Just Butchered My Cornish X. Now I Feel Terrible.

[trudyg]

I think everyone is different. S in L raises steers. His son is soft-hearted and, although he knows they are for meat, will have a hard time at the slaughterhouse. So, he stays home. His daughter, on the other hand, is so matter of fact it's scary. She's like, yeah, it's a life but that life was to feed us so off you go. She plans a medical career and will be great at it--says 'this is gonna hurt, hang on' and then rips off the bandage. It takes all kinds.

 

[ChickensRsmart]

I have said this before. Do not butcher pets and do not make pets out of meat. I have killed one or two of my beloved pets. These were hopeless cases and I did it to end their suffering.

Yes - to end a pet's suffering. I would find it very difficult to do regardless. I had a meat chicken pet - unintentionally because somebody just left her in my front yard. I didn't know at the time that she was a meat chicken.
And I can tell you that even a meat chicken has a personality. lol She was smarter than my bantams...she conveyed clear and understandable emotions with every sound in her vocabulary. I could pick out her voice in a crowd of chickens. And she cried out when she died...she had a heart attack (I did not see it coming). Sure, she was just food - as long as you didn't know her... But I find myself missing her as I do when I lose a dog.

 

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

I remember how I felt after my first. Not exactly terrible but an unpleasantly tight feeling in my stomach. A lot of "meaning of life" philosophical thoughts to go with it, like who was I to take the life of a beautiful creature that never harmed me.

It took a while to sort things out. Now I look at it like, I love the flock but individuals come and go. I realize it's totally in my power to give them their best possible lives, and a relatively quick and painless death - so that's where I focus my time, money, and energy.

Though they're equally important, I still find it easier to get out of bed on Hatch Day than on Dispatch Day.

 

[RoosterML]

1st few are tough. They do get easier. Now I go around killing a chicken just cause I can. Don’t worry doctor says I’m normal.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Idk about meat birds or anything, but im in FFA. FFA stands for Future Farmers of America In FFA we raise: Pigs, goats, sheep, cows, rabbits and chickens. At the end of the year all animals go to the fair. There are different ways for showing for each animal. You have to train your animal to pose. After fair all the animals besides rabbits and chickens go to market which means slaughter for markets in the US like frys or walgreens meat section or anything. Pigs, cows, sheep, lambs always have to go for slaughter. You can choose to sell your chicken or rabbit, if you dont you get to keep it. Sometimes a buyer will buy an animal then give it back to the animal raiser just to give them the money to help the kid out. FFA is for high school students, im a sophmore. So what does this have to do with your problem? Don't get attached. I always tell freshmen that want in "Raise all you want, but if its not a rabbit or chicken don't you ever get emotionally attached, because that animal was designed to be shot and killed for its meat for you to eat." (I raise silkies because im smart, I know I get to see my birbies happy and healthy while kids watch their animals die and processed into meat, I'm smart because I know I get to keep mine all 4 years)

1:do NOT name slaughter chickens
2:do NOT try to love slaughter chickens
3:do NOT play with slaughter chickens
4:try your best to not care or think about your slaughter chickens, remember that ornamental and layer hens and breeding roosters are more pet-like, and slaughter chickens are for MEAT ONLY

Once the newcomers learn that they don't even shed a tear herding their animal they worked on and trained with all year as they heard it onto the slaughter truck

Might sound morbid, but this is what we do. I hope I helped you not be as attached to the slaughter birds from now on! Also from the picture I see its named NazNaz and you put a date on when it was killed. Its a meat hen, not a pet hen. If you care and love to meat hens/animals, when you kill it, its more like throwing a funeral when you just killed your dog then eating the dead dog. Never name the meat hen, ever!

I care, & love my meat chickens. I don't get all emotional about butchering them, since I know they had a good healthy diet, in which I know what I'm feeding them, & knowing they had a happy life before meeting the freezer.
I also name them, & play with them too.

This is Meaty.

I love my Home Raised Chicken.

The only time I get emotional with chickens, if I lose a favorite bird, or a bird I was planning on breeding for a specific project.

 

[MTR]

i made a thread earlier about what to do after butchering my cornish x. see link below

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/about-to-butcher-cornish-x-need-help.1475243/

this was my very first time butchering a chicken, i have cleaned and processed fish and clams before and never felt bad, but this time i feel so terrible.

i am pro gun, pro hunting, but damn, this hits me hard. i am a fully grown man and aint some social justice warrior or special snowflake.

anyone else on here felt the same after killing their chicken??

here is a pic. it weighs a little over 8 lbs in the bag. he is 12 weeks old.

it must have weighed about 10 lbs before removing the skin, organ, feathers and other body parts.




View attachment 2717139

I also think the other part that’s different is with hunting your not touching the animal and taking its life with your hands. Your at least 15 yards away so your not observing the death process up close and personal.

 

[CNJ]

I raised 15 Cornish cross and processed 8 males at 8 weeks and kept 7 females for latter. They were so fat they could hardly walk, so I decided to feed them just once a day in the morning. I put their morning meal about 20 feet away before I let them out of their cage. They started out slowly walking to the food, now they run and flap their wings to get to the food. They are so docile and easy to catch, but they don't like it when I pick them up. I hate to say it, but I got attached.........I keep telling myself, I will keep 3 for my breeding project and process the rest, but when Sunday comes around, I push the kill date out to the next Sunday.....My state pickup the rubbish on Mondays, so Sunday is the best processing day.

 

[cassie]

I've had to put a few severely injured animals out of their misery before (wild animals) - including a dove that was disemboweled in mid air right in front of me - Hawk attack. It was not enjoyable or easy to do, but the alternative was pointless pain and suffering - before death.

However, I could not do this to one of my pets (even a pet chicken). I just could not do it...

I have said this before. Do not butcher pets and do not make pets out of meat. I have killed one or two of my beloved pets. These were hopeless cases and I did it to end their suffering.

 

[Tclloyd0812]

Agreed with many of the others on this older thread. If you didn't have feelings, you'd probably be considered a psychopath. It's hard to take the life out of any animal and not feel guilty that their life was taken for your food, but we thank God for providing the food and we always say words before we butcher any animal. You're not a snowflake, we live the same type of life and believe in things you mentioned in your post, but taking a life can be emotional, to any extent.

 

[Happy hen lover]

I agree you wouldn't be good at animal husbandry if you don't feel something. At least the hen had a better life with you than commercially raised. Besides animalsv were put here by God for us to have dominion over and eat