Eating your own chickens, pigs, etc.

http://www.urbanjunglecomic.com/?p=1055

Pretty much reflects my thoughts on the matter

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My Dad hunted, and we fished... later raised cattle and sheep.
I would fish but like everything else, I just could not dress the animals out. Only one in my family with that issues.
I would eat it after all that was done though.

Years later, raising my own,,, If I have an aggressive animal, I had no problem eating them.
Husband still had to do the deed.
Sad part is... once you start culling heavily, after a number of years, only thing you have is gentle easy going animals.
Those, I can't kill, or eat.
Ya, I am weird...just the way I am wired.

Fast forward moving to VA. Beef is beyond spendy here.
So along with the goats, sheep, chickens... hopefully next spring I will pick up a couple of calves to raise.
Once they are around 18 months, will take them to the butcher, and get back nice little white wrappers full of meat.

Much rather raise my own food, know they are well cared for, than buy super market food from who knows where.
If I have to, I will buy from a local farmer, that I know cares for their animals well.

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Shari

So, when one takes a hog for processing, what is the method used to kill it? Same at home?

I started with laying hens and I just adore them.

Last summer, I raised half a dozen meat birds (I don't have much space). I suggest you start out with the Cornish crosses. You will be happy to see them go. They have no personality. They're mean. All they do is eat, sleep, and poop. But it is the best tasting chicken you will EVER have.

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Knights and Dreams Farm

Our processor comes out to the farm and they do the same thing we have done when we processed our own pigs.
Same for the cows.

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

I must agree with everyone here, mean animals are easy to get rid of. Its the others that are hard to butcher. Never name a animal you plan on eating and you have to keep in mind at all times this is Not a pet. A few years ago we got 2 lambs and the Grandkids decided they had to have names, "we don't name sheep we are going to eat". So they named them number 1 and 2, when we had lamb the grandkids wanted to know if we were eating 1 or 2. Know one has a name, other than the 2 goats and we have them to manage the pastures. I was raised on a ranch and can't remember not butchering, But I do have fond memories of butchering Feddie the meanest bull I have ever known. He may have been named, but he was real good as stew.

Catspajamas, I can totally relate- struggling with that issue myself (we have a nice flock of Jersey Giants and they are dual purpose meat and egg)...
Not sure what I will do in the future, but we are thinking to move away from store bought beef (we have enough pasture for goats) ourselves....
I guess if its cheap I would pay someone to butcher anything larger than a bird or bunny-- its the killing that I struggle with, once its butchered , its meat...
(I checked out the goat butchering sticky in the Goats section.... I am not quite there yet, we dont own a gun)-- Hunting would be easier for me personally cause I dont have a personal relationship with the animal...And I would be ok butchering it too ( I used to skin the wild rabbits my dogs killed when I was a kid, just practicing...)....

Growing up we always raised animals to eat and my father simply acclimated me to eating them by naming some of the animals things like Shake n Bake, Preacher's Sunday Dinner, Drumsticks. Colonel's Original Recipe, Pork Chop, Aunt Dumplings, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner etc and my two favorite names of all, Dead [insert breed] Eating and our yearly steer to slaughter ______ Freezer Phil.

Meat animals are meant to be eaten and if you don't kill them first, they take longer to cook________because they keep crawling out of the pot on you.

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My hens are layers and pets and they will have a graceful retirement. I respect those who raise their own meat birds, and I do eat chicken, but I have no need to be that "honest" about what I eat.

If you want to raise birds to eat or turn one that you have into a meal, you can always have someone else butcher it. Perhaps after you've had it done (and paid whatever they charge), you'll decide you're okay with butchering your own.

Do what is right for you. In today's world you have the choice. Nobody is watching you and nobody has the right to judge you.

A lot of processors use a Captive bolt gun----it fires a "bolt" that penatrates the skull and then retracts back into the gun. It is safer, does not leave any "metal" in the skull and does very little damage to the brain.

I was about 10 when we butchered out our first animal. A steer we raised from one day old. My siblings hated the animals, so I pretty much did all the chores related to them. For some reason, I had no problem eating them. Even the one I used to ride like a horse (I was trying to convince my parents I was serious about wanting one!).

As an adult, I've butchered my own chickens and ducks. I HATE the killing part! I'm pretty good at doing chickens now, but having some issues with the ducks (gunna do the broomstick method next time, as recommended by you all).

I wanted to do pigs and steer again, but I'm having a serious issue with the end point. In Oregon, where I grew up, when you were going to butcher, you called the 'kill truck'. They downed the animal, skinned, gutted, and gave you the tongue, liver, heart and whatever else you wanted right then. And took the rest to the butcher.
Here in NY you have to haul them live. After keeping an animal from a baby, having never known fear or discomfort, to stuff it in a truck and haul it for miles, treated in a way you have no control of in its last moments...... I'm struggling with that now.

Can I ask, how do you kill your rabbits instantly (am thinking to raise some meat bunnies myself)...

There are several different methods of killing a rabbit. Some prefer to shoot it with a small caliber gun while it is eating a treat, Some do the broom stick method, some buy or make a device and mount it where you can slide the rabbits neck in and pull on the rabbit to seperate its neck--etc. I just do it simple. I get the rabbit I am going to cull, walk out the rabbitery to my cleaning table----still holding the rabbit's back legs/feet, I then lowering the front/head where its nose is pointed to the dirt. I then take a steel pipe about 16" long and give the rabbit a quick solid blow to the back of the head. I started out shooting the rabbits, that was a waste of a bullet to me. You can choose a method that works for You!

And that method would be....?

Fireman, I have read of the captive bolt in various debates about horse slaughter. I was wondering if that is the method used for pigs.

When we butcher at home (sheep, goats, pigs) we use a 9mm pistol. We bring the animal out to near the butchering station (all our critters follow a feed bucket usually) then they are given a small feed pan of sweet feed - a treat for everyone - and as they lower their head we shoot them. They are dead before they know what is happening. Chickens we use a knife, making sure it is razor sharp. We have to send steers to the butcher because they are just too big for us to deal with at home.

Our local butcher is only about 7 miles away, and they are very considerate of the animals. They use a captive bolt. I have seen it used - it seems to be very humane.

Mary

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I'm assuming "broomstick" is breaking their necks? I learned the "pencil" method of killing mice in vet tech school, which was using a pencil to break their necks. Saw it done, but never performed it myself.

My wife and I have been having this same discussion, and have begun wondering if we may not be cut from the right cloth to live the homestead-life since we both have reservations about killing the animals we raise. It is refreshing to see that so many others experience the same reservations.

My wife and I are both card-carrying animal lovers, and few things can enrage either of us as bad as seeing someone mistreat an animal (or human child). It's funny, I've seen plenty of adults take a thorough ------whipping (or worse), and not been bothered by it. But if I see someone kick a dog, or shoot a cat in the gut, I get really upset.

I've hunted all my life, and my dad really stressed the importance of humane killing - knowing where your rifle shoots, and passing on game if they do not present a solid, lethal shot to you. I can kill a deer, clean it, and fry up the tenderloins as a treat while I am butchering it. It's one animal, it had (I assume) a good life, and died in a reasonably humane way. If there is any guilt, it doesn't cut too deep, and passes quickly.

My issue with raising animals for food comes from somewhere else. My first job, outside my dad's gunsmith shop, was working for a small rabbit farm down the road from home. I was 10 & 11 or 11 & 12 the couple summers that I worked there. The farmer ran the operation himself, and was glad to have a little help from a neighbor kid looking to make some extra money during the summer when the gun business was slow. When it was butchering time, my job was to slaughter and eviscerate, since it took more experience to cleanly harvest the meat and skins. On a day that we were harvesting, I might have to kill 30-50 rabbits.

I think it did something to me, psychologically. I did not have a problem killing the rabbit in my hands. I did not have a problem gutting it. I did not have any guilt when I handed it to the farmer to process. I did not even have a problem with the next one in line. My problem was with the one after that, and the one after that....and the one after that.

When we started, we would gather up the ones that he was ready to harvest and put them in his kids' old play-pens, and then get to work. The order that I grabbed them could/should have been completely random. Any given rabbit may have been #3, or #12, or #30 in line. Somehow, to me, the waiting was the worst part. Of course, the rabbits had no idea what being placed in the play-pen meant, but I couldn't convince myself of that. I would involuntarily focus on one that had a distinctive spot or some other feature, and would push others out of the way to take that one next. Somehow, that one now had a unique existence in my mind, and I didn't want to make her wait any longer than was necessary. I never voiced my issue, but I think it would have been easier on me if we left them in their pens, and he just told me "get that one over there next".

One time, we got started later than usual, and he wanted to stop for lunch in the middle of slaughter. I started to put the one I had in my hand back in the play-pen and walk away, and realized that there was no way I would have been able to sit through the 15 minutes of lunch knowing that the rabbits were there waiting. After the farmer left the room, I finished killing the rabbits and laid them out on his bench before I went to eat. In hindsight, he probably didn't appreciate me leaving all of that meat laying there warm, but he didn't give me any trouble about it. I think he knew that it was a difficult job for a kid, and understood that I probably had some peculiarity going on in my head that gave me the need to just get through with it. Of course, this was all in the head of a 10 year old boy, and had no bearing on reality, but it did shape me in some way.

Don't get me wrong, I am fine. I don't feel that I'm scarred in any way, and don't mean to make more if it than it is. Again, I don't have any issue killing an animal for food, but my family would have to be on the verge of starvation for me to ever accept a job in a slaughterhouse.

My wife will have an even harder time with it than I would. She has never been exposed to any sort of hunting or meat farming, and has an extremely tender spirit.

So....our immediate plans for meat are to take a few deer off our property every fall to use for anything that uses ground or stew-chunk meat, and continue to buy our other red-meat steak cuts. Next year, we hope to start small in chickens, and I have no doubt that I will be able to kill them in 1s and 2s for meat. Then, if my wife gets more comfortable with raising animals for food, we may do a couple hogs or a cow every year. However, I'll readily admit that I am in no rush to change her sensibilities. I appreciate her ways, and I would hate to see her lose a part of what makes her such a great companion. I will stick to growing fruits and veggies, and buying our meat, if it never sets well with her.

Thanks to everyone who gives their animals good lives and ends those lives humanely. This is why I chose to buy from small farmers who practice this, though it may be more expensive.

a bullet to the brain

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

RULE # 1 NEVER NAME YOUR FOOD ! Rule 2 you will kill anything in your yard when you get hungry enough even little flower bell the sheep ,or daisy your favorite chicken , It's meat folks just because the store sells it wrapped up in the nice little package does not mean it wasn't prancing around the pasture last week .It's just that YOU did not have to kill it and clean it before it ended up on your table . Some people can others can't same is true how some can hunt bambi and others can't . But if you had no other source of fresh meat most would eat road kill cooked over a fire . Thats also why some call their animals pets and others call them livestock .