Keeping family members away from the turkeys?

[Rosalind]

Thanks for all the replies!

I sorta suspect the reason he didn't want them in the first place was because he figured he'd get attached himself and then not want to eat them.

Aaaaagh I'm running late for work. Will write more later.

 

[chickenannie]

As long as he knows from the beginning they'll be meat birds, he can mentally get ready for that day even though its easy to be in denial early on. It's natural to respond to their cuddliness/ugliness -- I'd be more worried if you said he kept his distance.

Lovely imagery of him falling in love with the turkeys, though!

 

[Hoosiermomma]

Your husband is like me and my husband. We are basically vegetarians now because we have become so attached to our animals that they are our pets and will remain here until it's their 'natural' time to go.

 

[Poupoulles]

Quote:
Here here!!!!

 

[spook]

Its so hard to believe that most of us feel that killing an animal for food is "cruel" yet we go to the store to buy meat. Go figure!
Like I told one of my inlaws was that yes it seems mean, yet you compare how our birds are handled, slaughtered and plucked by machines in slaughter houses.We are doing good work by raising them with love, appreciation and dignity. (Dignity and killing - seems a bit strange in the same sentence, don't it.) But I feel that is what our motives are in raising our own food, dignity in living and respect upon death.
How much better can we offer to teach our children, friends and neighbors then these are feeling, thinking, amusing critters, and so are the ones in the store.
Made me want to raise my own this year. Now I'm talking real small time- 48 Cornish X and 7 turkeys, and don't it figure that its the death row turkeys that are the friendliest! We also have 8 Midget Whites, in hopes to reproduce next year for freezer camp.
Good luck and stick to your guns when it comes to family.

 

[Duck Keeper]

Quote:
I'm happy to eat extra roosters we end up with, because it means they weren't put in a trash can (alive) and stomped on to make more room, ground up (alive) to be "instantly" killed, forgotten about on the floor of a giant hatchery (alive) to die, and none of them were electrocuted to be killed or had their insides callously yanked out with a one-size-fits-all machine that often taints the meat with E. Coli.

They have a good life here, running around outside eating bugs, scratching in dirt, dust baths, and let's not forget they get SUN!! And no overcrowding or beak removal!

I wish life was the way it was before people found they could crowd animals into a dank barn or feedlot and get them to market faster.

 

[spook]

Quote:
I'm happy to eat extra roosters we end up with, because it means they weren't put in a trash can (alive) and stomped on to make more room, ground up (alive) to be "instantly" killed, forgotten about on the floor of a giant hatchery (alive) to die, and none of them were electrocuted to be killed or had their insides callously yanked out with a one-size-fits-all machine that often taints the meat with E. Coli.

They have a good life here, running around outside eating bugs, scratching in dirt, dust baths, and let's not forget they get SUN!! And no overcrowding or beak removal!

I wish life was the way it was before people found they could crowd animals into a dank barn or feedlot and get them to market faster.

Amen! That is why we raise our own poultry! If we had more then an acre, I'd raise my own beef and a pig. But until then, we eat 4-H beef.

 

[Rosalind]

Exactly!

The thing that I suspect DH was fearful about (not that he, being a Manly Man, would ever admit it) is that both of us tend to be giant suckers for critters. Stray cats and dogs gravitate to our house, when someone in our family announces, "If you don't want (pet), we're taking it to the pound" and so on, we somehow end up with pets. He loves them very dearly, though--a couple of "my" cats that he used to hate are now his Xbox buddies, "my" dog that was ostensibly going to be wholly my responsibility somehow loves to cuddle on his lap more than mine, "my" chickens somehow managed to hatch a weirdly-colored pullet that is now his darling beautiful hen "Galadriel," etc. etc. He becomes attached to our critters regardless of his better judgment, even when I tell him explicitly, "I'm not naming that one anything other than Dumpling, Ovenfried or Fricassee." So I'm guessing his initial objections were really (I'm guessing, he seems to think that admitting to your wife that you like a bird is worse than drinking a Cosmo in a biker bar) that if he never ever saw a turkey, he would not become attached to one, and would be able to continue eating turkey sandwiches with no hard feelings.

I like our animals too, I like to see them eating fresh grass and rosehips off the eglantines, scratching for bugs, calling to me when I hang out the laundry. I like knowing that although the factory farms might treat animals cruelly and let them live in filth, my animals at least live out their lives in dignity and health, for all the reasons you wonderful folks have mentioned. But, I also reaaaaallly love the turkey dinners that my cousins make from their own turkeys. And I love the cool genetics that go with raising poultry. So...

 

[toredano]

My husband sits with the little ones and gobbles at them. He calls em kitty kitty kitty cause "chick chick chick" is to highpitched for him to do. Its just od for him to sit with them nd talk to them everyday.

We dont plan to eat ours tho.. they getting spoiled .

I am glad he is like that tho.. he can be a butt sometimes due to his injury and the birds kinda calm him down alot. Turkey Therapy.. lol