I have now butchered 6 or 7 ducks. Whenever I tell people this they are incredulous....one said, "You're a hard woman!" They look at me with new - and wary - eyes. I tried to get others to help me, but only one time did anyone help. Otherwise, it's just me and my cleaver & knife. So many people say if they had to do their own butchering, they'd stop eating meat. I don't like to do it, but at least I've gotten pretty efficient at the killing part, which is the hard part. I'm just trying to be a responsible meat-eater. When I get goats, I know I will not be able to butcher a furry creature -- that task I'll pass on. But I do like chevon, so I guess we all have our limits & hypocracies.

-- snoozy (allen@oz.net), August 18, 2000

Answers

Good for you and the heck with everyone else .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), August 18, 2000.

I'd rather be hard' than a hypocrite. I raise my own meat (chickens and rabbits) in part because I want to know it's done right. Hard' to me is eating meat without caring how it was raised or slaughtered.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), August 18, 2000.

When people ask how we can eat an animal we have raised, we look them straight in the eye and tell them that the animal was well treated from birth on, well cared for and when the time came, it was dispatched humanely. We know what is in the meat, milk and eggs because I mix the feed and grow most of our own hay--we are very fortunate to have the space to do that. I wish we had space and equipment to grow organic grain for them but we don't. We know what medications were used because we administer them and our practice is to wait 2 or even 3 times the recommended withdrawal time before slaughter.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), August 18, 2000.

I agree completely. If I can't butcher my own meat I won't eat it. I've recently turned vegetarian.

Good luck and God bless!

-- Deborah (ActuaryMom@hotmail.com), August 20, 2000.

It doesnt stop with meat, we had one of my husbands friends over helping us do something, and when he went to leave I asked if he'd like to take a dozen eggs home. I grabbed them from the refrigerator, not thinking about the fact that they werent washed yet. Well, he took them home and his wife threw them out-she wouldnt eat those! Well, I wasnt gonna be the one to tell her that it aint just my eggs that get a little poop on them sometimes. Like the ones in the store came from a factory all polished and white, never to have passed through a chicken. Oh well, she doesnt know what she is missing. Tami in WI

-- Tami Bowser (windridg@chorus.net), August 20, 2000.

while reading these posts could not help but think of the story of chicken little and baking bread. no one to help with the job but all lined up for dinner. gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef123@hotmail.com), August 21, 2000.

Good point, Gail!! I think the problem is that so few people help with butchering as children. Children, unless raised on a steady diet of 'bambi' movies, tend to be rather matter-of-fact about the facts of life, including butchering. I don't *enjoy* butchering, but have no qualms about it -- I was raised on meat from hunting, primarily. And we always had our girls help with the butchering as they were growing up, and it never really bothered them -- smaller hands were handy for getting inside chickens to pull the guts out. People have just gotten so far removed from reality that they would be in a fix if anything happened to the store-bought food supply.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), August 21, 2000.

Snoozy,

I have needed help butchering and paid assistants in a portion of the end product. Maybe if you tell folks what part of the country you are in then one of us might be willing to do the butchering for a part of the prize? Im in NE Wisconsin, Ill help if you are anywhere around here...

-- William in WI (thetoebes@webtv.net), August 21, 2000.

Gail,

This is my favorite version of that story.
__________________________________________________________________

The Little Red Hen

Once upon a time there was a little Red Hen who scratched around and found some grains of wheat. She called upon the other animals to help her plant the wheat.

"Too busy," said the cow. "Wrong union," said the horse. "Not me," said the goose. "Where's the environmental impact study?" asked the duck.

So the Hen planted the grain, tended it and reaped the wheat. She then called for assistance to bake some bread. "Id lose my unemployment relief," said the duck. "I get more from the R.E.D. handouts," said the sheep. "Out of my classification and Ive already explained the union problem," said the horse. "At this hour," queried the goose. "Im preparing a submission for the I.A.C.," said the cow.

So the little Red Hen baked five lovely loaves of bread and held them up for everyone to see. "I want some," claimed both the duck and the sheep. "I demand my share," said the horse. "No," said the little Red Hen. "Ive done all the work; Ill keep the bread and rest awhile."

"Excess profit," said the cow. "Capitalist pig," screamed the duck. "Where the workers share?" asked the goose. So they hurriedly painted picket signs and paraded around the Hen, yelling, "We shall overcome." And they did. For the farmer came to see what all the commotion was about.

"You must not be greedy, little Red Hen. Look at the disadvantaged goose, the underprivileged pig, the less fortunate horse, the out of work duck. You are guilty of making second class citizens of them. You must learn to share."

"But  but I worked to produce the bread on my own," said the little Red Hen.

"Exactly," the farmer said. "Thats the way private enterprise works these days. You are free to work as hard as you like. If you were on a communist farm you would have to give up all the bread; here you can keep one loaf and share the other four amongst your needy companions."

So they all lived happily ever after. But the University Research team, having obtained a big Government grant to study this odd happening, wondered why the little Red Hen never baked any more bread.

-- William in WI (thetoebes@webtv.net), August 21, 2000.

Funny story...I had a horse stable in the Chicagoland area before my esacape. One early morning I was bottle feeding my 5 day old calf (Coco now 6) when a client came for her riding lesson. She looked at me and Coco and asked me what Coco was! (it gets better). When I explained she was a baby dairy cow the client asked me 'are you sure?'. To be so urban you can't recognize a cow!

-- Dianne (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), August 22, 2000.

Nice story, but in Real Life the farmer would have given her one, made her share one, and kept the other three.

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), August 22, 2000.

I used to eat extrememly healthy. People would criticize me regularly. They said things like, "I wouldn't put that stuff in my body" and "Are you sure that won't hurt you? and "I wouldn't eat that for anythig." I eventually went back to eating like most people do. Now I have to eat healthy and also want to. People are a little more "understanding" when I say I have to. Now they don't undersand why we butcher our own chickens and have a huge garden. They really think I'm strange because the garden is organic.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), August 22, 2000.

Way of the world Snoosy! The vegitarians I know, carry $300 leather purses, whats wrong with that picture!

-- Kathy (catfish@bestweb.net), August 22, 2000.

You mean to tell me that cows don't shed their leather???

-- (trigger@mcn.net), August 23, 2000.

Snoozy, I applaud you for taking the responsibility on your shoulders! Some people can't kill furry things, and some people have no problem with it. If I were in your shoes I would certainly want the furries to be dispatched in the most humane manner possible. Get someone you know and trust to do it.

I love the "Little Red Hen" story!

A vegetarian that has some leather shoes and no hamburgers to go with it! If someone already killed it and ate it, why not wear it? Fur is a whole 'nother story. Don't you think?

-- Doreen (liberty546@hotmail.com), August 23, 2000.

City folks are like that. If they could go to the slaughterhouses and chicken factories and see where their food comes from, they'd lose their appetites! As for butchering furry animals, when I first started homesteading, I couldn't bring myself to give the horse a shot (that he needed badly), but after a while I worked up the courage and did it. It was the same way with disbudding goat kids, castrating them with the knife (you ought to see the looks people give me if I mention THAT!), killing the ducks, and butchering the goats. The first time is the hardest, but you make yourself do it, it's done, and next time, it's a little easier. I don't like killing the animal, but once the head is off, the butchering part doesn't bother me much. Also, when it's an annoying, useless wether that hogs all the hay when the does need it, it gets easier. Don't name the meat animals, and view them as meat from the time they hit the ground. Nobody wants to eat a pet. I feed the meat animals and try to give them a happy life while they are here, but don't play with them or get attached to them. I also wouldn't bottle feed something I was going to eat, but that is just my opinion-they get too loving and friendly to eat if you do.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), August 23, 2000.

Some of my co-workers think I'm nuts for having a garden and canning - boy are they disassociated from their food sources! I can't butcher rabbits myself, but if someone else will dispatch them, I'll do the cleaning. Other critters, no problemo. We always named the big meat critters Pork Chop, Ham Bone and T-Bone, just so there were no mistaken ideas about their purpose. Except Petunia - my daughter (at age 6) was given a runt pig one time because the other pigs in the nursery were savaging it. By the time it got to be 4 months old, she was begging me to butcher it - that was one mean, rotten pig! Tasted good though!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), August 23, 2000.

So many people have no idea where their food comes from. I loved the Little Red Hen Story, William . So true. Tami, Had a friend who raised a dozen or so Rhode Island Reds in the basement of a big warehouse he owned in downtown Chicago. Across the street was a health food store. John sold his eggs for $1.00/doz to the store, who priced them at $2.50 for high paid yuppies. This was back around 1980. The kicker was, he couldn't wash them. They couldn't sell clean eggs. Nobody bought em. Couldn't get enough w/ poop though! John

-- John (jsmengel@hotmail.com), August 24, 2000.

Snoozy, when people look at you ascance, just remember that these are people who believe that their meat comes from the styrofoam and plastic fairy.

I had my city niece and nephew here this Summer, and I made a point of dressing a turkey while they were with me. I insisted that they pluck and pick the feathers, and made the butchering an educational experience. The ultimate reward; my niece saying, "Gee, Aunt Rachel, I never thought about how a bird got to be dinner before."

Wah-lah! One more converted! I used to feel a little guilty about the nice animals, like turkeys, because you can walk right up to one with a hatchet in your hand, but if I want to keep animals, that is the eventual outcome. I'm not running a petting zoo here!

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), August 24, 2000.

Not only are too many folks disconnected from food, but they are disconnected from nature as a whole. I have a friend who works as a veterinary assistant in the city. He says at least once a week someone comes into the office all upset because their pet cat is "sick", when in fact the only thing wrong is that the poor dear is just about to have kittens. Usually the owner's first question is 'How did that happen?'

-- Sherri C (CeltiaSkye@aol.com), August 24, 2000.

Disconnected from nature is the truth -- my mother came out for a visit, and that was all fine, but some days later she complained that she got mud on the underside of her car (Lexus) coming out to visit me and in future she would rather we came to fetch her from the ferry dock! Honest to god! I have not seriously invited her out for many moons. I mean, who knows what other tricks Nature might pull?!...

-- snoozy (allen@oz.net), August 27, 2000.

Guess I'm one of those "city raised gals" who could NEVER kill an animal for food. It's all in the way you were raised I think. We were never "starving" so we never "needed" to find our own food and kill it to survive. I prefer to buy it "ready-killed" from the store. We put so much of our lives in other folk's hands anyway - Meat is just another one of them. I don't have a problem with folks who choose to "grow their own" meat and do their own butchering. To each his own.

-- Greenthumbelina (sck8107@aol.com), November 06, 2000.

Green, Any chance of a trip in the near future? Perhaps to a slaughter house or right now, with Thanksgiving coming, a turkey or chicken facility? Better yet would be to a chicken grower for Pilgrims or perhaps a stocker plant that fattens out beef. My favorite story: Dad in his retirement years raised feeder beef in Canada, I was leaning on the rail of a huge several acre pipe corall, which literally had a thousand calves being fed out. They were already hock high in hay, manure and mud, they would be staying in this same pen for several more months until they made weight. I looked out on the calves and asked my Dad "Your not worried about hoof rot?" He matter of factly said "No, they are on medication, and they also will be on someones dinner table before they die of hoof rot". Also when the replacement calves were bought at auction they were piled into double decker trailers, stuffing them in to the point that they knew they may loose some to being trampled, logic was that the freight costs of another trailer was more than the loss of a few calves. So your practical little celophane covered styrofoam trays of meat (and don't even get me started on celophane and styrofoam, ((and the invironment)) which should be taxed into oblivion like cigaretts) is much more distasteful than a healthy, well fed animal being butchered in a clean country summer kitchen! Though I do purchase chicken, I will not purchase it cut up do to the fact they only sell it in styrofoam trays with those little slop sponges under them. I purchase most of our meat from a butcher who uses paper to wrap my purchases in. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 07, 2000.

I quit buying meat in the store many years ago mainly because my son had ADD, and I read up on everything I could get. The perservites and dyes were bad for kids. I knew they were putting stuff in the meat, but it wasn't untill I saw that 20/20 show a few years ago that I really had a fit. They reported how the feedlots were feeding a chicken manure and sawdust mixture to the feedlot cows. I couldn't really even believe anyone would think of this much less do it. It was insane. I have been around Texas A&M, CSU and the big agriculture colleges. It was not like this 20 years ago. I remember being mad for weeks at the stupidity of it all. And selling it to people to boot! And it is not on the labels either. Cows eat grass, how hard is that. Our country has millions of acres of grass. Chicken manure is about the dirtiest thing you can get a hold of.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), November 07, 2000.