Well, me and SS husband butchered 5 birds today

[patandchickens]

I am not sure I could do the actually killing of it. I have no problem cleaning a carcass after it is dead, I just can't bring myself to taking the life out of it. Does that make sense?|

Makes total sense to me. Taking a life is no fun.

But I figure if I'm going to be eating meat, lives ARE being taken and if I can't face the reality of it then I shouldn't be eating meat. (Not saying what you should do, just speaking for myself).

Actually I found it much more difficult, emotionally, to cull a terminally ill hen last month than to kill broilers for processing or (my only other experience with it) to put road-damaged or barn-cat-played-with critters out of their misery. With the broilers they are being useful and I'm doing nothing that a raccoon or coyote wouldn't happily do in a much more gruesome painful way; with horribly injured animals I feel it really is a kindness to end their suffering. But poor lil Marigold (who was my favorite bestest hen and one of the original 3 that got me into this)... she was not in horrible pain, just unhappy and uncomfortable [and clearly dying of salpingitis]. I still think it was the right thing to do but it still bothers me.

I apologize to the chickens, and tell them they have been Good Chickens and are serving a good purpose, and thank them for it. And then I make sure I whack the axe down PLENTY hard so it is fast and sure and complete, as they deserve. I will confess that I close my eyes as the axe actually hits. Not on purpose, it is just what happens.

If I ever got to the point where it did NOT bother me to kill an animal, for meat or any other reason, *that* would really scare the pants off me.

JMHO,

Pat