Do You, Personally, Kill Your Own Meat? page 5

[Crabbcakes]

Below are links to blog posts involving animal slaughter on our place. Graphic, but informative, if you've never participated or observed.

I just looked at all three - thanks much! I do not get grossed out easily in general, so it wasn't bad after they were already dead.

Here, my kids and I go to a local processor to buy beef heart ($1.00 - yes, ONE dollar, EACH) for our cats and ourselves and you can see the halves hanging in the back. The owner has offered to take us in the back sometime when we are ready to see more - we just aren't allowed to be near when the animals are actually killed.

I understand about the rooster - that ram that my Oma had killed was a son-of-a-gun - he used to get out of his enclosure every morning and greet my brother and I at the front door... by charging us right through the threshold when we opened it to leave for school. My mom used to grab the really sturdy floor scrubber and do battle with the ram to give us enough time to run like hell down the driveway. That was something to see - my mom is 5'1" in the morning before gravity hits and my Oma never made it to even 5 feet.

[pace2race]

First, you thank God for the opportunity, for many cold, patient hours have likely passed. Next, comes incredible focus as you aim and slowly squeeze the trigger. The field dressing and butchering, there is no remorse, just joy, for the success of the hunt.

[RitaRose]

Honestly, I think if I had to hunt to eat, I would have completely different emotions attached to it. As it stands, I've been successfully able to feed myself without having to do the actual hunt/dress/butcher myself. I've never had to experience hunger because I didn't hunt.

Funny thing is, of all the people I've known over the years, the ones with the most active compassion for animals tended to be farmers and hunters.

[Noctiluca]

I haven't hunted but a friend and I raised our own beef steer last year. Part of our bargain was that I would be the one to kill it. Plus I kinda felt like I needed to take that responsibility if I was going to eat meat. To each their own and in their own time though.

I worried about it before hand as to wether I would be able to do it or not and so on. In the moment when I had to shoot him I was stressed. Mostly I was worried I would miss or the first shot wouldn't kil him or something. But it did. a single 22 bullet to the head and he dropped like a rock.

I had plently of experience for the butchering part as I have worked for several years at a wild game processing plant (a small family run thing that belongs to some friends of mine) but that was the first time I had killed my own food. I had done some target shooting just for fun (a little bit now and again for years. But never more than a couple times a year) and I once went rabbit shooting with some guys from work. I shot a rabbit. But we were just shooting them, not picking them up to eat. I was too shy to just say "hey! I'm gonna eat mine" and go pick it up. So I felt pretty bad about that. I DON'T like just killing things for the sake of killing things. And I
m honestly still not quite sure how I feel about shooting my steer. I certainly don't dwell on it. I don't even think about it very often. But when I do it's an interesting feeling. Like I'm both satisfied that I can and have raised and killed my own food but also a little unsure wether I'm ok with that. But I think thats ok. I don't want to ever kill something without having it weigh on me a bit.

So all that being said...

We raised our steer, I killed him, we butchered him. He's very tasty. And I know he lived a good life, a healthy life, and that I killed him as quickly and as cleanly as possible and treated him with respect. We bought his full sister this year and she will go to the freezer this fall.

[JBailey]

We just brought home this year's piggies. They'll be going to freezer camp in November, after enjoying all kinds of garden goodness like squash and apples and corn, along with their rations.

BBQ1.jpg

[Crabbcakes]

Plus I kinda felt like I needed to take that responsibility if I was going to eat meat.

This is what is driving me to consider killing my own meat. I really didn't have these thoughts much before going Primal, but it has started to work on me that if I am going to go with a WOE that is solidly meat-based, I need to take this to its logical conclusion. Perhaps not for all my meat supply, but at least once.

Before Primal, going meatless didn't bother me. In truth, it still doesn't. I know it is possible to survive and even live decently well flesh-less because I did it for 8 years, so if there is no meat in the house, I don't stress at all. Grok, too, had meatless periods. But in going Primal, I wanted the fat-adaptation, and I don't see any way to do that with REAL foods without flesh. So that brings me back to feeling like I need to face a live cow, pig or deer.

[Crabbcakes]

We just brought home this year's piggies. They'll be going to freezer camp in November, after enjoying all kinds of garden goodness like squash and apples and corn, along with their rations.

Your pic isn't okayed yet, but I wanted to say that you are making me hungry. Pork and apples and squash...

'Round here, the locals like to call their pigs by interesting names. Last two my sister-in-law had: "Pork"... and - "Chop".

Last year's two pigs of a relative of a relative: "Breakfast"... and - "Bacon"

[Strongbow]

It's a hard thing, not easy. People who kill without thought or with joy are ignorant, cruel and out of touch with life itself. I've hunted and butchered animals my whole life and never feel "good" about it. It is something that is natural, though. It takes us closer to the circle of life, instead of outside of it where most ignorant killers or mindless consumers live. So, I recommend that you do explore it. Do it with compassion and thanksgiving in your heart, knowing that you yourself will someday be food for something else. Say a special prayer or some words to the creature afterwards. My nine year old son has learned to thank the animal for it's life and that whatever he kills, he eats. Try to find a compassionate, mindful hunter to learn from. Practice butchering on roadkills, knowing that you're doing the animal a service by not letting it's life go to waste. Maybe start with small game like rabbits or squirrels or fish. Turkeys are good but difficult to hunt sometimes. If guns are not your thing, get a longbow or recurve and go at it. Bows are where it's at. I also recommend a couple of books by guys who are compassionate, spiritual hunters: HEARTSBLOOD: HUNTING, SPIRITUALITY AND WILDNESS IN AMERICA by David Peterson and BLOODTIES: NATURE, CULTURE AND THE HUNT by Ted Kerasote

Hope this helped.

[JBailey]

Your pic isn't okayed yet, but I wanted to say that you are making me hungry. Pork and apples and squash...

'Round here, the locals like to call their pigs by interesting names. Last two my sister-in-law had: "Pork"... and - "Chop".

Last year's two pigs of a relative of a relative: "Breakfast"... and - "Bacon"

Our last pigs were Patty and Link. This year it's BB and Q.

[fuzzylogic]

We name our pigs after political figures we don't like. The steers tend to be lunch, dinner, sirloin.....one time my daughter named a bull calf after her ex-boyfriend, cause we were gonna castrate it. That calf got traded for a pair of piglets----had really good bloodlines from a WV dairy---and she was SO mad.......

If you have a cow, you can feed the pigs whey/spoilt milk, and if you soak their grain in it, they love it. My pigs tended to eat leftover wheat from 1972 or so----I had about a ton of it from someone's food storage that moved.