]

Sorry it's nearly two am I woke and got on to delete my post. I really should not have entered this conversation. It just upset me that anyone was being called an idiot. I just think it was mean. I'm really stressed what with all the shootings and hating going on. Again, I'm sorry.

I sometimes forget what I think doesn't really matter.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

IMO I would rather be called an idiot than a psychopath or sociopath. I do raise my flock for food, not because I don't respect living creatures but because I DO respect what each creature must give so another can live. Opinions are like rectums we all have one and they all stink from time to time.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

A bit off subject, but what and where does everyone go to buy processing equipment? What we have desperately needs replacing, it is a hazard.
I was looking at Cabela's, they have propane cook stoves, but I want to make sure if it spend the money I get exactly what I want.
Specifically I need something to boil my water and good knives, my kitchen knives are lacking.

I use Henckel knives. They are good quality, hold an edge and easy to resharpen. They can be found relatively inexpensive on eBay. As for a scalder I have a King Kooker 30qt. propane turkey fryer I picked up new for $25 off Craigslist. Works great for scalding and shrink bagging. I have a small stainless steel table that's easy to sterilize and keep clean. I made killing cones with 16" & 24" flashing. Add a garden hose and you're all set. These work for me. A plucker would be nice, but when I think of the cost, hand plucking works too.

A turkey fryer, I can find those, I was just worried it would not work (could not think of a good reason why it wouldn't, but I have been surprised before. Thank you, I will look into the knives too.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Sorry it's nearly two am I woke and got on to delete my post.  I really should not have entered this conversation. It just upset me that anyone was being called an idiot. I just think it was mean. I'm really stressed what with all the shootings and hating going on.  Again, I'm sorry. 

I sometimes forget what I think doesn't really matter. 

You are welcome to buy grocery store chicken. Until a year ago, I did, because I had no other option. But I never deluded myself that I was at all more empathetic because I did not wield the knife. You are killing a chicken everytime you put down your money for one at the store. The only difference is mine lived a happy life and had one really bad day, those store bought chickens had horrible lives and one day of mercy.
In the past people did not place greater value on the their animals. Animals where just that, animals, few called them family, few empathised more with a dog then with another human. Yet these mass shootings are a relatively new development. I am not part of the problem.

 

[Beekissed]

When I asked about the naming, I hadn't meant to open a discussion that was so heated about killing or not killing, but merely about the importance of a name or no naming for food animals....or anything else, for that matter....that denotes that one animal is more cherished or valued than another simply due to having a name, or that naming it something related to food makes it easier to kill it or not kill it. Killing is never easy, be the animal have a name or not, so I'm not sure how names or no names makes it harder or less hard to kill that animal, be it for mercy or for consumption.

That's all a very foreign concept to me and I live right here in the good ol' US of A, so I struggle to understand how that idea has grown so fervently in the last many years. Always wondering if it's an attempt to disassociate in some manner, maybe how some learn to cope~or not learn to actually cope, but to avoid~ with the act of killing for food? Or maybe just bowing to the peer pressure exerted by the media and those who are most influenced by it, thus resulting in making food animals into pets so those same people won't think they aren't "compassionate and humane"?

I struggle with that a lot, both in real life and on these forums, wherein people assert that one simply cannot love their animals and be tender and compassionate towards them and still be able to kill them out of mercy and for food consumption....and nothing could be further from the truth. It takes far more love for a creature to give it a good death by your own hand, despite your own personal feelings for it, than it does to let them suffer and die from "old age" but the majority out there still insist that it's cruel....but them eating commercially raised meat is not cruel because THEY didn't raise it, name it or kill it.

None of that makes any sense at all to me, so I always like to delve into the thinking behind the name or not name it concept.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

When I asked about the naming, I hadn't meant to open a discussion that was so heated about killing or not killing, but merely about the importance of a name or no naming for food animals....or anything else, for that matter....that denotes that one animal is more cherished or valued than another simply due to having a name, or that naming it something related to food makes it easier to kill it or not kill it.  Killing is never easy, be the animal have a name or not, so I'm not sure how names or no names makes it harder or less hard to kill that animal, be it for mercy or for consumption. 

That's all a very foreign concept to me and I live right here in the good ol' US of A, so I struggle to understand how that idea has grown so fervently in the last many years.  Always wondering if it's an attempt to disassociate in some manner, maybe how some learn to cope~or not learn~ with the act of killing for food?   

Oh I enjoyed the discussion. And I continue to argue that the importance of a name is not new, naming animals meant for food is. But I cannot tell you why, only make guesses.

 

[Woodsdweller]

To completely corrupt a quote from Shakespeare...... What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name will still die eventually.

 

[greenfeathers]