Sooo much pooping

[Janepie33]

This weekend I am looking after the chicks hatched out at school. A couple of years ago I kept a couple for my little flock but this year DS wants to keep some for the table. In theory I have no problem with this (although I prefer to buy my meat in sanitised plastic containers ). He is at Uni and will be rearing them at his house, but the problem is that he is off on work experience for 6 weeks and guess who will be looking after the chicks.

 

My problem is that I think I might get quite attached to them when I am caring for them and will find it difficult to see them as dinner.

How many people have reared chickens to eat and do you get very attached to them?

[KimmyCustard]

I've just got my chickens and couldnt think of anything worse than to raise them then have to eat them when theyre ready! I had an awful thought earlier that I had left the run door ajar and as I'm on nights tonight I wont be home till 6am to check. The awful thought that something could happen to them makes me shudder.

 

I admire anyone that can disassociate themselves from their chooks and put them on the table for eating purposes, I just cant do it. I wouldnt be able to dispatch one either if it was injured or really poorly, the vet would have to......

[Griffin]

I've learnt not to give the boys names. I don't cuddle them or make a fuss of them like I do my own girls. I only handle them once a week when I check them over for beasties and things. They eat like Kings and have the freedom to wander around so I consider it a very good life for them

[Lewis]

He sounds like me

 

I hatched early last summer and knew from the start the boys would be for the table.

They never had names, well, Mr Meaty and Little Miss Meaty and weren't handled like the others. They were still let out to FR the same as everyone elsethough so had the same good life etc.

 

Thought I'd do them late September before Uni but they weren't and I wasn't ready to do it so they were 'done' at Christmas.

Think it helped not seeing them for a few weeks and knew it would have to be done. Luckily my parents looked after them and all the others and were fine with it

 

Good luck

[BeckyBoo]

well, I have to say I've eaten boys we raise and in fact we did name them! We had roasted Fred and then frozen Fred soup. I guess I just think that they have a really good life, they free range, they get good food (especially the last two weeks ) then they get a quick death which is a stress free as it's ever going to be. And then every part of them is responsibly consumed, we don't waste any. I do think if you're a carnivore then to raise and kill your own (although I had a friend do the culling as I was SO worried about getting it wrong and being left with a suffering chicken!) is really essential. Makes you take the supermarket version a l ot more seriously and realise what the creatures have to go through to reach the shelves in Sainsburys...

 

BeckyBoo

[WitchHazel]

I love my garden girls, and I wouldn't eat them.

 

One day, couple of years ago, I was feeding them with pasta which I had cooked especially for them. As I watched them, I wished that I could be sure that the free-range chicken I ate had had such a good life. And then I realised that the only way I could do that, be really sure, was to raise chickens for the table ourselves.

 

And that's what we did. And that's what we do. We don't buy chicken now. If we don't have our own, we don't have chicken.

 

First, we went on a course to learn how to dispatch a chicken properly, and to make sure we could do it. (And the ability to dispatch is an invaluable skill to have - you say you'd take your chicken to the Vet, but what if it was Saturday and the Vet wasn't open until MOnday - you wouldn't want your Girl to suffer)

 

We bought in chicks the first time; and then we established our own flock of breeding birds (one cockerel and three hens), and it's their eggs that we now hatch.

 

Our dinner chickens are kept separately from the Garden Girls. We don't name them, but they all have leg rings on , so the colour of the ring effectively becomes their name. It isn't easy, but we know from the moment the eggs go in the incubator that the chicks are for the table.

 

It is hard. I really care about the chicks. The alternative for me (which I have also considered) is to stop eating chicken. I remind myself that the chickens we used to buy were probably just as sweet and full of personality as the ones we raise ourselves; and I know that mine have a good life.

[craftyhunnypie]

This is the reason we can't eat chicken anymore - in any shape form or size. We just see such & such on our plates - even if it comes from a supermarket / butchers.

I know for a fact that if we were still able to eat chicken, then it would be from our own birds raised for meat, as I'd know about all they'd been fed & how they'd been reared. Not like horrid supermarket meat - that has been plumped up with water & god knows what else!

Emma.x

[Lesley]

Ditto to what Hazel said ^^^^^^

 

We've just bought another 21, 5 weeks old, dinners and they will have a lovely life before being despatched. We also raised three Light Sussex last Spring, 2 hens and 1 cockerel and I'm collecting their eggs to start our own table bird line. I'm also collecting eggs from Ellie, the Cream Legbar as our CL cockerel is getting on a bit, we will keep the best cockerel and any hens and eat the CL boys.....there's not much meat on a CL cockerel but still very tasty!