Eating your own chickens, pigs, etc.

For me it is a matter of what I am raising. I raise chickens for meat. I dislike the birds from the start and am always happy to see them go into the freezer. Not true with my laying hens. I do enjoy them very much and it is difficult to take the older birds to become stewing chickens. I raised a few pigs and named them Hambone, Porkchop, and Bacon. I had no trouble taking them to the processor because, again, I disliked them greatly. Our steer was named T-Bone and we are thoroughly enjoying our T-Bones. I was pretty "hands-off" with him too. The only thing I really have trouble putting into the freezer are my goats. Most likely because I spend countless hours with them. I keep telling my hubby I can't eat someone I know.

Simply Amazing

What is "simply amazing" to you that people don't want to kill their livestock or someone doesn't like their meat chicken's personality!

Not everyone on this forum was raised on a farm killing livestock to eat, like you and me. What part of that don't you GET???

I don't have a problem killing anything I raised for meat, shot to the head or chop it off with a hatchet, but I was raised up all my life doing that and I also completely understand how one can become attached to our livestock.

Anna

The chickens in the store have huge breasts because they're a meat breed that's been selected to grow fastest, big breasts, on least amount of feed so they cost less to produce and are the best looking to the consumers.

I watched a truly eye opening video on the origins of the chicken ranching switching over to breeding birds specifically for eating, where before chickens were mostly just egg producers with old birds becoming food. So the birds that "won" the competition to produce the better meat bird were still horribly scrawny looking. No one would buy one in the store today, they'd think it was sick or something.

Decades later, we've got better egg layers and better meat birds.

catspajamas... good for you for doing your best to overcome a societal abnormality -- the fact that we've become far too removed from our food sources. If you've been raised in an environment where this was not a regular part of your upbringing -- and that is true for most of us -- then it's a matter of learning to deal with it.

I've shared the story before elsewhere of the little boy who came to my farm for dinner with his parents and helped me go collect eggs from the hen house. After we'd collected the eggs, I finished making dinner. Happened to be serving chicken. As we ate, I watched him make the connection between the chickens in the hen house and the chicken on his plate (though the one on his plate hadn't come from my farm). The look on his face was a little heartbreaking but nonetheless priceless. He just never knew!

I've had people tell me they "don't eat eggs that come from chickens" when I've offered them free eggs. True story.

All I can tell you is, butchery gets a lot easier with practice. When harvesting chickens, the first two are always the worst. After that, it gets more routine.

Like others have said, I'd have trouble with goats. They're just too danged personable!

One last point... there's a film called Our Daily Bread. Watch it, and you'll never want to eat anything again that doesn't come from your own labors. Your butchery will be positively humane by comparison.

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Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change ready!

If you were me and grew up on "Lickskillet Acres", hunger has a lot to do with it.

geo

Seeing how meat birds (chickens) operate makes it no problem for me - these birds are pretty ruthless with each other. And by the way, if you want good quality chicken, ax their heads off, don't wring their necks.

I am kinda in a hurry and have not read the other post but I wanted to comment on this. I feed and take care of my animals just Like I do my garden. I look at my rabbits, pigs etc as food Just Like My garden. I fertilize/feed the vegetables and the animals so they will grow and get big enough to harvest. If I spend time where my animals are---I look at them like I do a young squash, cucumber, etc and say to myself that is going to be some good eating when it gets bigger. I also harvest my animals like my vegetables. I "pick" the one I want, I prepare it for the freezer/table----It never leaves the farm. When I sit at the table to eat a piece of hog. I know Its one I raised, I know what it was fed, how it was treated, etc. If I took it to a butcher, I am not sure if what I get back is mine or not!

BUT, in most cases it does take a little time to prep your mind that You are raising FOOD not pets. If you want a pet, put it in a different location----Do Not Raise It With Your Food!

The smaller animals like chickens and turkeys we do ourselves, the cows and pigs go to the butcher. My husband has more of a problem with it than me but he spends more time with the animals. Now that we also have milk cows, he doesn't even want to sell the heifers he raised so I don't know how he's going to eat the steer! But, he will and after its been gone to the processor for a few weeks and comes back all vacuumed wrapped and pretty, he'll get over it.

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Living Large Down on the Farm.

We are not allowed to have pigs here, so I can't speak to that.

In terms of chickens:

-We have a laying flock that are primarily pets. They have names, love to be held, and come running to us when we call. They will not be eaten and will enjoy living their natural lives here.

-We also keep meat birds. They are not pets, do not have names, and everyone knows their purpose. We feed them, keep them with fresh water, and move the tractor as needed. Another important thing we've learned is to try to buy all the same breed at a time....we like Cornish X when we are going to cut them into pieces and Freedom Rangers to keep whole for roasting. When they all look alike, it's easier because we can't pick a favorite. Seriously, I would recommend getting ones that all look the same. Makes it much easier.

Our four year old is able to easily separate in her head the difference between meat birds and our layers. She knows that some are pets and some are food. If a layer dies, she gets very upset and cries. When it's time to process the meat birds, she's totally fine with it.

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1.5 acres in the city

Every animal has to die sometime - if it were a wild animal in all likelihood it would die a painful death unless it was shot by a hunter - take a deer for instance - it is going to die from one of the following reasons - starve to death - killed by coyotes - hit by a vehicle - disease - injured - all of these would most likely be painful - probably the most painless way would be to get shot by a hunter - now take the animals you raise - you give them a good life - they don't have to worry about food - disease - etc. - now when they die you can make it painless - so when you kill an animal to eat it - it has been given the best treatment that any animal can get - and like I said - it has to die sometime - Helen - pass me the pork chops --

If you had told me 20 years ago that I would be butchering my own meat, I would have thought you were crazy. However - never say never, right?

Like others have said - my food animals are food from the very beginning, they are well fed, well cared for, treated kindly and gently but they are food. No-one is under any illusions to the contrary and that (I think) is the key. We butcher everything but the steers at home as a general rule, though we have sent a few to the local processor.

Mary

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In politics the truth is just the lie you believe most - unknown

It's been good to learn that others did have some difficulty with it at first. And it was good to learn of meat chickens and layers. That was a totally new to me.

I know it's in me to be able to do it. I'm not that far removed from it. My grandfather killed his own chickens, he just never allowed me to watch. Even at the age of 15, he killed the chicken while my step-grandmother and I were in town buying peaches.

Just because someone doesn't raise their own meat does not mean they have to buy it in a grocery store. We have a lot of pasture raised, organic farms and homesteads in our area. After all, we can't provide all our needs on a modern day homestead. Everyone has their own ways of doing things and just because it is not the same as everyone else does not mean it is wrong.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

We raise a lot of our own food. Chickens, pigs, steers, garden, rabbits. The animals you buy in the store for you table are just that. Animals. You don't think of them that way because you are getting them pieced out already. They can't look you in the eye when you go to cook them. We are brought up being detached from our food sources.

Those poor animals are brought up in the worst conditions. The egg layers have their beaks clipped off so they can't peck their neighbors through the tiny cages they are housed in. The meat birds never stray more than 10 feet from their food and water source. Did you ever have growing pains as a child? The hamburger your eating was more than likely fed growth hormones to make it grow bigger faster, that must feel horrible when your bones grow faster than the connective tissue can keep up with.

I know how my animals were raised. They were cared for, they were loved. I name some of my food animals. I pet them. I feed them tasty morsels from my hand. They are never fed growth hormones, they are raised antibiotic and soy free. I tell each and every one of them thank you when I do the dispatching. I know they were put down humanely. If I didn't do it by my own hand, I know the processor and I know he did it with care for the animal.

My chickens were never scooped up by a machine and tossed into a crate with so many chickens they couldn't move. They weren't slung through a factory hung upside down by their feet with thousands of other chickens. My cows and pigs weren't punched, kicked, hot shotted, and drug across a cement floor by a tractor when they fell to the ground from the crowding of the other animals.

I know where my food came from. I know how it was fed, I know how it was treated up to the very end. Google or Youtube some footage from slaughterhouses. You will be sickened and wonder how you ever supported those practises. You may not be able to do the actual dispatching yourself, but know what a better life you are providing if you raise that animal up yourself and have it taken somewhere to be humanely butchered.

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Everstuff Ranch/

You just have to face up to the reality that for some things to live, some others must die. In the artificially created world of supermarkets and fast food on every corner, it is easy to forget where food really comes from. Or think about it in a detached, intellectual way and not grasp the full reality.

It is a sad day when a steer that we have known since the day he was born is loaded out for the processor. Of course you feel bad for them. But that is his lot in life, his destiny. And honestly, the day he became a steer was probably his worst day in life, not the day he dies. We gave him a good easy life to the best of our ability, and try to make sure he gets a quick, humane death. And I return he will feed our family for a year.

We have processed chickens and deer at home. Yes it is hard the first time you have to kill a living, breathing thing. But once you do it, you realize you just became a full participant in the food chain. Where before you hired out your killing.

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It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with the simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

As has been noted, everything dies--including us.

And everything kills--including us. It's how we all survive.

Animals (and plants, really) all kill, either directly for resources (food), indirectly for access to resources (competition), or both. Even herbivores (animal or human) must participate in habitat destruction and resource competition with other animals. Life runs on life, and there's no escaping it. Most of us just never have to actually face it directly, and this isn't just grocery store stuff, either--most of us never have to really consider the ecological implications of clearing brush to plant a garden, for example, even though is will almost certainly result in some sort of animal death. The "circle of life" is pretty easy to keep at arms length most of the time.

Slaughtering an animal is never an arms-length thing. It can be hard. My wife, for example, just can't bring herself to actually wield the knife. So it goes ... it doesn't make her a weak or bad person or anything.

I could (and have) rationalized it in many of the ways noted above (yes ... chickens would definitely eat you if given the chance), but it always comes down to the fact that everything that lives will experience pain during that life, and will ultimately die, including us. So I try my best to put myself in the chicken's shoes, from birth until death, because I have taken it on as my responsibility. I give it everything I can from day one to make sure it is comfortable, healthy, and able to live as full a life, in chicken terms, as I am able--good food, shelter, and space to flap and dig and scratch.

When processing day comes, I make sure my knife is very sharp, try to keep them as calm as possible before hand, and make the cut as cleanly as I am able. I consciously try to cut them as if I were setting the tone for my own death--I try to keep things as quick and painless and efficient as I would like it to be when my own time comes (probably not in quite the same way, I'm sure, but you get the point). I also work as if every missed cut (or missed shot, if we're talking about game) is an insult, as well as injury, to the animal and its creator, and will be held against me should I be judged.

I say the Lord's Prayer right before I do it, by the way--I saw it once on a TV show where some Cajuns slaughtered and cooked up a hog, and it occurred to me that this particular prayer, especially with its references to daily bread, forgiving trespasses, and avoiding temptation, is very apt for the intentional taking of another life for food.

It's never pleasant, but I do sit down to eat knowing that I have done all that is in my power to respect the life that I must take in order to survive, at least so far as the meat on the table is concerned.

We do rabbits. We keep laying hens but don't eat them because we like the rabbit meat much better. I am an animal lover. I spoil all animals rotten any chance I get. The girls at work always ask me the same question when I am talking about the newest litter. Here is the thing - my animals live a life of luxury. When it is time to slaughter them they are given treats or turned out in their favorite spot and when they are happily distracted they are killed instantly. No stress of any kind and no forewarning that anything might be about to happen. So they lived a great life and then suddenly it was over. I would wager that is a far kinder life and death than any animal from the grocery store.

There is no way I would have killed our first three sheep. One was killed humanely by a vet. The other two were sold to another farm. The first lamb that was born here I couldn't wait to murder as he was very aggressive, since about 8 weeks old, and hurt me. Good thing he was small or he would have killed me.

But, after that, well I preferred to sell them as fleece animals. When I butchered the first one that wasn't a psycho lamb, I choose a ewe that had a problem from lambing and I didn't want her bred again, a ram who had gotten too aggressive, his sister who had gotten too aggressive, this all made it easier. Yes, they all had names. We don't have sheep anymore, and the last four ones went to freezer camp with a minimum of guilt.

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Nothing is as strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength - St. Francis de Sales

I've never had a problem with it, was raised that way.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.