reflection of first time chx kill

[3KillerBs]

I may get a layer chick or two

If you do, get at least 2 to raise together and introduce to the flock together. A single bird would be lonely growing up.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

Thanks for sharing your experience! I will be raising meat birds for the first time later this year, and I anticipate having similar emotions to yours when it comes time for the kill. Although unlike you, I do not hunt and this will be my first actual kill. This will also be my first time raising baby chicks, so it will be hard not to get attached. I may get a layer chick or two when I get the meat birds just so I have someone to get attached to and channel my motherly instinct toward lol.

You’re welcome. I felt silly airing my ‘emotions’ publicly but now, seeing the BYC support, I realize I’m not alone.
I wish you all the luck with your meat birds. Maybe consider a couple of hens; they do better in a flock.

 

[Sussex19]

Thanks for sharing your experience! I will be raising meat birds for the first time later this year, and I anticipate having similar emotions to yours when it comes time for the kill. Although unlike you, I do not hunt and this will be my first actual kill. This will also be my first time raising baby chicks, so it will be hard not to get attached. I may get a layer chick or two when I get the meat birds just so I have someone to get attached to and channel my motherly instinct toward lol.

I was it the same position last year, and it was hard.
But I didn't want someone else to do the deed, because I only really trusted myself to do the necessary research to find out how to do it.
And I'm not sure it gets easier, more confident yes; but easier not yet.
But afterwards I actually find it quite interesting, cleaning out the bird always makes me marvel at how well built they are.

 

[3KillerBs]

That's how I hunt, too, except I'll let the big boys walk past in the hopes that a fat two year old will be tagging along behind. Or a fat doe, if it's the season.

As I've told my husband, you don't eat the antlers.

DH has never gotten a deer (possibly this fall we'll get some revenge for our devastated orchard), but I've often been given deer. Those trophy bucks are like venison-flavored chewing gum. Really suited for nothing but jerky or sausage.

 

[Coops Dad]

The same applies to wild pigs; the sows drop several litters a year and, left unchecked, can strip an ecosystem of everything but poison ivy and kudzu. They eat fawns, turkey, duck and quail eggs, every ag crop imaginable, and they tear up the land more effectively than a city boy with a front end loader.

 

[bobbi-j]

I’ve been raising and processing chickens long enough that I label them like this:

(In case you can’t read them they say, Fricassee, Stew, Earl and Dumplin’)

 

[Morrigan]

It's hard to kill something you know and have cared for. But, that's how it should be . . . a difficult but necessary thing to do.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

It's hard to kill something you know and have cared for. But, that's how it should be . . . a difficult but necessary thing to do

Yes, indeed

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

killing a chicken isn't the same thing as picking a tomato.

Ok, that made me laugh-spit my rice bowl..coworkers not happy.

 

[bobbi-j]

The first one every year seems to be difficult still.

Yep. I stall and stall and stall, but once we get going, I am OK with it.