Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Coming to terms with killing the animal you are going to eat.


Processing day for the chickens is only a couple more weeks away.  While I've done my initial trials to make sure I could actually do it (too many extra roos that nobody seemed to want), the thought of processing 25 birds is still a bit unnerving.

Here is a good article on coming to terms with this part of raising animals for food.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-emotional-side-of-chicken-processing

Remember whether you raise your own chickens or buy them from a grocery store they come from living, breathing, eating, drinking, clucking animal who's life had to end.  How they lived and how that life ended is the question those of us raising our own chickens and other livestock are answering.

If you asked yourself at every meal "how did this food get here, how did it live and how did it die to become our dinner?"  First of all...could you answer that question (many people have no idea how food gets from farm to supermarket) and secondly are you OK with the answer?

Something to think about next time you pick up that fork.