Why have chickens?

[BPChickenFarmer]

I have had pets that I loved and pasted away. The three girls we have are pets with benefits (eggs). They get treated just as well as the other pets. I told them when they arrived that the life they will live is not what most chicken live and they hit the lotto.
I'm a meat eater and don't feel guilty for doing so or eating eggs either. We had chicken for Thanksgiving because it was just the wife and I because of Covid. No, I won't eat them when they pass away because they are our pets. When I was dairying we ate the cow even though some I was close to and petted but didn't view them as pets. I think that's the difference for me. Each to their own without any judgement. Love my girls and they helped me through my brain injury.

David

 

[EmmaRainboe]

I have had pets that I loved and pasted away. The three girls we have are pets with benefits (eggs). They get treated just as well as the other pets. I told them when they arrived that the life they will live is not what most chicken live and they hit the lotto.
I'm a meat eater and don't feel guilty for doing so or eating eggs either. We had chicken for Thanksgiving because it was just the wife and I because of Covid. No, I won't eat them when they pass away because they are our pets. When I was dairying we ate the cow even though some I was close to and petted but didn't view them as pets. I think that's the difference for me. Each to their own without any judgement. Love my girls and they helped me through my brain injury.

David

I'm the same way! My ladies are pets with benefits, I won't eat them once they die, and I won't cull them unless they are suffering. I don't judge people who do raise chickens for meat, infact I highly respect them. Without them I wouldn't have a lot of the food on my plate, and I respect their ability to honor the animals life and be thankful, as well as feed their family, and a lot of others.

 

[ariri30]

Get it all over at the same time. If your going to feel bad you might as well deal with it all in one day at once, not several different days. You will be fine.

You are right. Thanks
I did two last night and now I will do the other three at the same time probably tonight
Not easy but once the culling is done time to move on. Thanks everyone

 

[BDutch]

I've found a lot of encouraging things on this thread. My chickens are pets and I have them for eggs but I did end up with some extra roos. I bought pullets from a lady and even though I insisted they were boys she kept promising they were girls and wouldn't take them back. My gut was right and they were boys. I don't want to cull them but it is a fact of life. I would rather they be rehomed and be able to live a rooster life, but the world is hard for roosters. I don't want to send them to be food for someone else, because I've put all this time and energy into raising them, if they are going to be food they might as well feed me.

I do feel disgust about the lady who sold you cockerels while saying they where pullets. If you saw this, she must have known for sure. Please go back to her with the cockerels and say you want you’re money back or 2 pullets in exchange, She should compensate the harm she has done.

If she’s not willing to cooperate what else can you do to prevent her doing this again with new ‘victims’ in the future?

 

[PhilSanchez]

Thanks!
I’m not reading this anymore. I read enough encouraging people and I don’t need the negative things other people are saying. It should be my responsibility to do the job if I allowed the hens to hatch chicks

Reading these threads is educational, you get many different ideas. You don’t have to agree with anyone.

 

[Vicker]

I hear you. I don't think it's immoral or inhumane to eat meat. God tells us we can eat it or not eat it. But I do feel somber and appreciative of the animal's life when harvesting it. I still want my husband to help me, because he is more skilled.

 

[guntha45]

I do feel disgust about the lady who sold you cockerels while saying they where pullets. If you saw this, she must have known for sure. Please go back to her with the cockerels and say you want you’re money back or 2 pullets in exchange, She should compensate the harm she has done.

If she’s not willing to cooperate what else can you do to prevent her doing this again with new ‘victims’ in the future?

Sadly, there will always be dishonest people out there. Sure, try to reach an agreement with her, but don't count on it. Social media is good option to point out dishonesty but that can backfire on you and make you look like the "bad guy", that's why this site is the closest thing to social media that I participate in. Sadly, this might just be a bitter lesson about trusting others

 

[featherhead007]

Sadly, there will always be dishonest people out there. Sure, try to reach an agreement with her, but don't count on it. Social media is good option to point out dishonesty but that can backfire on you and make you look like the "bad guy", that's why this site is the closest thing to social media that I participate in. Sadly, this might just be a bitter lesson about trusting others

Trusting people, requires faith and hope. These traits are just extremely hard to find in today’s self serving society!

 

[JadeFarms]

I’m gonna butcher my first chicken in a few months. He’s lived a very happy life. I don’t need him and he doesn’t have the attributes I want out of him. But he has no name, I didn’t tame him and I’ve tried to keep the idea in my head that he’s gonna be butchered. I’ve found this thread very interesting with the experiences and different beliefs.

 

[Judy Todd]

I was 15 years old in 1976 when my great grandmother passed away at 91 years old having lived without a toilet(2 hole outhouse), no shower or bathtub her whole life, never had a furnace(heated only with wood, 13 cord/year), only had running water at the kitchen sink, hot water was heated by the wood cook stove. My neighbors at the end of the road never had electricity, did have a toilet because they had gravity feed water, and they too heated only with wood. Everyone was comfortable and had happy but labor filled lives. I too raised my children in a log home I built with trees from my own land and heated only with wood. There is no more comforting feeling than when you have your wood in for the year!
People lived for thousands of years without having the comforts and ease of life we have now, but the vast majority did not live without meat, in many arctic cultures that's almost all they had.
Death is ultimately the end of life. Don't people put down their beloved pets when their live becomes nothing but suffering? Do you have any idea of the cruelty of death in nature. In nature animals almost always die a slow painful death, starvation from disease or injury, or from predators. The coyotes we have here in Maine hunt in packs, like wolves. They will take down a deer and start eating it while it's still alive! A one shot kill on a deer is FAR more humane a death!
Let us be kind and take good care of the animals we have, give them a humane death, and let society not embrace the fantasy feed to us since childhood from Disney...

Great post, I do not eat as much meat anymore because of factory farms. No hubby to hunt with anymore , so at 81 I just eat less meat in general. My choice, but do grow a great deal of my food. Wish I could find a group to butcher chickens together. I would be willing to do that with others to help. Thanks for the common sense post.