Who has pet chickens but still eats chicken?

[Emmaloveschickens9156]

Debate!!

 

[BantyChooks]

Not much to debate, unless you are talking about the ethics of it, which would get rather tense, I imagine. I, and many others, keep chickens for more than one purpose. I have food sensitivities that mean I can’t eat quite a few common vegetables, and eating mainly a meat based diet has drastically improved my quality of life over the last few months. Though not possible at the present moment, my goal is to produce 100% of my own meat from my flocks and herds.

I see no reason why I cannot care for them as pets before they are sent to freezer camp - all animals deserve to be cared for and respected to the best of my ability, no matter their end. Pet and food are ultimately somewhat arbitrary. That said, some of my birds I won’t eat and are buried when they die of old age, mainly my best roosters that contribute greatly to stability of the flock as a whole. I recognize that there is no real difference between these birds and the others that I eat on a daily basis. That’s okay.

 

[Shadrach]

I only eat my pets when it comes to chickens, or someone elses pets if I know how they've been kept. Tell your dog to keep moving if you have one should you walk past.
This pets v livestock is an awful mess.

 

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

I would totally go on a chicken free diet, but my family refuses to let me.

 

[Nemesis Prime]

I used to not eat chicken because I read a Peta book. Now I own them and really don't care. I infinitely prefer to eat my own since I know they were happy at least.

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

I eat chicken and have chickens, yes they are pets and for eggs and I don't eat my own but I having nothing against it. I'd eat one but i get attached to mine so processing them would be difficult for me.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

I don’t eat my own, but I eat store bought birds. That’s because I have mostly egg laying chickens, and I think their pretty.

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

I eat chicken and have chickens, yes they are pets and for eggs and I don't eat my own but I having nothing against it. I'd eat one but i get attached to mine so processing them would be difficult for me.

Now if someone else processed them and presented it to me like a store bought meat, I'd probably eat it

 

[MysteryChicken]

I keep chickens as both food, & pets.
The birds I keep as pets don't get eaten, if at all rarely.

The birds I keep for food, of course get eaten, as well as their eggs. Home grown chicken tastes the best.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Our layers are not ... well, lap-chickens. So are they "pets"? Yeah, sorta. Many of them do have names and they certainly have personalities. I'm fond of them and we take good care of them. But do some of them end up on the table? Yes, of course. It would be wasteful to do otherwise. What else would we do with them when their laying days are over? Bury them in the backyard? Toss them out in the forest for the wildlife? We may do that with a sick chicken, not fit for human consumption. But a healthy old layer is good for soup at least. Why discard her and then, what, buy a chicken from the grocery store to eat? Absurd! We do not keep them so long they become useless. There are times we also raise CornishX for the freezer, those have other uses. We don't always want soup, lol!