Well last week, at my daughter's encouraging we slaughtered 5 chickens. It wasn't as terrible as I had imagined. I guess me and my husband make a good pair because he took care of the killing (which I couldn't) and I took care of the gutting (which he couldn't). We also had excellent help from Sophie's boyfriend and his brother and Sophie. It took us several hours though to get 5 chickens ready to cook- and that's with 5 of us working. I bet they have a more efficient production process across the highway at Tyson Foods. I was glad to get the whole thing behind us and to figure out we could do it. I think our whole process will improve the next time.
Right now I have old chickens, teenagers and babies. We have 18 straight run, rhode island reds. That means half of them could be roosters so I see a need for another slaughter in our future. My mother could kill chickens and grew up when you went out and did this before the chicken dinner. Hunters do this all the time too. I feel like some part of me though has to toughen up. I don't like the killing and would really have to be tough to do that. I don't want that part to make me less compassionate for suffering.
It seems to me that seeing an animal through its entire life cycle--even a life cycle that's circumscribed by our own plans for the animal--both help to foster compassion and arise from compassion. While Tyson may be more efficient, I guarantee that your chickens lived a better life and probably had a better death, too.
ReplyDeleteDo you read Gene Logsdon's blog? It's at http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com now, but I'm particularly reminded of one of the first posts of his that I read, hosted on a different site: http://organictobe.org/2008/03/21/yes-i-care-for-animals-and-then-i-eat-them/ It's about caring for animals and then killing and eating them.