How do you live with yourself eating the birds you raised?

[6Happiness]

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I respectfully disagree.

There is quite a bit of research to suggest that it is not necessarily (or at all) healthier to take meat out of your diet, and i see no moral dilemma.

Some people can be allergic to a number of the non-animal-derived foods for protein; Imagine if you were allergic to nuts and to soy/beans. That's very limiting, and alternatives, although out there can be really hard to impossible to find in some places! Then imagine you were limitted further by having to depend on foodstamps and food pantries. A healthy diet might simply be impossible for some people to do without some animal derived food products.

 

[6Happiness]

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Also, in order to have a healthy vegetarian/vegan diet, in many cases you must have foods to complete the diet transported to you. How much damage is done - in the form of pollution and habitat loss and mono-farming to our planet and the species on it, "indirectly" in order that we may have a protein food that is plant or fungal based? Is that destruction and the loss of animal lives because of it, more ethical than the loss of one life, locally raised and slaughtered in one's backyard?

 

[langshan]

Being raised in a farm background, never name what you intend to eat. I never name anything that I intend to eat.

 

[prancie]

In sort, we cut the head off an extra rooster one day last fall and were plucking it. the other chickens gathered around and were eager to taste. I never had a moral qualm about it after that. It's not FUN to kill them, but they would happily eat each other or me if they got the chance. Besides that, I give them the best life a chicken could have.

 

[NeilV]

I just started with chickens this year, but hope to raise some meat birds next year.

I'll just add this -- I'm pretty sure my nice Australorps -- all of whom I rasied from the day they hatched -- would eat ME if I was small enough to fit in a crop.

 

[cherwill]

I'm pretty sure they would, the adorable little cannibals.

 

[Kismet]

Several years ago a school group was visiting our farm. I took the chilren out to the north pasture where young lambs and beef cow were grazing. I shook a pail of grain and all came running across the field to line up at the grain troughs, little woolly backs, and then the large cow hump, followed by more little woolly backs. I introduced the lambs, destined for market, and Nellie, my beef cow.
"Nellie is off to the butcher in November," I said. A wide eyed little girl looked up at me, aghast, and asked, "How can you eat someone you know?!"
"How can you eat someone you don't know?" I replied.

I feel the same way about my chickens. They have a wonderful time here, and I take care of them well. When it's time, it is their turn to take care of me.

 

[augustmomx2]

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[journey11]

I had to do the deed today. I worried about it all week knowing it was coming up.

I hadn't named these hens, but I sure did enjoy having them around. They do amuse me with their antics and they have such a zest for life. They were very pretty to look at and I loved having them grace my backyard.

I've processed many spare roosters and many meaties and those were no problem. I knew that was where they were headed from the day one. They weren't around for as long as "the girls" had been.

But we are trying to "homestead" here, growing as much of our own food as possible and doing as much of our own work as possible too. Chicken and dumplings you've raised yourself is mighty tasty. And I like knowing what's in my food, how it lived, how it was processed cleanly and humanely. These things matter to me. I would feel like the biggest hypocrite if I couldn't eat my own farm-raised chicken, but ate store-bought chicken instead. Those chickens don't have it so good! So all that helps me wrap my head around it. It's just the cycle of life. I know they had wonderful lives while they lived with me, much better than they would have had at a factory.

I briefly thought of listing them on Craigslist. Passing the buck, not getting my hands dirty, letting someone else do it and I'd never have to see it or know about it. But I decided that would be the worst kind of heresy. It would be disrespectful almost, to let some stranger haul them off and butcher them. I had to see the thing through to the end. It was only the right thing to do. I felt I owed them that much.

The first one or two, I think I told them I'm sorry and thank you for your sacrifice! I turned my head as my husband did the hard part. But once they were on my work table for me to take over with the cutting up and stuff, they looked like meat, like chicken from the store. Except I sat there and marvelled at how healthy their innards were and how much meat they had on them and I had to admit to myself that I had done an awesome job raising them. Clean, healthy and homegrown meat. I can't give my family any thing better than that!

They're farm animals. They have a purpose. I can't afford to feed 30 non-layers for the next 10 years. That would be silly.

Now I will admit though, I have 2 EE hens we named and pet a lot and are very fond of. I think they will be around for a long time. But after that--I'm not naming anymore chickens!

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Just a quick note on that... Old tough birds are super flavorful! More so than young birds. I use a pressure cooker to cook the meat for soup. But even if you didn't eat any of the meat at all and only made broth out of it--I get 8 pints of the best darn chicken stock I ever tasted. A 32 oz. box of the off-brand chicken broth costs me about $2.89 at the store (Swanson's is much more). My old stewing hen or rooster made into stock would be worth at least $11.56 and beats the pants off the off-brand (used for price comparison). Very tasty and very economical!

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

journey11,I agree with you.Last year I bought 5 straight run Marans plus extra EE cockerels from a hatchery.I knew right away that the girls would be my "layers" and the guys would be for eating.I had them in my yard in chicken tractors.Each time I passed by them I would say to the cockerels "Eat my pretties,EEEEAT".I enjoyed it.BTW all the Marans were cockerels of course.
When it came time to kill them I waited until my husband was gone and I began(Did I say he had a weak stomach?).Well after about the second one here he came.I was so unstressed and calm he thought he wanted help too.About the time we were plucking the feathers he started to get sick because of course wet feathers don't smell like a rose.By the time he had started to gut the chicken he really got sick.That wuss ran a few feet away and started heaving.I got so tickled I had a hard time finishing the rest of them for laughing.
Also when I bred rabbits at a different time it was the same.I knew which were going to be food and which weren't.It helps to desensitize yourself as to the task.I will say that since I am now breeding Lionhead rabbits I really don't see them as meat.I've paid too much for some of them to put in the freezer.

One other thing that has been a lot of help is my best friend.That girl is one more Butcherette.When she talks about it it is the same as if she is just making bread.

Hey journey11,how do you get so much stock from one chicken?Sounds smart.Do you can it too?Thanks,Rebel