Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[Hens Haven 1]

Killing your own chickens can be very difficult emotionally, but it's better than giving them to someone who may or may not be eating them themselves. Too many times when folks think they are "lucky" to have a neighbor or friend to take their unwanted roos, the birds are being sold as bait birds to cock fighters. It happens a lot more often than you think, so please beware.

If you can gain sustenance from healthy birds you've grown and raised yourself, you're far ahead of the game. By buying the six week old babies from the grocery, you are by default, supporting the agribusiness of factory farming. And yes, I said six weeks old. These guys won't live very long anyway, as their bodies have been bred to put on weight at such an unrealistic rate that their heart, skeletal, and digestive systems can't handle it.

Oh, and has anyone else learned of the attempts now of the poultry industries to create a "non-thinking" chicken? They believe this is the answer to the cruelty that the birds suffer now.

Please, realize that you are doing yourself and your birds an honor if you can raise them in a humane environment, kill them quickly, and use as much of their body as you can. Their carcasses won't look like what you see at the store, but the taste will be so much better. It will have actual flavor, and you'll understand that the phrase, "tastes just like chicken," got its popularity. Because the crap at the store is too young to have any flavor because the babies aren't even old enough to develop properly.

All this is just my opinion of course, and I can't eat my own birds. The consequences? I've not had my favorite meal, fried chicken, for going on four years.

Yours in the Fancy,
Sandy

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Sally, I know you stressed about this. Congratulations! I'm sure it want as bad as you convinced yourself it would be, and now you know how worthwhile it is, in taste and quality.
I'm proud of you, girl. You stepped up to the challenge and your fears and did it. You are awesome!

Ray I couldn't have done it without all the knowledge y'all were throwin at me!! Some great stuff I found out, and in turn it sure made it easier! Thank u!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Great comments folks. For me it starts when I buy the chicks/eggs. I look at my meat bird chicks and imagine what a dressed bird looks like and how wonderfully tasty they're going to be. I do this with my layers too when they get close to aging out. (Although I do name the layers.) When I look at the layers I try to see the money from the egg sales, not the birds themselves.

Another thing to do is desensitize yourself to words like "processing", "slaughter", and "butcher". Learn how it's done and if you can manage it, slaughter one yourself. Then when you send them for processing you can think, "Wow, I just saved myself from a really messy job by sending them out!"

I grew up on a farm so I don't have much trouble with this although I do get somewhat attached to the layers. I think about how good their lives were because of me (as opposed to life in a commercial chicken factory with no air or bugs or growing green things to eat), and I think about the circle of life. That makes sending them off to chicken heaven a little bit easier.

Good luck!

I hear you on the layers, those girls talk to ya! I laugh at mine all the time. I have one hen that I swear wont shut up unless I open the door and acknowledge that SHE LAID AN EGG! If I say "ok Pepper good job" she will go about her business. But when I take her eggs and she sees me she is one skwawky bird! Always underfoot!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

I still get emotional when it is butcher time. I bring mine to a butcher... But I have learned how to do the deed with my dad.... Worst lesson ever! Even harder when hubby was doing it as he had never done it before and I was imagining they were suffering with his inexperience.


My poor butcher has to deal with me every time. I end up talking to my birds and praising them for their live with me and thanking them for being food. They then rest in my freezer until I can forget who they were (this is easier with more than 10 or so birds). And after three or four years I still cry.

awwwwww!

 

[chirpingcricket]

Okay, I am going to make a confession here. I am going to trust you people with my deepest, darkest secret. <taking a deep breath> So here it is, I keep feeling up my meat birds to see if they have a lot of meat on them. I am so ashamed! The poor things are walking along, thinking of nothing but their next meal, and suddenly they are whisked into the air and have hands groping their breasts and legs. It is true, I am a chicken molester!

Looks like there will be an outbreak of molesters from this point on! hahaha

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Okay, I am going to make a confession here. I am going to trust you people with my deepest, darkest secret. <taking a deep breath> So here it is, I keep feeling up my meat birds to see if they have a lot of meat on them. I am so ashamed! The poor things are walking along, thinking of nothing but their next meal, and suddenly they are whisked into the air and have hands groping their breasts and legs. It is true, I am a chicken molester!

LOL I felt guilty doing the same thing!! I said to myself, have you no respect woman!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: Oh why can I so easily envision this!!! Muwahhhaaaaaaaahaa

 

[chirpingcricket]

Hey Sally, just a quick note. Congrats to you and your family!
I've been catching up on the reading, cause for the delay.

I feel like there has been a collective S~I~G~H across this site following you along with this stage of raising chickens. So many folks escorted you (and us) on this journey much like you do (with us) when hatching chickies. Again, kinda completing the circle.

And with experience, it hopefully will not seem such a fearful and daunting task.
Then, the celebration of having a fabulous source of food, that really tastes so good and good for you. . .how can you beat that? It's just like when we started eating eggs from our chickens, we can't go back to the bland tasteless orbs sold at the box stores.

And so, this will continue to be a resource tool for everyone involved now and those yet to come.
I can just imagine the "good" stories your children will be telling at school. Children are like little pioneers, more families will catch on and get on the band wagon at some level.
P.S. Your chicken looked deeeellliiisssh!!!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Hey Sally, just a quick note. Congrats to you and your family!
I've been catching up on the reading, cause for the delay.

I feel like there has been a collective S~I~G~H across this site following you along with this stage of raising chickens. So many folks escorted you (and us) on this journey much like you do (with us) when hatching chickies. Again, kinda completing the circle.

And with experience, it hopefully will not seem such a fearful and daunting task.
Then, the celebration of having a fabulous source of food, that really tastes so good and good for you. . .how can you beat that? It's just like when we started eating eggs from our chickens, we can't go back to the bland tasteless orbs sold at the box stores.

And so, this will continue to be a resource tool for everyone involved now and those yet to come.
I can just imagine the "good" stories your children will be telling at school. Children are like little pioneers, more families will catch on and get on the band wagon at some level.
P.S. Your chicken looked deeeellliiisssh!!!

Thank u, and That is a very cool statement!! circle complete is right! I love you guys!!

 

[Wax Myrtle]

Sally, your thread has made the newsletter.

Hi, my name is Ali, and I'm a broiler molester, too. Hansel & Gretel Gropers Unite!