Eating your own chickens, pigs, etc.

I want to add this---Monday morning I slaughtered a 125lb male hog that I raised from a pig. We cut him up and packed the pieces on ice in a big cooler. Today we processed him. We made 30lbs of stuffed mild link sausage, some butterflied pork chops out of the tenderloin. We sliced the side meat, and divided the ribs etc, etc. We vacuum sealed it all. Let me say this, we put some of the link sausage and some of the porkchops on the grill this evening---when we sat down to eat---it was a Good feeling knowing what this hog had eaten from birth. Knowing how he was treated etc. The link sausage was the best I have ever eat-----One thing that made it so good was we knew exactly what meat was ground to make it and How Clean the meat was before we ground it. That Means Alot To Me!!

We did meat rabbits for awhile (I don't have any at the moment) and people would look at them and say how on earth can you kill such a cute, fuzzy animal? Well, to be honest at first it wasn't easy for me because I fed them and looked after them every day. DH did the actual killing (our method is pellet gun to back of brain) and I cleaned and gutted. Once they were dead I was fine with it and I could kill them if I had to but since DH was willing it just made it easier for me. The mother does and the buck were the rabbits I babied and gave love to because I knew they wouldn't be butchered. Since they aren't too old when butchered it was easy not to get attached to the youngsters. Side note: our buck was the best and funniest! When you scratched his bum he would stick his tongue out!

I can butcher chickens without a problem but I HATE butchering chickens! I hate the smell I remember from my childhood when my mom scalded them and the wet feather smell as we plucked the feathers - yuk! So, I just raise layers for eggs but have butchered a rooster when it got mean and started trying to attack every time I went to feed - he had to go!

Large animals we have not done but I could do it. I saw my dad butcher plenty of pigs and cows growing up. Us girls always cut up the meat when he brought the quarters or sides into the house. DH shot a deer right before he went to work one night and I ended up having to string it up and gut and skin it by flashlight - wasn't to happy with DH that night but I got it done!

Exactly the same method- cervical dislocation. Bigger neck, bigger stick. Instant and very humane way to go, if done correctly.

I worked on a farm and helped to raise several animals for slaughter (pigs, geese, cows, etc). All of the animals had names based around their food purpose. For example:

The two geese were always named: Christmas and Easter
The turkey was named: Thanksgiving
The cows were named: Roast and T-Bone
The pigs were named: Sausage, Chops and Bacon

It was a funny system, but helped keep everyone (even the kids) on the same page as to what each animal was intended for.

I have never eaten one of my critters, though I have put the odd one down. I can catch a fish and eat it and I do, but not a bird that I have raised.

I know of two people who have said that they freeze the meat, and after a couple of months they are ready to eat it. It really is better for the critter to be raised on a small farm, and memories fade, and the meat sits there looking just like meat!

I have no problem with eating animals I raise if I know that's their intended purpose from the start. I know that my animals have a much kinder life and more humane death than any meat I buy at the grocery store so it does not bother me at all to eat them, although I can't do the actual killing. I can help clean and process, just not kill

I would have a much harder time eating a pet goat or something because I allowed myself to get to emotionally attached to it.

Our processor told me he uses a .22 to the head. Though on the old sows they have to use something bigger. Don't remember now what it was though.

Talking about chickens. For me it really isn't the killing part the reason that I don't want to eat the meat right away. It's the smells that really get me going and if nick the intestines while I am gutting. I start to dry heave..but then finish up the job.

Gota feed the family.

After a time the memory of the smell fades then I am good to go.
We only butcher chickens twice a year. Though this year we had a fox attack one of our chickens(every spring around 10am and 4 pm). She was in bad shape but still alive. So I bled her out, skinned her,cutoff any puncture wound sites, and had her for dinner that night.

Ok, I have been seeing this thread come up on my screen for several days now. I dunno if my screen needs cleaning, or my glasses, but every time it pops up I read "Eating your own children, kids, etc".

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

My husband up grew on a farm. Dogs were pets and cats. Cows and chickens and pigs were for food. Later he married me who didn't grow up on a farm. The first time he butchered young goats that the kids and I had bottled raised and named we cried and cried!! My husband couldn't understand what was wrong with us!

He is a farmer and makes sure all the goats, chickens etc. are very well cared for. They have freedom and a perfect life right up to butchering time. It happens so fast they do not know what happened! I have one 13 yr old goat who is a pet as well as a milker. She heads for the woods at butchering time! She seems to know what is about to happen but the younger goats don't.

Animals are for food and practically speaking one can't keep all the goats born as half or more could be bucks. With my mind I understand all this but just the same quit eating meat years ago. That happened after I saw insude a butchered animal and it has the same parts humans have! What my mind knows and what my heart accepts are too different things!

The first time I took turkeys in to be processed I cried. I was worried "they wouldn't be treated kindly." Then I got over it. That was the purpose of raising them. (They were delish!) I have not done the slaughtering myself...ever. There are people near me who work cheaply and are good at it. It's worth it to me to pay to have them done.
Next I raised baby goats. I was there to help deliver them all and bottle fed some of them. I gave away the girls I wasn't keeping to a friend and sold the boys at the stockyards. It didn't bother me to know they were going to be bar-b-que. I knew the day they were born males that they would be sold.
Now I have a calf to bottle raise. I'm still on the fence about him. Yes, I have become attached. I have no interest in keeping a big steer as a pet. But will I want to cook him? Or should I sell him? I'd rather put him in the freezer myself, instead of getting a low price at the sale. But what if I got a good price? I think when he is bigger and not so cute the decision might become easier.

Apparently you can no longer edit your posts? Anyway, I'll quote myself to clarify...

I care very much where the food we eat comes from and that all animals be treated well. By my statement above, I simply mean that I do not wish to be the one who dispatches them.

VA doesn't have a sense of humor as the license plate has been revoked.

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We just raised 4 pigs we took to have processed. My 7 year old daughter went with us to drop them off. She seemed ok with it, much better than I was expecting.

We kept the sow since she was pregnant. We've since sold the babies but in the meantime she's become a pet. She lives out in the pasture and meets us at the gate every morning when we go to the barn to feed. I spent the day yesterday picking up rocks in the pasture while she followed us around snorting and rooting. She's probably the most loyal animal we have.

I don't know what to do with her now. My daughter wants to keep her, even my friends and family say I should keep her but the idea of feeding at 350 lb hog isn't enticing. While I had no trouble with the others it will be hard for me to have her processed.

Rubicon, why not rebreed her and let her generate enough cash to pay her way.

I never could kill anything, or want to eat any animal that I'd become attached to. It was really hard for me.... I let DH take care of those things, which he didn't mind. He doesn't like to see me cry.
We don't raise animals anymore due to our health problems. We have downsized everything, and just have the dogs now, and a couple cats.
We do still keep a bountiful garden. I could easily live without eating any meat, I think, but not DH.

IMO-it is our role to be stewards of the animals that nourish our bodies. It's heartless and inhumane to pass off the raising of chickens and cow to Big Business as it's clear they are only in it for the money. How do you think our food supply has gotten so messed up? Apathy and the old, "I could never kill a chicken because I love it" while your meal of factory chickens is passed through two windows before it hits your gut.

And I was not raised to kill my own food. My mother would buy a whole fryer but she made my daddy cut it before she cooked it.

I've had to toughen up the family and am working hard to raise my girls to understand that the white chickens we see being trucked to the processor are the ones we should feel sad for-not the ones who roam around our place and end up in the freezer. But I have had to get birds that all look alike so they can't be easily named(nothing like the first chicken I killed "Blackie" who never had a name until she ended up in a pot-and I've heard for years how "but you killed Blackie") or bringing home two bull calves and instructing the girls from the beginning that Brisket and Chuck Roast are not pets and they are not to get too friendly with them. I do worry though, how I can possibly get them processed without causing them stress and trauma, as it just doesn't seem fair to raised them well then freak them out on the last days of their life.

If I had to be a chicken or a cow I'd rather be one that is raised on pasture and killed humanely instead of one in a factory. If I was able to understand I was being raised for food I would also like to know that the nourishment I provided would be appreciated.

This is how I transitioned from raising pets to raising food. First I killed it then I ate it, transition done.