Killing your own food

[DB008]

I can honestly say that I still remember the best tasting chicken l have ever eaten was at my cousins place in Eastern Europe. Home grown chicken. Killed the day before. Corn fed. Organic. Wow. Nothing comes close. Tender, juicy, full of flavour, melt in your mouth...

Also, the smoked spec and Csabai/Hazi Kolbasz (smoked, home-made Hungarian sausage) is out of this world. You can't even buy produce like this in Australia. The 'Aussie' sausages are just saw dusted compared to what you can get in Europe.

 

[bandicoot76]

See where your coming from and not against your view.

+1

 

[Klogg]

Have been around guns all my life, brought up on a farm, shot my first roo when i was about 12, felt like **** (turns out i really like animals)

I had that same experience... And I'm now far more aware of what actually happens when you kill an animal and am far more caring as to where my food comes from and whether or not any of it is going to waste.

For those who oppose Prawn's idea - I think you'll find that most hunters are in tune with the environment and want to protect as much as, if not more than, anyone else.

 

[prawn_86]

I had that same experience...

Me too. Whenever i kill an animal (not that it is often nowadays) there is always that feeling of empathy and respect knowing that it died at your hands.

 

[McLovin]

For those who oppose Prawn's idea - I think you'll find that most hunters are in tune with the environment and want to protect as much as, if not more than, anyone else.

+1

I agree. The majority of people who hunt, that I know, are much more concerned about the environment than most.

On the issue of killing your own food, I don't have a problem with it. As long as the species is not endangered and the killing is not unecessarily cruel. I've been hunting before, not something I'd want to do every week but the guys I was with weren't exactly out to spray any living thing with bullets. The welfare of the animal was certainly a priority.

 

[pixel]

Please lets avoid the personal attacks and focus on the topic. IE the merits and/or benefits of killing for food. Or reasons why you shouldn't kill your own food

Prawn,
I agree with your points in every regard - especially your prime premise about "respect for the creature".
If we have a respect for the creature we have to kill before we can eat it, none of the nonsense about "meat is murder" has a leg to stand on. As a kid, I bred pet rabbits - and knew I had to give them up for Sunday's dinner. Did I love them any less? Of course not!
As I got older, I went rabbit shooting with a friend. (He had a hunting license. But I was the better marksman.) Yes, it happened occasionally that a shot wasn't immediately lethal. Something you bitterly regret when you have any feeling of respect; but you end the suffering as quickly as possible and try to be even more careful next time.

PS: Yes, we also had goats, chooks, pigs, and I agree with DB008 on the taste of mettwurst, speck, and fresh eggs from own production.

I no longer have to kill my own food; but I remember how the meat came to being on my table, and I pity the generation of soft city-dwellers who complain about high food prices and the treatment of meat-producers in the same breath.

And before anybody argues with conditions in Indonesian abattoirs, especially their refusal to kill animals more humanely: In an ideal world, every intelligent people would have jettisoned medieval laws and superstitions centuries ago. But I know we have to make allowances for some countries being held back: in part, by a religious "caste" that resists change and no outside influence can make them relinquish their dominance; in part, by lack of funds and education, which may be possible to alleviate by tactful assistance from more "progressive" neighbours. (Sadly, the latter was not applied when our dear Gov'mint got all mushy and soft-brained over the cattle export saga.)

 

[burglar]

I can honestly say that I still remember the best tasting chicken l have ever eaten was at my cousins place in Eastern Europe. Home grown chicken. Killed the day before. Corn fed. Organic. Wow. Nothing comes close. Tender, juicy, full of flavour, melt in your mouth...

Also, the smoked spec and Csabai/Hazi Kolbasz (smoked, home-made Hungarian sausage) is out of this world. You can't even buy produce like this in Australia. The 'Aussie' sausages are just saw dusted compared to what you can get in Europe.

Surely we have Hungarian butchers in Australia?!

(I've seen Italian, Austrian, Polish and German butchers)

 

[Julia]

Julia take a deep breath and just hang on. I am a slaughterman (abattoir chain line and solo kill) and I could not agree more with Prawn, the amount of people that tell me I'm awful for the work I've done while chowing down on a chicken sandwich blows my mind.

Please don't tell me to take a deep breath or anything else. I'm entitled to hold whatever view I do.
You, in the above paragraph, are completely misinterpreting what I have said. I have not objected to the industry which kills animals for food. People want to eat meat. Therefore we need such an industry.
I am not ignorant of the processes in abattoirs: my husband worked in one as a medical student.
I am, however, critical of any killing process which causes the animals unnecessary distress or pain,
something referred to later in this thread apparently as being "mushy", probably sentimentally stupid.
Too bad.

What I have been responding to essentially is the suggestion in the guns thread that hunting animals is fun for the whole family, a great day out in the fresh air etc. That just sickens me.
I also qualified my comments by saying an obvious exception is any creature that is in nuisance proportions and/or is a threat to other animals.

I will be very interested to see what other board members have to say on this issue. Always seems to be a contentious topic!

It is. And most of us who make any contribution to the topic do so because our views, on both sides, are strongly held. That is no reason to be rude or to make personal attacks. I suggested earlier that it's a topic which will never end in happy agreement.

Dad was a butcher
Brother still is.

I used to go shooting all sorts of things when a kid.

One night chasing rabbits in a ute across a field on a hot summers night
3 of us gunning down rabbits as they ran everywhere until one poor bugger was left being shot at
by 3 of us.
I can still hear the screaming of terror from that poor rabbit.
I stopped everyone from shooting and from that day forward havent shot or been interested in terrifying another living creature.

If I had to to survive then Id do it.

And that was my point. When people had to kill to provide food for themselves, of course it's reasonable.
I understand people on farms killing their own food.
But Prawn's comment about demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it just makes no sense to me, especially as I know he lives in a city which undoubtedly has plenty of food available for purchase.

We are talking about food now stay on topic!

We are also talking about the provision of food. My contention is that if you do not have to provide your own food (i.e. you have access to purchase of all kinds of food) why would you want to kill an animal unless it's for fun (what you probably call sport) or in an attempt to reduce overpopulation of a species.

Prawn advantages of killing your own food:

knowing how to handle yourself in the event of an unstable collapse in the economy/country

Oh goodness, I'm sure the total depletion of the entire food supply of Australia is just around the corner!

Me too. Whenever i kill an animal (not that it is often nowadays) there is always that feeling of empathy and respect knowing that it died at your hands.

????? This is what I will never get. How can you be demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it?
If I come to your home and kill you, would you appreciate that I was doing it out of respect for you?

 

[DB008]

Surely we have Hungarian butchers in Australia?!

(I've seen Italian, Austrian, Polish and German butchers)

Yeah, there are a few 'Serb/Czech/Croatian' butchers, but they are few and far between. And even then, they only stock a small % of what you can get over there. Still, better than nothing.

In Brisbane, I know of 2 decent ones;

Adams Continental Smallgoods.206 Cobalt St, Carole Park

And one other towards the Gold Coast. l'll grab the address later as my point of contact regarding this is in Europe at the moment.

 

[MrBurns]

Please don't tell me to take a deep breath or anything else. I'm entitled to hold whatever view I do.
You, in the above paragraph, are completely misinterpreting what I have said. I have not objected to the industry which kills animals for food. People want to eat meat. Therefore we need such an industry.
I am not ignorant of the processes in abattoirs: my husband worked in one as a medical student.
I am, however, critical of any killing process which causes the animals unnecessary distress or pain,
something referred to later in this thread apparently as being "mushy", probably sentimentally stupid.
Too bad.

What I have been responding to essentially is the suggestion in the guns thread that hunting animals is fun for the whole family, a great day out in the fresh air etc. That just sickens me.
I also qualified my comments by saying an obvious exception is any creature that is in nuisance proportions and/or is a threat to other animals.


It is. And most of us who make any contribution to the topic do so because our views, on both sides, are strongly held. That is no reason to be rude or to make personal attacks. I suggested earlier that it's a topic which will never end in happy agreement.


And that was my point. When people had to kill to provide food for themselves, of course it's reasonable.
I understand people on farms killing their own food.
But Prawn's comment about demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it just makes no sense to me, especially as I know he lives in a city which undoubtedly has plenty of food available for purchase.



We are also talking about the provision of food. My contention is that if you do not have to provide your own food (i.e. you have access to purchase of all kinds of food) why would you want to kill an animal unless it's for fun (what you probably call sport) or in an attempt to reduce overpopulation of a species.



Oh goodness, I'm sure the total depletion of the entire food supply of Australia is just around the corner!


????? This is what I will never get. How can you be demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it?
If I come to your home and kill you, would you appreciate that I was doing it out of respect for you?

Well said Julia

 

[Tink]

Great post Julia.
Living off the land must have a different mindset, as there is no way I could do it or watch someone else do it.

My parents had chooks when I was a child - not that I saw it, I didnt want to and they respected that.
Then I hit them with the - I am not eating, not long after watching Charlottes Web - LOL

I found Mr Burns post hard to read, that someone would laugh at an animal dying, is so sad.

 

[CanOz]

Originally from eastern Canada I too grew up with hunting and fishing for sport, and for food. Now personally I will only hunt roughed grouse or pheasant. No more deer or moose for me.

This personal choice came from a trip out on a farm in south eastern Australia one day. We went out shooting, first with me on the back of the ute with a shotgun, then later with a scoped rifle. I killed probably half a dozen Roos With the shoty from the ute before moving onto the rifle. With the rifle I wounded a large adult roo. Eventually I had approach the animal and put it out of its misery.

That moment changed me forever as the animal looked up at me....I killed it, and swore it would be the last unwinged mammal that I kill myself.

My family still hunts to this day, my brother in law got his moose license this year. Moose need to be culled as they are overpopulated in my home province. One moose provides an entire winters worth of meat. My brother in law is a kind gentle man that also loves animals. If he wounds an animal hunting it, he will track it until he finds it without stopping. He once wounded a large buck and tracked it for ten kilometers for 8 hours until he found it and killed it. He told me he couldn't bare the thought of the animal suffering. He kills for food, not for the enjoyment of killing.

Anyway, for me its fish and birds only. Even the fishing is mostly catch and release.

One day when I retire fulltime I want to start an animal shelter or similar or maybe just volunteer. I somehow feel that as a human being I owe allot to the animals. There is so much cruelty to animals here in china it just breaks my heart.

CanOz

 

[prawn_86]

????? This is what I will never get. How can you be demonstrating respect for an animal by killing it?
If I come to your home and kill you, would you appreciate that I was doing it out of respect for you?

It is giving it's life to feed you, hence why you respect the life it has given up. As i said, people who have not done it, dont know what it is like, which is why i suggested that everyone should do it, or see it live at least once in their life.

Abbatoirs are generally not much more humane that hunting (unless the animal gets badly wounded) so i dont see how people can agree with eating meat from there, yet not be willing to experience killing their own. I can kill a chicken just as humanely as an abbatoir can...

Also, as far as i can tell, every member that has posted here, that has killed for food or population control seems to have a respect for animals.

I'm still waiting for your answers to my original questions Julia...

 

[skc]

At around 1:30 mark...

 

[Ageo]

Prawn

what i dont understand with people who dont like killing is not their views because everyone is entitled to have a view and perspective in life but its the few always telling people who "do" kill its wrong and how can you do that etc... yet you dont see me saying how come your not killing animals?

as soon as they bring up the "dont kill story" i automatically ask them do you meat?

you see if you eat meat yet you dont agree with the killing of it then you are a person who contradicts

 

[prawn_86]

I'm the same Ageo. I understand that some people don't like it, and i certianly dont like doing it often, but i can do it on occasion. Hence why i think everyone should do it at least once in their life to experience it.

I fully respect those who have done it, and then choose not to such as CanOz and Tech, however it baffles me when people say that killing your own food is cruel/disrespectul etc without ever having done it themselves.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

THB this one.

I think it all depends on one's perspective.

Someone very wise once said "compassion is self-pity in disguise". When I first read it, I thought WTF?? Years later I got it. Two perspectives for the same situation.

And that's not to excuse or condone cruelty, which is always wrong and should be stamped out completely.

 

[pixel]

Prawn

what i dont understand with people who dont like killing is not their views because everyone is entitled to have a view and perspective in life but its the few always telling people who "do" kill its wrong and how can you do that etc... yet you dont see me saying how come your not killing animals?

as soon as they bring up the "dont kill story" i automatically ask them do you meat?

you see if you eat meat yet you dont agree with the killing of it then you are a person who contradicts

+1

and the other point they don't seem to "get" is: Nobody has claimed that killing is the means to show an animal respect. You can, however, respect the individual creature, yet abide by Nature's laws that (1) humans are omnivores that need meat in their diet, and (2) culling is essential for the overall health of any species.

 

[Miss Hale]

Abbatoirs are generally not much more humane that hunting (unless the animal gets badly wounded) so i dont see how people can agree with eating meat from there, yet not be willing to experience killing their own. I can kill a chicken just as humanely as an abbatoir can...

We had a small farm at one point and had various fowl and I at first felt bad about killing them but I figured they had a much better life on our farm than at any poultry farm so I felt a bit better about it after that. We wimped out though and sent them to a local abbatoir (mainly to avoid the plucking!). The guy there showed my husband how it was done one day and when he came back and I asked him about it he said "you don't want to know".

I'm aftraid I can't kill anything though, or haven't been able to yet with the exception of crustaceans and fish (and insects and spiders of course!). Whenever we had an injured rabbit or mouse or anything that the cat had tormented (bad puss!) I used to make my husband kill it . For bigger animals that needed to be put down for various reasons (sick sheep, injured roos) we would get our neighbour to do it as we didn't have a gun. He never liked doing it but it was the only humane thing to do in some cases.

I understand what you are saying prawn_86 but I think I might be forced to give up meat if I really did have to kill my own food. I think I could probably shoot a rabbit (especially as they are so numerous and do so much damage in the country) but I couldn't kill a chicken with my bare hands or an axe

 

[Julia]

+1

and the other point they don't seem to "get" is: Nobody has claimed that killing is the means to show an animal respect. You can, however, respect the individual creature, yet abide by Nature's laws that (1) humans are omnivores that need meat in their diet,

Plenty of vegans out there who are entirely healthy without meat.
I have already said that I understand people like eating meat and that therefore it's entirely reasonable an industry exists which grows and kills animals for food.

Might be good not to distort what I have said which is essentially that if you personally do not HAVE TO KILL an animal for your own use (eg you live within proximity of retail food sources) then to do it for fun/sport is unnecessary and something I personally abhor.
For some reason some people enjoy exerting power or force over animals. A good example is game fishing where the gleeful participants tell us "he fought for hours before I finally reeled him in". No thought at all of the agony that fish is enduring. Who cares? It's just good fun for a bunch of blokes with nothing better to do.

and (2) culling is essential for the overall health of any species.

I have already acknowledged that any creature in undue proportions needs to be culled.

Your final sentence above is one which could equally be applied to much of the human population imo. I am not directing that comment toward anyone here.

I haven't anything further to say. I have no expectation of changing anyone's mind. Likewise no amount of taunting will prompt me to feel other than as I do, i.e. that the exploitation of animals for the amusement of human beings is hideous.