Solitary chicken - need advice

[CatsCube]

For those of you with young children I was wondering how you approched the subject of having pet chickens and eating chicken for dinner. I know my eldest is only 2, but he was pointing to pictures of food the other day and I was telling him it was chicken, and yet when I tell him were looking at chooks Im telling him they are the same thing. Now give it about a year and I think he might get a bit confussed and possibly a little upset, that we would be eating what he considers pets.

 

I know my mum has unresolved issues with my grandparents, as they used to keep rabbits for food, put my mum considered one to be her pet and kept it in a hutch, . . that is untill unknowingly she ate it for dinner one night. she has never eaten rabbit since.

 

Has anyone had their child get upset over this, or stop eating chicken and want to be vegitarian or anything? I know its good to teach children about where meat comes from, but with a child so young and having said animals as pets I dont know if Im going to have problems here!

[The Dogmother]

Rosie is 9 now - she was a little upset at one time, but is now a real supporter or the slow food/locally reared/grow your own lobby. Helped by visits to Lesley and Carl's farm, and my own experiences of my Italian grandparents, who kept some livestock for eating.

 

She understands the difference between egg and meat chickens, and the lambs/piggies at the farm that are now in the freezer.

 

I think that the tack to take here is to explain carefully at each step and demonstrate your own ease with the subject - they will take their cue from your actions. We are currently raising a chick for Lesley, which is male and will go back to the farm when he starts to crow and will end up on the plate; I'm not sure how she'd feel about eating him, but I know that I'd have no worries myself. We've eaten some delicious chooks from L&C and have a biggie on order for Christmas.

 

Just take it a bit at a time and explain what he can understand. You have some wonderful resources on this forum, so please feel free to ask for advice.

[Goosey Lucy]

I echo the thoughts of Claret above.

 

My boys are 7.5 and 3.5 and seem completely fine. We've always tried to explain where our food comes from, in fact one of the main reasons for keeping hens was so that they had a clearer understanding of what they were eating (eggs/meat).

 

My advice would be to answer all questions as openly and honestly as possible, children always know when you're keeping someting from them. This also applies to the 'birds and bees' chats too!

 

Lucy

[The Dogmother]

My advice would be to answer all questions as openly and honestly as possible, children always know when you're keeping someting from them. This also applies to the 'birds and bees' chats too!

 

Lucy

 

That's true Lucy - I've never kept anything from Rosie in that regard either and explained when she's asked. I hope that she won't end up with any hang-ups as she gets older.

[Krysia]

Thanks for this too.

 

I also want Ash to know where it comes from and eating our own chickens is part of it.

 

A friend of mine gets looked at in the supermarket when buying meat as her little girls baa's moo's or oink's at each piece! She knows whats shes eating thats for sure!

[CatsCube]

I think its probably a lot easir when they are school age as you can explain things to them, with mine so young, I think he wil only understand the word 'chicken' and not really understand how Im refering to what seem like two very different things with the same word. I might catch him trying to put a garden chicken im the oven like mummy does with ones in the fridge. He is at the age where he likes to copy mummy lol.

[Guest]

A farm round the corner to us sells meat they have reared. I took James round there one day to see what their prices were like and the lady showed us all around. She asked if it was OK to show him the meat locker and he went in and saw carcassess hanging. Then he went outside and hand fed some new calfs. It seemed really bizarre to me but he totally understood and I explained to him that we only rear the animals to get food.

 

I've coocked him chicken a fair few times since we have had the girls too.

 

I honestly believe the only reason he sometimes says "I don't eat meat" is because I am a vegitarian and have been since I was about 11. I just can't stand the taste.

[Karen & co.]

My children have also always known where the food on their plate comes from.

 

My youngest had a try at being a vegetarian a while ago (I am anyway, but don't expect the children or OH to be) She didn't last longer than a month, but it was because she had been thinking about how the animals lived before slaughter, in relation to our chooks way of life.

 

She won't eat chicken when we are out, incase it's from battery hens.

 

karen x

[superjules]

My children have also always known where the food on their plate comes from.

 

 

Ditto. My 3 and 5 yo know about the whole process. DS asked if we could go to an abbatoir to have a look around over the summer holidays. He's just really interested in everything.

 

He loves when we have whole fish such as trout with the head on. He loves animals though and wouldn't ever hurt anything, just in case you think I'm raising a potential serial killer!!

[Aunty e]

We kept sheep to eat when I was a little girl (as well as a pet lamb who we didn't eat), and it never really bothered me then. I quite relished eating Cyril. Mostly cos he bit me once.

 

I didn't particularly like killing the cockerels, but it hasn't put me off eating chicken. Well, only for a week or so.

[Looney]

My neighbours used to have a sheep called Lamb Chop and you can guess its fate! Another friend still gets tears in her eyes when she recalls tucking into chicken one night (and eating second helpings) and then being informed it was Whitey one of her 'pet' chickens!

 

I was always taught where food came from and that meat on my plate came from X animal. I think that so long as you are educated as to the source of food you can then make your own choices as to what you want to eat or not as the case may be.

 

Someone was disgusted with me when I told them I had eaten pheasant (aww, poor thing, how could you, how mean etc) yet would not have had the same reaction if I had said I had eaten chicken for tea.

[Guest]

Oh ever since James has been little I've sung him Pheobe's song from friends.

 

Oh the cow in the meadow goes moo

oh the cow in the meadow goes moo

then the farmer comes along and ...................

and that's what we call hamburgers.

 

I left out the actual slaughter part - in case it upsets anyone.

[xScrunchee]

I have always been open and honest with my children with pretty much everything including where our food comes from.

I remember speaking to a Mum before who was horrified at the thought of a child knowing what animal each meat came from and asked me to ask my daughter never to mention it to her child!!

[missuscluck]

I wholeheartedly agree with your kids being brought up knowing where their food comes from. My youngest who is 9 has a few moments where she gets a bit sentimental but they appreciate the fact that there would be far fewer animals around if we did not need them for meat. I also find that they draw a distinction between those kept for pets and those reared for food. When we got our chooks it was discussed that we are keeping them at the house to do the job of providing us with eggs. We still eat chicken and they are ok with that.

Also it is so good for them to learn the responsibility of owning and caring for animals.

On this subject our pigs went to slaughter today. I had a small pang of sadness but it just has to be done. We have 6 boars so you can imagine the size of them and that they are starting to get stroppy and no longer the cute little piglets that they once were.

My daughter was so against the whole idea of rearing the piglets for meat at the start, but she has been fine today and is looking forward to the next batch of piglets. Life moves on, its just the way it is and good on you who introduce your children to the wonders of nature.

[Cinnamon]

I have always been open and honest with my children with pretty much everything including where our food comes from.

I remember speaking to a Mum before who was horrified at the thought of a child knowing what animal each meat came from and asked me to ask my daughter never to mention it to her child!!

 

Ridiculous

 

What does drive me mad though,as it is so insensitive, is when people say in a jokey way,oh I expect you will eat them when they stop laying.

Or listen to that noisey chicken - it should be sunday lunch.

Or like my Dad- go up to them & say bread sauce

 

Errrrrrrr no, they are pets

[xScrunchee]

Maybe we know the same people??

 

I have now lost count of how many people have gone on about eating them!!

Some are obviously joking (erm...not funny!!) but even worse-some are quite serious! Only the other day-a roofer who was working on a house a few doors down the road, was nosing into my garden and asking me questions about the girls. Of course I didn't mind and was happily chatting away and then he said that he thinks they are an ideal pet because you get to eat the eggs and when they get old you just wring their necks and eat them. I said that the kids might be a little upset if we were to do that and he said tough on them-just don't tell them, afterall what else would you do with a dead chicken? Bury it in the garden????

 

Don't get me wrong-I have no problem eating chicken and I see no problem with people eating their own chickens but pets are pets. I cannot eat my pet. Not only that-it was the way he was laughing at me when I said we wouldn't eat them and yes we would bury them when they died. He laughed his head off and rushed to tell his roofer mate as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard!

[Olly]

I have a cat, and "Ooops, word censored!"ody has ever said 'will you eat it when it dies?' In fact, they'd be horrified if I even suggested it!

 

I get cross when people seem to think that not eating your pets, but still eating meat, is some sort of moral hypocrisy. I used to be vegetarian, and I eat meat fairly infrequently, but keeping chickens has actually made me realise the value of meat. For every delightful feathery friend in our garden, there was at least one cockerel that ended up in the pot! If we don't eat chicken - free-range, of course - then it would just be wasted.

[The Dogmother]

Same here folks. I get tired of our MD - every time he hears me talking about chickens, he makes neck wringing actions and asks when we are going to eat them I have explained that they're not table birds and are far too small to eat anyway, he still finds it amusing, but is tiring because I'm not horrified at his suggestion and just calmly explain the situation to him YET AGAIN!

 

I am fed up with his lack of consideration - he wouldn't be happy if I suggested eating his dog!!!

[superjules]

...I am fed up with his lack of consideration - he wouldn't be happy if I suggested eating his dog!!!

 

I think you should definitely try that! (suggesting it, not actually eating his dog!)

 

I don't think anything that's been given a name should be eaten. Bit like in films, if there's a character with no name, you just know they're going to be the first one to be killed by the alien/axe murderer/giant crocodile.

[Lesley]

We're hopeless - we named our first lot of pigs and found it difficult when they went off to the abattoir - but we called all our chops 'Malone Chops' ............. and we managed to eat them.

 

This Spring, we said we wouldn't name the pigs................but they just sort of named themselves , so now we are eating 'Spot' chops

 

BUT.............. we wouldn't eat any of our pet hens! We have table birds, and they are all called Dinner but when any of our layers die, we don't look at them and think of meat. They are buried deep under the oak tree.

[Louise]

Dare I ask what happened to little Ollie

[The Dogmother]

I think they kept him Louise - I asked the same question.

[Lesley]

Yes, we're keeping little Ollie - the other remaining two ram lambs aren't named!