Food or Pets?
- July 27, 2010
- Category: Daily Diary
- (28) Comments
Have you heard of the localvore movement? It’s a wonderful movement meant to encourage people to source food locally, to help support nearby farmers and to stop using oil resources to ship food all over the country when it’s available within your community.
Here, on the East Coast, the localvore movement has gone one step further with the mantra: “Know your food.” There is a benefit to knowing the animals slaughtered for your consumption were raised humanely and given the best life possible before they ended up on your table. No one wants to think of cows locked into feed lots or chickens who never get out of a box. And, in Vermont, East Coast city dwellers flock to farms on the weekend to become acquainted with their food and they are willing to pay premium prices.
“Mountain Man, I have an idea. I could raise turkeys and we could sell them. We’d make good money.”
“Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. You know how you are about animals.”
“But they’re just turkeys. I won’t get attached to birds.” This from a woman who digs worms for robins so they won’t have to travel far from their nest and opens the screens each night before bed to release any trapped flies. “I’ll start small. Just a couple for our holiday dinners.”
Enter five Narragansett turkey poults. From the first day, they were different from the chicks. While the chickens would run in panic, the turkeys were calm. They walked right up to me and with their penetrating gaze looked me straight in the eye.
The love affair among us has continued. They run to me when I enter the coop. They fly to my shoulders, perch on my head and peck at my boots. They engage me with song. I am enchanted by these turkeys.
I don’t want to know my food. I don’t want to remember it when. I want it to arrive wrapped up and neatly packaged and I don’t want to be intimately acquainted with its life story from infancy.
Mountain Man has repeatedly told me if we have any roosters, they have to go. One way or another, he keeps telling me they are going. He’s worried they will attack me. I told him I no longer have those hormones. But I can’t convince him. “They’re out of here.” he keeps telling me.
Today, I noticed two of the chicks are roosters.
I think I’ll buy them a doll size bonnet and put it over their tiny, budding combs. Pink will be my color choice. “No boys here.” I’ll tell Mountain Man.
It’s a difficult lesson for me trying to raise animals for food. I guess I’m one of those bleeding hearts. Yet, I still eat meat and I know there are animals out there who wouldn’t give a second thought about eating me.
As with so many issues, I have no easy answers. I’ve discovered Mountain Man is right again and I’m not equipped emotionally to raise animals for food. What about you? If you don’t raise animals, do you think about how food gets to your table?
Oh my goodness! What will you do? I would think of them as pets. (Please humor me, you do swat mosquitoes don’t you?)
Date: July 27, 2010
There’s no way I could look at those little bird faces and know that I will be eating them one day.
I do think about my food and we try to eat certified humane and organic dairy. The dairy is easier to find than the meat, but we have local beef and chicken available. I haven’t found humane bacon yet, but I’m not ready emotionally to give up bacon altogether so we aren’t 100% humane and certainly not when we eat out, but then baby steps. Every little push helps to make a whole right?
Date: July 27, 2010
I couldn’t too, and even if sometimes I eat meat, it’s very rare
Sorry to be of no help.
Date: July 27, 2010
That’s a tough question. I always say if you want to eat meat, you should be strong enough to kill the animal yourself. But that’s the theory. I never did it myself. I helped with picking feathers from chickens as a child. And I remember I had to eat our rabbits, it hurt but I did eat them. I’m a bit like you, carrying bugs out of the room instead of killing them (except for flies, to many of them from the farm next door, they drive me crazy…). I do eat meat, but I refuse to buy meat from baby’s. No lamb or veal in this house!
)
About the turkeys, Mountain Man is right (again). The roosters can be very aggressive. I’ve seen them attacking one of their own onces until it was bleeding- not a pleasant sight. On the other hand,seeing your little onces with a pink bonnet….
Date: July 27, 2010
I was raised on a farm so I know exactly where food comes from. There are some city folks that think the grocery stores make the food. In any event we raised chickens, pigs, and steer for our meat and had a huge garden that my mother would can veggies for the winter months. It was just what we did. We didn’t give it a minutes thought when we were kids. It’s all we knew.
Have a terrific day.
Date: July 27, 2010
You will never make it Mountain Woman! You just won’t. So enjoy your birds and let them live a very long life.
Now on roosters…(are you sure those are roosters…the comb comes on hens also) You will have to wait until they crow to really know.
Roosters can be mean…I’ve had two in 43 years that wasn’t mean. They do a good job of breeding…can rub a hen raw (no feathers) and if your hens will go broddy you will have babies chicks. Otherwise…have mountain man cook the rooster (no looking on your part) and the cruel roosters will wind up doing a couple of local tummies a favor.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Date: July 27, 2010
I agree with Mieke…I do not eat baby animals! Actually, I eat meat less and less all of the time. If it wasn’t for my husband I would never even buy meat but his tastes are not flexible enough for a vegetarian diet! If I ever did have chickens it would be for the eggs and the chickens would have to die of old age!
Date: July 27, 2010
I couldn’t do it either, to be honest…when I found out how meat, eggs and dairy get to the grocery store the “traditional” way (ie. stockyards, battery cages, etc.), I stopped eating meat and animal products altogether. I can’t afford/find organic, properly raised animals in my area, and though I will one day have a farm with cows and chickens (God willing!), they will be to rescue heritage breeds from extinction and not to eat. If the chickens want to lay eggs, they will be sold, but nothing will be killed for meat. I couldn’t handle it – I know I’ll end up naming every single animal and love each one like a mother loves a child, lol.
…that being said, when the roosters start waking you up at 3AM (they can crow at ANY time I have discovered on my friend’s farm, lol), you MIGHT change your mind about not eating them – severe sleep deprivation could cure you of not eating your animals, LOL, especially the annoying ones.
Best of luck, and until you have to make that decision, have FUN
Date: July 27, 2010
I’m the one n my family that does the animal “processing. Yes I slaughter and process small animals such as the Chickens and turkeys and ducks and geese. However Keith won’t allow me to have ” meat” rabbits. He thinks they should be pets not dinner. I’d eat them but he won’t. Keith wants them looking either fully alive or looking like they come from the store. He won’t watch the in between.
And for the record, I’m the “born country” girl raised around the slaughter of animals and he’s the “born City” boy with meat from the store.
Date: July 27, 2010
I’m sure I wouldn’t want to eat any animal I knew personally either! I don’t think about food as being an animal. Once it’s cooked, It’s no longer an animal in my eyes but food good to eat.
Date: July 27, 2010
I don’t eat any meat except a little chicken and turkey from time to time. I’m a huge animal lover. But now after this post I may not even eat that after seeing their cute faces! LOL
Date: July 27, 2010
I like to pretend all meat is grown in a garden somewhere.
It needs to come boneless with no heads, tails, or scales for me to swallow it with any taste enjoyment.
Yuck! I think that turkey meatloaf I ate an hour ago is beginning to turn on me now.
Date: July 27, 2010
Oh!! The lil pink bonnets will be adorable!!
Roosters are mean and I wouldnt have any either.
Date: July 27, 2010
I have long said that if I had to kill an animal so I could eat, I’d turn into a vegetarian!
Date: July 27, 2010
I love vegetables but I enjoy meat as well. I lived on my uncle’s farm in Alabama for a few years when I was a child. We did eat the chickens he raised. I gathered the eggs and even had my own chicken. He slaughtered pigs and cows which we ate and I never thought about it much. There were always very mean roosters and they would chase us around the barnyard. I did not like them at all.
Date: July 28, 2010
It is tough especially growing up on a farm. I know it was tough sometimes but we were brought up to realize they were just food.
Whitetail Woods Blog / Muzzleloader Testing
Date: July 28, 2010
I’m with HomestayMary: if I had to kill for my food, I’d definitely be a vegetarian. And like you, I like my meat on little Styrofoam trays wrapped in cellophane from Kroger’s cold meat case. Yes, it’s hypocritical, but it seems less like a once living thing when it’s all ground up and has a barcode on it.
Fred and I have long talked about buying a farm when we retire. I told him we could raise chickens and sell the eggs, and he asked me what we’d do if some didn’t produce enough eggs; would we sell them or have them for our own dinners? My jaw dropped in horror, as I hadn’t even given a thought to that possibility. “NO,” I told him. “They’ll just live to a ripe old age and then we’ll bury them in a shoebox in the back yard.” Then I suggested that we have a couple of cows for milking, and he asked me what we’d do when they stopped producing? “You’re gonna need a bigger shoebox,” he said.
I’ve a feeling those turkeys will be living happily in the barn for a long, long time.
Date: July 28, 2010
Veggie here!
No, I could never raise animals to become food. Ever!
I take spiders out of house for release, I release a mouse if our “humane mouse trap” catches one….
Nope, couldn’t do it! I name EVERYTHING, therefore it is a pet!
xo, misha
Date: July 28, 2010
I’m not sure what I would do. I do think about where my food comes from, especially after watching Food Inc. I love animals …even turkeys
I don’t know that I could do the actual part of preparing them for food. I could only raise them for food, if someone else did the actual food prep part
It might be difficult if you start giving the animals names and making them cute bonnets to wear 
Keep us updated on what happens there!!!
You are so good to everyone…humans and animals alike!!! Have a lovely week. Love and hugs from Oregon, Heather
Date: July 28, 2010
Only people who aren’t farmers have the latitude to not think about where their food comes from. It’s so easy…buying food in plastic wrap in the grocers.
We buy meat from the market and from other farmers; easier on us that way. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of farmers who have no qualms about killing animals for food. I say good for them! I have qualms and that’s why Thistle Cove Farm is a no kill farm. Dave and I like to sleep peacefully at night and just can’t do it when we’ve slaughtered animals. We used to raise hogs for meat, slaughtered them, processed them, packaged them, ate them. No longer. I’ll just buy what little meat I eat!
Each of us have to find that place were we can live peaceably with ourselves and others…including those over whom we have stewardship.
Date: July 28, 2010
I couldn’t do it either. We had a really nice rooster one time. My brother had a polled hereford steer once upon a time and they butchered him, Real nice steaks but I couldn’t eat it. It was Ollie after all. If I think about where meat comes from for very long I stay away from it for awhile. If someone is talking about it I lose my appetite. .
Date: July 29, 2010
So refreshing to find out I’m not the only one. Sure, I’ve given it great thought, and my husband has looked askance at me when I’ve raised the subject, because he knows… *sigh* Why are we such bleeding hearts that we can’t even raise our own meat, giving it a wonderful life and a humane death??!! Working at the turnpike, I have seen more than my share of trucks going south with cattle, chickens, pigs, and yes, even horses in a cattle hauler, which broke my heart and caused me to lose my work focus and even nauseated me for about a half hour.
I guess in our case, perhaps it would be good enough if we bought our meat locally, from families who we know gave the animals a good life and treat them well. But we don’t need to KNOW our meat. Right??!
Date: July 30, 2010
I have lived around farm life a good portion of my life and have dealt with the life and death that happens on the farm. I haven’t had to actually kill and process what we raised as we would just truck our raised meat to the processor and have it come back in frozen packages. We only named one cow because when Dad bought the farm the named calf came with it. He was a bull calf, was born in the winter, and froze off the ends of both his ears hence the name Ice Cube. He was a friendly little calf and like to come up and rub his head on your leg which was kind of cute when he was 40 pounds but not so cute when he was 300 pounds. He became a fence climber and could actually climb a fence like a ladder. It was the craziest thing I ever saw. We finally loaded him up at right around 600 pounds and took him to the stock yards to be sold at auction. As we pulled out of the yard Dad and I could see him studying the fence with cocked head trying to figure a way to climb out. We both laughed as we sped away knowing what those folks were up against.
Anyway the answer is yes I probably could do it if I had too but I’d rather not do it.
Date: July 30, 2010
Hey, If you have some Tom Turkeys you will have to make short work of them..they can be really mean..so mean you will want to eat them. I wish we had a barn and acres of pasture instead of wooded acres..no room for animals..since I grew up on a farm, I did help with butchering and yes I found the animals that I named real hard to swallow..you get over it after a time and try not to think about it:)
Date: July 31, 2010
I’m with you 100%. It’s so hard to think about. We have two roosters (Cackle’s ‘extra’ chick turned out to be a rooster also). So, for now, I’m enjoying the two young roosters’ antics and inexperienced crowing. And no way, no how am I going to eat these sweet children … i mean chickens o’ mine
I know, I know, but it just ain’t gonna happen 
Date: August 03, 2010
I just put new Pella windows on in the kitchen…we needed them I tell myself…but my son the 14 year old terror of truth tells me “we needed them so bees could not get between the glass and the screen and potentially die before I could get them outside.” Don’t you just hate kids sometimes? I do eat meat, I wish I did not like it so much. I do try to eat Organic not because I am worried so much about “chemicals” but would like to believe the animals are humanely treated. I have ALWAYS WANTED a ROOSTER. ALWAYS.
Date: August 03, 2010
I’ve I had to raise my own animals for food, I would most definitely become a vegetarian!
Date: August 21, 2010
I believe it’s much better to raise an animal that you intend to eat. I value knowing that my food lived a good well fed life until they reached the freezer. I had to switch from home raised beef to store and I find myself not eating nearly as much. I cant wait til I can stock my own freezer again.
I love your blog by the way.
Date: October 11, 2010