Hubby needs Help!

[Chrischik]

So, this is my first forum posting, officially, as a BYC member. We have six chicks, now 9 weeks old, and unfortunately, FOUR of them turned out to be roiosters, whom we cannot keep, and whom I kinda wanted to process for eating. NOw, we are an animal-loving family, we have lots of pets, and both my husband and I have biology degrees in animal science. I spent 12 years working as a veterinary nurse, so compassion and humane means are tops on my priority list.
So, to repare him, I had my husband wtach Joel Salatin's processing footage on YouTube (arguably the nation's top expert in this stuff), and he freaked out, running out of the room, and declaring himself to possibly become vegetarian?!? And THEN, in spite of our current workings towards becoming farm owners, he told me that I will be doing any and all slaughter, and he's out.
What is a future farmer to do??? This is a dream of mine, but apparently he doesn't have the 'backbone' to handle such a simple, and integral, part of chicken keeping.
He's been very anxious and agitated recently; I fear he's in a mid-life crisis, and hates his job of 15 years, and now just blows up at everyone instead of rationally having constructive arguments, walks out of rooms, etc. And, has he been stringing my dreams along, just saying he's into it? He's made no effort to learn, and when I present him with how things will be, he freaks.
We are by no means wealthy folk; we both work full tme and have a kindergarten-age daughter. I am a chef, and my goal in 5 years is to be a chef/farmer/owner of a small place, with a bed and breakfast and on-site restaurant. He had been on board 100%, until just last night after the chicken videos. Now, I'm at a loss. It's silly to me to be posting this to random strangers, but as we all came here out of the love for keeping traditional farm fowl in this ultra-tech world, I'm hoping others can sympathize with my plight of dealing with a not-so-on board spouse. Has anyone else had to deal w/ this??? PLease help, any kind words would be appreciated...don't want to lose a marriage and family over eating chicken.

 

[redneckdan]

He may be stressed out with alot of changes going on at the moment. Something is probably bugging him. You may know this already but guys don't usually handle face to face, 100% focused conversations very well, especially if tense subjects are involved. From my experience my wife and other women folk like to talk standing face to face, or sitting across a table face to face. We guy folk interprete that posture as a confrontation, even though it may not be. That is the posture we maintain when we are doing business or getting ready for a bar fight. For us a confrontation has two options...attack or retreat. It is easier for us to talk over a subject if we are doing something at the same time, ie tinkering with cars, fishing, drinking a beer around a campfire, something relaxing but not requiring intense focus. Observe how your husband interacts with other dudes in a relaxed atmopshere of a cook out, usually guys will stand quartering away from each other or in a loose group, usually with a beer, grill fork, or something else in their hands.

Also, gore does affect people differently. I have an EMS backround, have dealt with dead people and the associated messed up emotions that happen. Some people can't handle it. I personally get minor depression when I dress an animal and it takes a day or too to get out of it. It is possible that you may be the one that has to do the inital killing and dressing. He will probably be able to help out somewhere else in the process ie feeding and care or freezer packing.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

You know your husband and your situation better than us. It may be that he is dealing with a larger issue that needs to be addressed, or it may just be that he merely does not want to slaughter chickens, but is fine with everything else. It does not mean he is lacking in backbone if this is the case, or that he needs to be repaired. You may have just been jokingly saying that, but do be aware of whether or not you are being overly dismissive of his feelings and boundaries over this or in general as that can be a larger issue. The fact that discussions are turning into arguments and that you are feeling so frustrated is reason enough to really sit down and figure out what exactly is going on, and what to do about it.

I can give you my personal account of how the farming thing is evolving for my husband and myself. I decided that farming was a passion of mine that I wanted to pursue. We have both worked hard to make sure the other's goals are met, so my husband was very supportive. It does not mean he wants anything to do with my goals himself, just that he will do what he can to make them happen, just like I probably will be unable and not passionate about helping him repair speakers and computers, but am passionate about helping him follow his interest in doing so. So one thing to ask yourself along the way is, "am I taking his disinterest in actually taking part in the farm activities personally?" And if so, why? Do you taken his unwillingness to kill chickens to mean that he will stop viewing you as a compassionate person? If so why? If he will, that switches over to him needing to explore those issues. I mention that in particular, because you went out of your way to describe your animal background and compassion for animals, and it came across as possibly being a bit defensive about that.

So, while my husband has been doing a lot financially and helping me find land, etc, I am planning for a small farming set up that I can run completely by myself. I was talking about five acres to start with, then briefly about ten, but that idea really stressed my husband out as a starting point. We sat down and calculated out my goals and business plans for the first five years, and found that two acres will be enough to do the things that are the most important to me. Starting small means I can start off with lower costs and risks, and if things take off, I can slowly expand. It means both of us are less likely to get overwhelmed too!! We started looking at land/houses, and that has been a really stressful and up and down process. It has made us explore all our options, such as realizing that a house with land might not be possible right now, but that we can rent a home and farm an empty lot.

When we do secure a property to farm, I will be putting up the fences, animal buildings, choosing genetic lines, etc, just like he will be the one planning his electronic repair work space, setting up our home systems, furthering his education on the subject, etc. Now, we do end up getting really involved with each other's projects from quizzing him on certification questions to helping me choose power tools, but the important thing seems to be being able to do it all yourself if need be!! My husband has fallen head in heels in love with goats since I started pursuing farming, and is very excited about gardening and even wants to take the lead on honey bees. He is becoming increasingly involved in those areas, and it has been a blast planning those things together. But, he wants nothing to do with killing our animals, and easily could become a vegetarian when we as neither of us eats a lot of meat to begin with. In fact, we decided that he can have up to four pet chickens for us to collect eggs from and love on, and we decided that he will have nothing to do with the meat chickens I will be keeping so as to not get attached to them. I suspect this arrangement will work out very well for us.

Before we moved to a state where we can better farm our own food, I built an aquaponic system. It was my passion, and I did everything myself from sourcing an old tub to use to hooking up the electricity and pump. He was interested too, but had an overnight job at the time, so his involvement was limited to holding the tub up for me once while I applied silicone. I also built a quail egg incubator myself, and learned all about splicing wires so we had some neat overlap in our interests there and had a fun wire splicing night where he did speakers and I worked on my incubator. His support in allowing you to follow your goals is far more important than the actual hands on help. With the Internet, books, small businesses like portable chicken processors, machines, and friends, you will be amazed what you can get done. You will probably find that you both end up with a lot of overlap that just naturally develops, even if it doesn't happen with the meat chickens.

Sounds like you are on the road to chickens and greater food independence. Way to go!

 

[HeatherLynn]

He probably let himself get attached to the little boggers or he just really cannot handle this. No need to panic. Find a place that does the processing for you.

Personally I cannot do slaughter. I end up on the ground with my husband standing over me asking if I am ok. Doesn't stop me. He does a shortcut processing or I hire it out to an amish slaughter house. Works for me.

I will say we right off the bat did not name our chicks. Referred to all suspected roosters as chicken nuggets. We did everything we could to keep in our mind that they were food. My husband also does the short cut processing which just entails skinning the bird just like you would do a game bird. He guts it, off with the head, off with the skin and in the ice water to be taken to the kitchen sink it goes. We also bbq all our roos because its no longer in "thats one of our chickens" form. Much easier on everyones mental state.

 

[Peaches Lee]

I'm thinking along the same lines as HeatherLynn, he has now seen his pets turn into food. It doesn't sound like he wants out of the whole farming thing, he just doesn't want to be involved in the slaughter--I don't blame him there.

 

[caitanni]

I had purchased some white rocks for the soul purpose of putting them in the freezer a while back. I have learned that I can.....what do they call it? Dress out a chicken? and very well also My husband who used to hunt a lot was even impressed. But I can not do the actual killing the animal nor can I eat it. Needless to say I rehomed the white rocks. I would guess that your husband can't be a part of eating his pets. People talk about doing it, and it actually sounds like an excellent idea considering everything that goes into chickens at chickens houses. Needless to mention how inhumanely they are treated. I would consider having them processed else where. Good Luck!!!!

 

[DennisK]

We are by no means wealthy folk; we both work full tme and have a kindergarten-age daughter. I am a chef, and my goal in 5 years is to be a chef/farmer/owner of a small place, with a bed and breakfast and on-site restaurant. He had been on board 100%, until just last night after the chicken videos. Now, I'm at a loss. It's silly to me to be posting this to random strangers, but as we all came here out of the love for keeping traditional farm fowl in this ultra-tech world, I'm hoping others can sympathize with my plight of dealing with a not-so-on board spouse. Has anyone else had to deal w/ this??? PLease help, any kind words would be appreciated...don't want to lose a marriage and family over eating chicken.

I don’t know for sure, but is seems there is some unnamed thing going on here. From my own experience, I find that when something angers me, I may express that anger on the back of something else totally unrelated, or remotely related. I often found myself in ridiculous situations because of that. There were times when I didn’t even know what the source of my anger was – just that I was irritated about something, and I was just looking for an excuse to express it. The both of you are going to have to go on a “fishing expedition”. That is when you will get into the “trying to rationalize the anger”, thing. Above all, be kind Chrischik – don’t castrate him. Sometimes adjustments to things in life can be hard to do.

I don’t like killing things either, but DW does such a clumsy job of it, I have to do it just to give the poor creature a quicker exit. She has turned that responsibility over to me, except when it comes to shooting ground squirrels. I’m beginning to think I married the reincarnation of Anny Oakley!

 

[cassie]

Don't insist that your husband butcher the chickens. He can't do it. But you can. I didn't think I could either, but I ended up being the chicken processor in our family. Not because I wanted to and not because the guys couldn't/wouldn't, but because both and I they found out I could do it. So can you. One day while they were out of town and would not be back for several days, one of the big Cornish X meat chickens suddenly couldn't walk. He needed to be processed ASAP. He wasn't going to make it until my husband and brother returned. So it was me or nobody. I went on the meat bird forum, found a link to how to process chickens, printed out the instructions, and then followed them step by step. The biggest decision for me was how to kill the chicken. The axe was out. I simply could not hold the chicken and wield an axe at the same time. I had to think up something I could actually do. While I was thinking about it, I heated up a big pot of water to scald the chicken in and added a few drops of dish detergent to it. By then I figured out something that I could do and that would work. I tied the chicken's feet together with baling twine, hung him up at a convenient height, and lopped off his head with a sharp pair of LARGE pruning shears. While he was bleeding out I referred to my printout to see what I should do next and did it. The first step was to scald the chicken, dunk him in a bucket of cold water to cool him off, and then remove the feathers. Then I went on to the next step. Before I knew it I had a naked, cleaned, dressed chicken resting in the fridge. The key is to not think about it. JUST DO IT. Don't think about it at all. It is simpler than you think it is and it gets easier with time. The other thing is, since most of the time it was just me, I did not attempt to process the whole batch of chickens in one day. I did two or three chickens per day until they were all done. At three chickens per day, I would have the whole batch of 25 chickens processed in just over a week. I no longer use the pruning shears/limb loppers. I now use a very sharp utility knife and cut the jugulars.

 

[zazouse]

My DH would not like to do them either and I do not ask him to, I consider it my job , I know he don't like to do it from 37 years ago,
I was raised that if it were not a pet then it was raised for food and even at a very young age I did all the processing with my mom cause my dad just had a weak stomach when it came to the site of blood.

Maybe you should take this one on and give him a break, just cause he is a man does not make him weak cause he can't bare to do the deed