ratfarm:

plantyhamchuk:

ratfarm: I got reputation at the feed store as the “Rooster Recycler”. Chickens have been trendy since Duluth lifted it’s city ban and chickens could be showcased proudly in designer coops in front yards rather than hidden in repurposed dog kennels behind garages. [Side note: I have a great love for the low-key pre-legal chicken keepers.] People get straight run birds (unsexed) and then the roosters grow up and start fighting or possibly off the neighbors crowing and surprise, nobody wants spare roosters. The birds sit on Craigslist and bulletin boards. People ask me what to do and I tell them to kill them, it’s easy. Make it a family project and a meal but they won’t. It’s too barbaric. They don’t mind eating the meat from the store but they outright refuse to be involved in where their food comes from. They want me to take their roosters and give them a good home. I tell them I will humanely dispatch their roosters and feed them to my dogs because the birds that come to me are rarely worth eating. I’ve had something like 20 odd folks tell me they will bring my a rooster they don’t want, but only a handful have made good on that. I always have a cage in the back of my truck just in case. This guy was in very poor shape, he’d been attacked relentlessly his entire adult life by a more dominant rooster. They were probably in a small area where he couldn’t get away, he may have had trouble accessing food or water. He was a patchwork of wounds and scars and clealry very scared and unhappy. His toes were broken. I butchered him in ten minutes with nothing but a hatchet; chopped head, legs, wings and skinned him out (which was almost impossible from all the scarring) then split the rib cage and gutted him. I used my bare hands. There was no reason to be afraid. I felt bad for this bird. Here was an animal that people felt self-congratulatory over finally surrendering to someone who was prepared to deal with, who spent his entire life in misery under constant attack, perpetually wounded and afraid. So instead of feeding him to the dogs I put him in the crock pot until the meat fell off the bones. When he was done I picked out all the bones and stirred in bar-b-que and tomato sauce with some cracked black pepper, garlic, and onion. Certain folks who want a blog with pretty pictures and no substance will get mad at this post. I’ll lose followers like I do when I post about sick or injured animals or hard work that isn’t romanticized and ugly farm scenes. I’ll inevitably get threats for killing what I eat. But at the end of the day, you should ask yourself who was more merciful to this animal; the family that kept him alive in misery because they “like chickens” or the family that ended his suffering and found nourishment in his body? March 23, 2017. Speaking as a vegan, this is the ultimate in ethical meat eating. 100% support. BTW @ratfarm is amazing and honest and real. Go follow to see what it’s really like to homestead with animals.

Reblogging for @plantyhamchuk’s commentary and to add some of my own on a divisive topic:

As long as I’ve been publicly discussing homesteading I’ve been getting blowback from vegans, sometimes to the point of sickening hatemail that involves bad things happening to my family. It’s gross but I do my best to ignore it and remember there are jerks from all walks of life lest I start to think all members of a particular group are represented by those who act up. On that note, being a jerk is a really good way to push people away from your cause, don’t do that if you want folks to hear you out!

This is a reminder that we can walk different paths and still have common ground. This is the kind of exchange that’s so important in a world where we are increasingly polarized and pitted against each other in intense tribalism in the form of political and social factions. It’s incredibly important to be able to have rational discussions and look at complex issues with nuance.

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is “reactive stances” as they pertain to politics and social issues. For example, say some vegans attack others for eating meat and those meat eaters turn around and start fetishising bacon as a response. We see this every day with various opposing ideas, especially across social media. I take this concept to heart and think about how I conduct myself because I don’t want to be propelled by anger and it’s easy to fall into that. That fact is, that shit’s stressful and being a jerk back won’t change minds, all it does is feed echo chambers. Middle ground is what will save us. When our breeder/pet goat buck died unexpectedly and my son was beside himself after losing the animal he raised, a friend of ours used it as en excuse to lay into us on the subject of veganism. The situation regressed to being so over the top (he got on a tirade comparing us to the movie “Deliverance”) that we ended the friendship. We were all very heartbroken about our goat but it was other vegan friends who sent sympathetic messages, proving that we can not only coexist but maintain meaningful relationships despite our differences in philosophy. They showed that we can walk different paths without demonizing each other.

The vegans that know me know how I care for my animals and respect that, even if they don’t want to live the same way I do. Likewise, I can completely respect their decision not to support the meat industry. In fact, that’s a big part of why I started raising my own livestock. I also started to do it because I like animals. Not everyone will believe that but I truly do. I wouldn’t put in the money or extensive labour if I didn’t like them, no matter how much I enjoy raw milk every morning.

Despite my belief in small ethical farming practices, I know not everyone has the resources to do what I do, just like not everyone has the resources to get all their calories from plants. Not everyone can flourish on a plant based diet and meat from small farms is more expensive. The problem on either side of the food debate (and others, like the localvore or organic movements) is we too often presume to know what is best for others and fail to consider things like access, or financial/health limitations. I don’t want my food ethics to be valued above people any more than I want us to be so far removed from our food as to cause the situation detailed in the original post. I’m not willing to let people starve while we drastically restructure our farming methods. Change will take time and work and while decreasing consumption is one factor, supporting alternatives to factory farming is another very important part that we can’t ignore.

I love all my animals and I eat my friends. It’s not easy or fun, but it’s life and survival and my decision. I want everyone to be able to talk about ways of raising animals better without fear or judgement for doing so. If we can navigate this issue then I have no doubt we can get through ALL the tough stuff society clashes on.