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>> The weekend before Thanksgiving, my wife and I had some friends and family members over to the house to slaughter turkeys. We’d raised eight of them from pou

>> The weekend before Thanksgiving, my wife and I had some friends and family members over to the house to slaughter turkeys. We’d raised eight of them from poults, letting them free range around our land for most of their lives, and their time had come. It took the bulk of the day to slit their throats, bleed them out, pluck them, gut them, and put them on ice. I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves. Me, I make cheese. When the time comes to cut into a wheel, I don't want to do it. They look so lovely, I just want to keep them that way for ever (which is of course impossible- even hard cheese goes bad eventually). I can imagine, if they were actually living, breathing things that I had brought up from babies, I'd really have trouble destroying them. That doesn't mean I couldn't kill an animal, I'm just saying I couldn't kill an animal if I had brought it up myself, fed it, cared for it, and so on. If I had animals, I'd probably ask the neighbours to do it and offer to do theirs in return. But even that would feel dirty, giving up my little goat or sheep to be killed by some stranger? Now that I think of it, that actually sounds worse and I'd be really torn between doing it myself and giving the animal away, I think.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Not alone. For many cultures, killing the animals is a special job in the community.
jfengel 6y ago
It's easier for turkeys (and chickens) than some other animals. They're unpleasant birds. If you raise them, you will have already lost some to each other -- the "pecking order" is literal, and some die. If you're going to raise animals, you do have to be careful to maintain distance. A chicken will get cozy in your arms if you let it, not unlike a cat. Still, the birds are pretty dumb. With pigs, cows, etc. you feel you can connect with them. I've given up eating mammals for that reason. The birds I feel less guilt about, and most seafood even less. Oddly, I have no trouble cutting into an elaborate wedding cake I've made. It was meant to be eaten. I've known it longer than your wheels of cheese, though the hands-on time may be on par.
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves From "So You (Don't Particularly) Want to Be a Farmer", https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-explain-peak-oil-to-any https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-exp...: "Wait until you have either a sick one that desperately needs to be put down, or some animal so obnoxious and unpleasant that the thought of eating them is actually kind of appealing (my three year old still announces, with some satisfaction "We ate Corey" - the mean rooster who kept attacking him.)"
coldtea 6y ago
>I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves. Easily? Before the Disney-fication of our idea of Nature, facilitated by the ability to have several middlemen between us and our food and/or to get it in highly processed form, that's what people just had to do and did to get meat. It might sound like this was the case in some distant medieval past, but as long as at least the 1970s, in e.g. villages all over western Europe that was the norm - not supermarkets. People bought from a butcher, but also had animals they tended and slaughtered themselves. And it remains the same in huge swaths of the developing world, Latin America, Asia, etc. An insteresting consideration is, that, for all urbanites soapy modern "feelings" about the issue, they eat meat far more often than those people in those rural places.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

Not alone. For many cultures, killing the animals is a special job in the community.

jfengel 6y ago

It's easier for turkeys (and chickens) than some other animals. They're unpleasant birds. If you raise them, you will have already lost some to each other -- the "pecking order" is literal, and some die. If you're going to raise animals, you do have to be careful to maintain distance. A chicken will get cozy in your arms if you let it, not unlike a cat. Still, the birds are pretty dumb. With pigs, cows, etc. you feel you can connect with them. I've given up eating mammals for that reason. The birds I feel less guilt about, and most seafood even less. Oddly, I have no trouble cutting into an elaborate wedding cake I've made. It was meant to be eaten. I've known it longer than your wheels of cheese, though the hands-on time may be on par.

rufus_foreman 6y ago

>> I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves From "So You (Don't Particularly) Want to Be a Farmer", https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-explain-peak-oil-to-any https://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/24/how-to-exp...: "Wait until you have either a sick one that desperately needs to be put down, or some animal so obnoxious and unpleasant that the thought of eating them is actually kind of appealing (my three year old still announces, with some satisfaction "We ate Corey" - the mean rooster who kept attacking him.)"

coldtea 6y ago

>I don't know how people can do that, slaughter an animal they've raised themselves. Easily? Before the Disney-fication of our idea of Nature, facilitated by the ability to have several middlemen between us and our food and/or to get it in highly processed form, that's what people just had to do and did to get meat. It might sound like this was the case in some distant medieval past, but as long as at least the 1970s, in e.g. villages all over western Europe that was the norm - not supermarkets. People bought from a butcher, but also had animals they tended and slaughtered themselves. And it remains the same in huge swaths of the developing world, Latin America, Asia, etc. An insteresting consideration is, that, for all urbanites soapy modern "feelings" about the issue, they eat meat far more often than those people in those rural places.