4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Lulabellx1]

I am a carnivore, through and through. I happily munch on meat and I make sure the meat I buy has come from a good British source and lived a good life.

 

Last week I was cooking a Roast chicken for the family. I was in the kitchen rubbing butter into the skin and staring out the window watching the hens in the garden pecking about. I looked down and the ex-hen in my roasting tin and suddenly felt REALLY guilty .

 

Oh well, it's not going to stop me eating chicken, I guess my girls are just a VERY lucky bunch

 

As chicken keepers, have any of you experienced this?

 

Loops x

[redsunset]

Yup, big time! Took me a year of chicken keeping to even put any near my mouth and to be honest can't remember the last time I ate any! I am a carnivore but am becoming increasingly aware of how my meat is being reared. Have no problem with local pasture raised beef and lamb but chicken and pork are the ones I struggle with as so intensively reared cruely.

I know they are cheap meats, but when I compare the 'spoilt' life my lot have and then see videos/clips online of how they are farmed I do baulk. Do love roast chicken but........can do without now.

[Luvachicken]

I do like chicken but haven't had any for a while, and I do worry about where it comes from.

 

Embarrassingly, I did once look through the feathers of one of my girls and realised she looked like the chicken I'd seen in the shops underneath. I'd never really put two and two together before.

[gavclojak]

Have not eaten meat since march, that was when my name went down on the BHWT waiting list for the girls. Having Only really ever eating chicken and the very occasional steak so was not too hard to me but what was unexpected was that I was and still am unable to eat their eggs....I know how crazy that sounds but have it eaten an egg in entirety since getting them

Edited August 24, 2013 by Guest

[redsunset]

Now that's plain just daft in my book! Their wee eggs are presents for you. And there is you with battery hens If i'm not correct? Egg and bacon roll, gerrit down you! Chicken meat I get but heir eggs? You are letting them down if you don't partake girl!!

[gavclojak]

You are 100% correct! I know I sound like a silly billy! I look at them and think Mmmm but just can't do it funny enough my daughter is the same,

[daxigirl]

The first time I bought chicken to roast after I got the girls I waivered, thinking I can't do this. Then I gave myself a telling off for being silly .

 

Now I just say don't look girls.

[gavclojak]

Although I choose not to eat it i do still buy chicken to cook for the rest of my family although I am more aware of what I am buying. Last year I would buy whatever was in offer but now I only buy organic free range. A couple of my mates stuggled with chicken after seeing the girls and how responsive they are. Interestingly enough I have cut down on the amount of meat my OH eats as I am thinking about it now. I am not militant by any stretch of the imagination though.

[Purplemaniacs]

You are 100% correct! I know I sound like a silly billy! I look at them and think Mmmm but just can't do it funny enough my daughter is the same,

My DDs friend has lots of chooks and she can't eat their eggs, she buys supermarket eggs and eats those and gives her chooks eggs away

 

Chrissie

[gavclojak]

I can't even buy traitor eggs from the supermarket! I am glad I'm not the only one. Maybe it's because I see them as pets and they have names, maybe not i really don't get it myself

(((

[Purplemaniacs]

Mine all have names. My grandchildren ask forthe egg they want for breakfast by the chickens name E who is 4 likes Toffee's eggs best, speckled green/blue shell. Even OH if I make him bacon sandwich as a treat and pop a bantam egg in he asks whose egg have I got

 

Chrissie

[gavclojak]

There goes that theory.....I have no answers.....just plain daft I think

[Sandhills]

My daughter had been talking about trying vegetarianism for a while, but made the step when we got chickens.

 

What she says is that she expected them to have moods, but didn't think that they'd have distinct, consistent personalities.

 

Chicken used to be her favourite meat, so giving up the rest was easy for her.

[gavclojak]

My daughter has been veggie for 15 years and like your daughter I only really ate chicken so giving up was really easy for my, I haven't had meat for 7 months and can honestly say I have not missed it at all.

[Lulabellx1]

Funnily enough I became veggie as a teenager and was veggie for 7 years. I was converted in to eating meat again when I met my partner... who literally wont eat a plate of food unless there is some meat or fish on it

 

I now enjoy meat... but am very careful where it comes from.

 

I think I will take the approach of saying "don't look girls!" and tucking in

 

Loops x

 

PS: It's preparing the goosebumply skin that's the worst bit! As it's something I have seen so often if one of my girls develop a bald patch, or on fresh ex-bat's who have not re-feathered yet

[gavclojak]

Haha I know exactly what you mean with the skin. And my husband would sooner grow wings himself than turn veggie, but little does he know he regularly tucks in to veggie chilli, veggie curry and Linda McCartney sausages....he would kill me if he knew...I swear he has no idea

[Lulabellx1]

 

My other half is very suspicious of that kind of thing... especially as I'm ex-veggie. His dad suddenly turned veggie a couple of years ago and he made us a shepherds pie one night with Quorn Mince. He guessed straight away... his dad was totally busted!

[charly1979]

I do find it hard to prep a chicken with my girls out in the garden, worse when one managed to wander in the kitchen whilst I was doing so but she should know better all my girls have been told the only chickens in the house are in the freezer or ones that are poorly

 

My DD went veggie for 6 months but that was my dads fault as when we found out we had a boy (my beloved Julian) he said they couldn't keep him and would be eating him (thanks dad) clearly we are close to another brief session of veggietism from her as they have 12 baby chicks and dad is doing his usual oh we shall be eating the boys (my mother is less than amused !

[chuckmum6]

No I don't, I only buy free range and get upset when OH tries to buy anything other. We had one of our cockerels 'Mr Meat' for Christmas dinner, my children understand where chicken comes from, that it is not plastic wrapped in Tesco or the like.

[charly1979]

Bizarely enough we have just had our roast dinner at mums outside on their patio I looked behind and the field of cows were watching us as if they knew ! My friends all ask how I prep roast beef at home as my splash back is a picture of the cows in mums field and I have a life size cow mural in the room adjoining

 

It doesn't bother me though

[Lara and Frey]

I've had the girls for coming up to 2 months now. Before we got them we used to eat chicken (organic free range) about once a week, since we got them I think I've had chicken once and that was when I went to my mum's for lunch. My girls are pets. We love them to bits, my son is obsessed with them but we'd never think twice about eating the eggs. They are beautiful gifts laid with love much as cats bring dead things home for you (or in the case of my house cats till receipts lol), I know what I'd rather have. I had them on a weeks course of flubenvet just after I got them and as we eat organic as much as possible I decided we weren't going to eat the eggs for that week. I felt so so guilty like I was letting them down. Thankfully from now on we'll be using Verm-X, I just wanted to make sure they were in good health after buying them. They also have garlic powder in their food daily, Bokashi and orego-stim in their water so hopefully they will have a healthy balance internally and I can stick to the herbal treatments. If not hopefully their weekly (or twice weekly if one is under the weather or probably in winter too) yoghurt, Bokashi and meal worm treat will help. They get a few meal worms every day as a treat and grape, sweet peppers, dandelions etc. We spoil them rotten but they're pets not livestock to us. It was weeks ago and thinking about wasting those beautiful eggs still upsets me now

[chuckmum6]

You can still eat the eggs when the hens are on flubenvet, there is no withdrawal period, just don't sell them. Flubenvet is a much more effective wormer than Verm-x, just be aware it might not sort out any worms, so keep an eye out for any signs. Sound like they should have fairly healthy guts though

[Olly]

I only eat free-range chicken but yes, I eat it and enjoy it.

 

Farmers don't farm for love of animals, they do it because they need to make a living, and so if we didn't eat rare breeds they would die out except for a very few kept in zoos or show farms. Whatever the animal, be it hen, pig, cow or sheep, there's no way of controlling the ratio of males to females that are born (or hatched) and those surplus males have no purpose other than to be eaten. If you're going to raise animals for dairy production, wool, eggs etc then it makes sense to eat the animal as well, in my view - as long as it's been treated well. I only eat meat a couple of times a week but I'd rather pay more for quality and eat it less often.

 

And yes, flubenvet doesn't mean you can't eat the eggs, and I wouldn't rely on Verm-Ex as a wormer!

[gavclojak]

Absolutely... i agree with you 100%...i still buy and cook and prepare meat, i am happy to pay a few pounds more for decent quality UK produced food and i try to buy seasonal products i just choose not to eat meat myself but the male species in my family more than make up for it as they are complete carnivores...as for verm-ex, my vet was just saying too many people rely on it as a wormer with disastrous consequences

[Chortle Chook]

I'm not a vegetarian though I am picky as hell when it comes to knowing how my meat has arrived on my plate and can be an embarrassment in restaurants when I ask where the eggs have come from before I choose an egg dish from the menu.

 

I do cook a chicken breast with yoghurt dish for OH and used to and probalby still would love roast chicken, but I have not managed to buy one since I started keeping hens - it looks just too like the real thing upside down If I don't watch out I'll be saying 'night night' and putting it on the perch in the hen house, right way up

 

(Another meat I just can't mange to cook is rabbit - I only did it once and frankly it looked, well, almost human )