Homesteaders

[Beekissed]

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.

My granny named all her animals, cows, pigs, chickens, etc. if they warranted a name....stood out in the crowd or needed a name so one could refer to them separately, so I'm not sure about animals for food getting names as being a new concept....all of her animals were food eventually, be it in short order or after kept for breeding for years beforehand.

Forty years ago we started homesteading off grid and ALL the animals except dogs and cats were destined for food consumption and many of them had names, especially those we had few of, like pigs, ducks, turkeys, whereas the larger flocks of chickens rarely got names unless some of the birds stood out in the crowd~roosters, a different colored hen, an exceptional layer or mother, etc.

I don't think it's a new concept to name food animals, just a new concept that a name should keep an animal from becoming food.

 

[Beekissed]

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.

Exactly. We all die and names will not prevent it, nor does it make it any less or more cruel when a creature dies if it possesses a name or does not. Shouldn't make it any easier to take that life either, when it comes down to it.

 

[Mini Meat]

As to the issue of naming animals. I have a theory.
It's the children's entertainment industry.

Give an animal a name and it becomes the hero of an epic story and we root for it.
Animals are transformed from eating, pooping, mating machines into characters with back stories, goals, dreams, hopes, fears. Heck they may even make it big in Hollywood someday or save the world.

I think some of that childhood fantasy transfers into adulthood. As a result many people are left with an underlying fear that if they kill that named animal... They become the villain.

Just a theory.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Maybe, but I know that names have always held a significance in human cultures, most cultures. Perhaps it is just another instance of a recurring theme I have noticed in our "civilized" societies. It seems we often take very good ideas and push those ideas to the extreem, until they become bad ideas. To avoid insulating anyone I will use one if my own favorite issues, organic farming. Organic farming is a fantastic idea, conventional farmers are spraying way to many chemicals onto their land (last year we lost most of the fish in a nearby lake due to blue green algae this was caused by run off from nearby fields)
It is a great idea, but it does not solve all our problems and it alone creates new ones. But people in my circle keep pushing to further and further. My husband and I have been scolded more then once because we chose to vaccinate our children. I tell them I will only eat my children in extreme emergency so it will probably be ok . I do not even have a problem with administering any needed medicine to sick livestock, we just cannot then sell it on the organic market (their really isn't a organic market anymore, big bag destroyed it) which is easy enough to do. I think medications are often overused, but if you have a sick animal it is foolish to let it die because if principle.
My point is we took a good idea, organic, and are turning it into an impractical one. We perhaps took our natural inclination, of giving importance to a name and pushed it to an extreme of becoming almost sacred.

 

[limited25]

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.

I don't understand why you are apologizing ... we are all entitled to our opinion and I didn't think you said anything insulting or inappropriate. You really do apologize too much.

I don't kill any chickens because in my neighborhood if anyone did that, I think we would lose the right to have chickens in our neighborhood. I think it is perfectly fine that others do, this is a homesteading thread after all.

 

[lcertuche]

I like to tell the Wildbunch AKA my children that the chickens names are Hot Wings, KFC, Drumstick, etc. so they always remember that someday this bird may and probably will end up on their dinner plate. On the other hand they name their favorites. Most of mine look pretty much alike with little variance, one may be a little blacker or smaller but its hard for me to see the difference when they are the same breed. I have maybe 5 breeds or not. Three actually may be like the two older breeds but for now I know who is who in my 1-month old group is. When I had pigs, they were named Bacon and Pork Chop, and my calf was named T-Bone. That said I love and baby all my critters because they deserve a good life. I don't want to forget the sacrifice they are doing for my family. When I think the kids are being to rough with them I quickly remind them.

 

[greenfeathers]

I like to tell the Wildbunch AKA my children that the chickens names are Hot Wings, KFC, Drumstick, etc. so they always remember that someday this bird may and probably will end up on their dinner plate. On the other hand they name their favorites. Most of mine look pretty much alike with little variance, one may be a little blacker or smaller but its hard for me to see the difference when they are the same breed. I have maybe 5 breeds or not. Three actually may be like the two older breeds but for now I know who is who in my 1-month old group is. When I had pigs, they were named Bacon and Pork Chop, and my calf was named T-Bone. That said I love and baby all my critters because they deserve a good life. I don't want to forget the sacrifice they are doing for my family. When I think the kids are being to rough with them I quickly remind them.

I told my wife when I got the chickens that if we must name the eating ones they'd be named monday, tuesday, wednesday, etc. Mostly to protect the 4 y/o daughter. However, now that they've grown and we processed them, the chickens not the children

, the 4 y/o wants to "get her some more chickens to kill". Those are her words.

I got 27 chicks back in feburary. Only two have names and they were both boys who got kept. Not because I named them but because they were the boys I planned to keep so I named them. I haven't even named the hens.

 

[Beekissed]

As to the issue of naming animals. I have a theory.
It's the children's entertainment industry.

Give an animal a name and it becomes the hero of an epic story and we root for it.
Animals are transformed from eating, pooping, mating machines into characters with back stories, goals, dreams, hopes, fears. Heck they may even make it big in Hollywood someday or save the world.

I think some of that childhood fantasy transfers into adulthood. As a result many people are left with an underlying fear that if they kill that named animal... They become the villain.

Just a theory.

Maybe, but I know that names have always held a significance in human cultures, most cultures. Perhaps it is just another instance of a recurring theme I have noticed in our "civilized" societies. It seems we often take very good ideas and push those ideas to the extreem, until they become bad ideas. To avoid insulating anyone I will use one if my own favorite issues, organic farming. Organic farming is a fantastic idea, conventional farmers are spraying way to many chemicals onto their land (last year we lost most of the fish in a nearby lake due to blue green algae this was caused by run off from nearby fields)
It is a great idea, but it does not solve all our problems and it alone creates new ones. But people in my circle keep pushing to further and further. My husband and I have been scolded more then once because we chose to vaccinate our children. I tell them I will only eat my children in extreme emergency so it will probably be ok

. I do not even have a problem with administering any needed medicine to sick livestock, we just cannot then sell it on the organic market (their really isn't a organic market anymore, big bag destroyed it) which is easy enough to do. I think medications are often overused, but if you have a sick animal it is foolish to let it die because if principle.
My point is we took a good idea, organic, and are turning it into an impractical one. We perhaps took our natural inclination, of giving importance to a name and pushed it to an extreme of becoming almost sacred.

Both excellent points and very accurate. It's an interesting study to find out the whys of things and how things came to be considered mainstream by the current culture, if possible. Helps one try to understand it and then give it importance or not, as they see fit.

I never really give that much thought to names of animals, as to why I should or I shouldn't name them. If they stand out for some reason, they normally get a name so I can say "Hey, remember that so and so hen? Well...she's doing this or that right now and ain't that funny"..... or good or bad or any number of things to describe what made her stand out in the first place.

Sometimes the name describes them~ Black Betty, Porch Broody, Wood's Broody, etc. Sometimes it's a name that tickles my fancy and I just want to name a chicken that name because I like saying the name or know someone that the chicken reminds me of~Clairee, Miss Millie, Idgie Threadgood, Ol' Mama, Dooley, Weaver, etc.

I don't recall that it ever passes through my mind to name or not name an animal according to its future here....even the dogs, which will just as easily answer to "dog" than to their given names. Giving something a name is enjoyable to me, especially if the name suits the person or creature or tickles my funny bone, so I can't imagine denying myself that joy merely because that animal will one day be consumed.

If anything, consuming them makes them all the more personal to me...I'd much rather eat a chicken that I've raised and loved than a strange chicken that I didn't raise from a chick...makes me feel better about the food I'm eating if I was able to insure they had a great life of freedom here, doing what chickens love to do. My chickens and I depend one upon another and that makes for a pretty intimate partnership.

 

[rancher hicks]

Organic, I get that your birds are healthier as are my chickens eggs. I tell people often to buy as much organic and non commercial food as they can afford. I just don't live where processing birds is a reasonable thing. We're too close to the city and I'm just not up to it. Besides the wife had trouble eating the chickens we paid to have processed. She's the cook and I've been told the method of cooking farm birds is different than the puffy store birds. Times have changed since I was young, when you bought a chicken by how you wanted to cook it. Fryers, broilers, stewers etc.etc. Our Regional farmers market sold live animals that bought and taken to the slaughter house next door. That's long gone. Sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, geese etc.etc.

Everyone else,

I do name some of my chickens but I don't call them my babies or kids or any of that. However if one chooses to do so, I can live with it and not put them down. I'm not sure why, where or when we started to name our pets. I do know that when Merlin our cat had to be put down at the vets I cried. I'm not ashamed.

The first chicken I had to put down I cried a bit. Last night there were two hens (it's a long story) and I did what had to be done . Sad but no tears. Nick my avatar had to be put down. He was old I think. I got him as an adult. It was hard but again I'm not one to let my animals suffer.

Some folks are sentimental others are not. Such is life. Does it make us bad people if we're one or the other?

Peace,

 

[Beekissed]

No one was talking about names equaling sentimentality equals not killing chickens. The discussion was why names meant you could not kill certain animals, attaching more sentimentality to a named animal than to one that is not named. I'm just as sentimental as the next person and don't feel a bit ashamed to cry over the death of a much loved pet or even a much loved older hen that I had to kill to put out of pain. Just because a person kills animals for food does not mean they are not sentimental or that they don't have a soft heart towards their animals.

I think that's where the general disconnect comes in between the no kill and kill groups...the no kill group automatically assumes they have a softer heart than those who can kill their animals for food, simply because they feel if your heart is soft enough you just couldn't kill anything. Nobody's heart is softer than God's and He was the first to kill animals and those just for their skins. It's a different kind of love altogether to kill something even while loving it intensely than it is to just love something so much you won't kill it. Both are love, just different kinds. No, it doesn't make us bad people if we are one or the other, but it does seem rather like one is saying so if they imply that those who kill animals for food lack sentimentality for their animals.