How to mentally prepare for butchering?

[HarmonyFox]

On second thought, don't get the original friend to help.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I was a little mortified by the story and I wasn't even there for it. I think he's learnt new ways now though and will probably never listen to that coworker ever again (he worked with some weird people so I'm not sure why he would have ever listened to them but I guess he was probably just not thinking straight since it was his first time killing anything.) But I'll probably get my other friend. He's went hunting and killed other animals and it wouldn't hurt for the both of us to learn how. His girlfriend might actually know more than us because her parents are farmers and I think that's all they do. I can have my boyfriend there too and it can be the most morbid time we've all ever spent together.....I mean at least I would be with people I love who won't be bothered by my ugly crying...but gosh that sounds like a weird thing to plan......I still don't know if I'll do it though.....but at least my muscovy male is getting more aggressive (thats not a normal thing to say...) so it's making me get used to the idea.....but it'll still be hard if I go through with is...but hay it would be a great Thanksgiving meal! I love eating duck....though muscovy apparently don't taste like duck...I'm sorry for sounding so wimpy and unsure but reading everyones comments is so helpful! You have no idea! And informative too! I'm so thankful

 

[Mosey2003]

Pick a day where you don't have anything else pressing. Learned the hard way that if you're having a bad day, it's NOT the day to come home and try to butcher something.

Look at it as a job that needs to be completed, nothing personal.

 

[aart]

I love eating duck.

That's a good thing to keep in mind!

 

[shedinator]

Few things I found really helpful:

- The first animals I ever processed were a friend's chickens. I didn't have relationships with them, so the psychological impact was lessened. Also, he'd done it before, and his confidence rubbed off. I don't know how close you are to processing day, but maybe ask around and find out if someone in your area is sending their poultry to freezer camp before you.

- One of the things that helps me a lot is to express gratitude directly to the animal I'm about to process. I think about how it's going to provide for me, and how I'm going to honor it by not letting anything go to waste and making food that's really tasty.

- I don't know if this is as easy to do with ducks, but by watching a couple YouTube videos of broiler chickens raised in confinement barns, then looking out the window at my meat birds finishing their lives by scratching up my garden (or tilling a section I'm about to plant, or whatever it is they're doing the week before processing), I get to remind myself that I'm having one bad day so they could have so many more good days than they would have otherwise.

- If worse had come to worst, I knew I had folks I could pay to do the processing for me.

 

[chickenlady25XD]

I raise meat turkeys that if they live too long they will get a heart attack or break their legs so I tell myself "They are not meant to live and it is a much more humane way and they won't feel a thing"

 

[Morrigan]

I too, struggled greatly with my emotions at processing time, so much so much I considered going vegan. I did a lot of soul searching about the ethics of eating meat and spent some time reading about how animals are raised and slaughtered in commercial operations. Although I decided I wanted to continue to eat meat, I still find it very hard to kill something I've raised. It's a difficult and solemn affair. But, on the balance, I'm very grateful I can eat meat that's been humanely raised and swiftly dispatched and not have to support the commercial meat industry.

Below is a quote from a post I read that appeared in this forum some time back. It really helped me with my resolve and thinking through more logically about the choice I was making.

This is not supposed to be easy; taking a life is a solemn thing. For me I do not want to ever get so calloused that I do not feel sad about taking a life. I want my meat chickens to have a lot of good days and one bad day.

My brother, who is a scientist, has a theory of conservation of difficulty. The theory goes that in any situation there is a certain amount of difficulty. You can move the difficulty around, but you cannot eliminate it. For example, anyone who had a computer in the 80's knows how hard it was to use a computer. You had to learn a lot about programming in order to use simple programs. Now computers are pretty simple to use because the designers and programmers have taken the difficulty away from the user and hidden it behind the scenes. So today you can fire up your computer and go directly to your desktop instead of start from the C prompt. To bring this back to chickens, if you are going to eat meat, then there is a certain amount of difficulty in the situation. Factory farms have allowed people to ignore that difficulty by raising chickens in conditions that are horrible and that do not respect the nature of the chicken -- the difficulty has been shifted from the people eating them to the chickens. I see the sadness and discomfort I suffer from killing chickens that I have carefully raised as my taking some of the difficulty on myself.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

 

[aart]

Below is a quote from a post I read that appeared in this forum some time back. It really helped me with my resolve and thinking through more logically about the choice I was making.

Excellent post, thanks for sharing it!
Love the computer analogy,
but wonders how many people knew what a 'C prompt' is 5 years go, let alone today?
those who do might also know about the bit bag.

 

[Mosey2003]

I remember the C prompt! And using 3.5" disks to play Oregon Trail

 

[Morrigan]

Yeah, I'm an oldster who can recall the C prompt. I can still remember rotary phones too.

 

[RoosterML]

This is my first year having "livestock/smallstock". I do not have any experience with keeping chickens or anything else aside from spending some of my adolescent summer months in Canada on a farm. What has really helped me with the harvesting of an animal that I started caring for at 1day old and then a couple months later taking its life is the very simple fact that I know my animals are very well cared for. I think of it as every animal that lives with and dies by me is one less animal that lives in the crappy conditions of the commercial market.
It is not for everyone to harvest there own food but at the end of the day if you eat meat something is dieing so that you can live plan and simple. The least I can do is try to do my little part in providing that animal with what I feel is a nice well lived life.
My preferred method so far in dispatching a chicken is two nails placed roughly 1" apart on a log or stump, place the chickens head in between the nails, slightly extend the birds neck and in one swift very firm swing chop off the head with a very sharp axe.
I have a "killing cone" screwed onto the log right next to me so that as soon as the chop is done I drop the bird down into the cone to keep it snug while it does it's motions. I also have a bucket under the killing cone to catch the blood. This works very well for me.