Could you raise, slaughter and process your own meat?

[Soubriquet]

I don’t know why, but I’ve been watching a lot of homestead field to plate videos

People rearing chickens and rabbits.

Whilst I think I could keep them, and maybe process at a push, I don’t think I could kill them.

I have. Chickens and pigs. The pigs did have to go to an abattoir for slaughter as per regulations though. There are a lot of regulations for pigs and you need a CPH number. You also have to register with whatever the latest version of DeFRA is.

I did the chickens myself. I prefer drawing to plucking. I also kept layers.

If you raise your own meat, you know what goes in to them and how they are cared for. The flavour is much better than supermarket meat.

No. We had pigs where I work, and they are basically bald dogs. I can’t eat them now, let alone kill one.

I’ve read the smell is something to behold when they have been freshly scalded.

And the plucker machine makes it a lot easier to pluck your chickens rather than hand plucking

Only if there was no other option available.

Absolutely.
We live in a desert climate at the moment, so it’s not really doable here because not much can survive out in this heat - would be really cruel to have chickens out there for example. And we just don’t have the space.
But some close friends of ours live up in rural Utah, and the husband is an avid hunter during the season. We’ve visited a few times during hunting season, and been out with him. Last year, we brought back a very large deer, and spent the next day in his dad’s garage processing it. We got so much meat for all of us to take home - enough to feed each family comfortably for a couple of months. I feel a lot better about eating an animal that’s been killed humanely and with dignity in its natural environment than I do about supermarket meat that’s taken 20,000 volts to the dome after spending its life behind fences.
And it tastes a million times better than supermarket meat!

I am a vegetarian of 60 years, my answer is yes if that was the only way to stay alive, but I'd prefer to stick to my vegetarian ways!

Yes, I think I probably could if I had to.

My Mother used to tell us about having dinner at her Grandmother's house when she was a little girl, and as her Grandma was carving the chicken she would say "This is Marlene we're eating today". My mother would struggle to eat poor Marlene, or whichever chicken it was that day, but no one wasted food in those times.

No, I couldn’t. I love meat but can’t eat it anymore due to digestive issues after a stoma reversal.

Yes. Have done it with chickens - while still a child / teen - raising them for Easter / Christmas sale - plucking, dressing and trussing.

Haven’t done anything bigger, but don’t see why lamb, pigs or calves (veal) should be any different.

nope - can't eat meat or fish that someone else has slaughtered, no leather products so when I bought a new car last year, one non-negotiable was fabric seats. I like my steak running round a field not medium rare. I became vegetarian aged 6.

I actually would like to raise, slaughter and eat my own chicken but I would want an expert to show me how to do the killing part until I felt happy I could do it really fast with as little trauma to the chicken as possible.

The part that puts me off the most is the plucking actually. It takes hours and is so messy.

No, but my DIL could and if we, as a family, needed to learn, she would teach us.

Yes I would and I have. I grew up on a farm and went to a rural home economics college and learnt how to rear, kill, eviscerate and cook chickens, turkeys, pheasants and geese by had, I'd already seen it done on the farm and I'm old enough to remember pigs being killed on the farm with the local farmers gathered but regulations are very strict now.

I've kept hens in my city garden until a couple of years ago and they died naturally. I miss their eggs.

I'm the one who gets the job of eviscerating any poultry or fish for family.

I thought you had to be a licensed slaughter person to kill mammalian livestock for food in the UK?

Although it is legal to shoot deer. I reckon I could do that ok

Yes.

But I’m a farmer so proabbalg much closer to it than most. Like someone upthread said you have to use an abbatoir for things now. One of my earliest memories is my dad despatching the Christmas turkeys and then as I got older it was my job to dress them.

You can get machines now. It’s like a round stand up tub with rubber nozzles

Yes probably as I know what to do, but only in a desperate situation!
I keep a few hens for their eggs, and I’ve had to kill the odd one who was injured by a fox or became very ill but I couldn’t bring myself to actually pluck it and eat it. I ended up giving them to the foxes. 🦊
However, my grandparents kept chickens mostly for their eggs and my granddad would grab one and wring its neck and grandma would pluck it and cook it for dinner.
Although, as a child I would never eat it as I’d given them all names when feeding them. 🤣

Only if you are selling it.

If you are raising and slaughtering for your own household you are fine.

We raise and eat our own lamb, chickens , turkeys and ducks. Zero food miles, complete traceability and excellent meat. For us, there is no downside. I know that a lot of people are more squeamish than we are, and some farmers swap livestock for slaughter so they don't eat their own, but it doesn't bother us.

I notice the normal animals mentioned but in a shit hits the fan rabbits are a good one. Get the fur as well.

Not that rabbits are not normal haha

Yes I could 100%. I used to keep reptiles and had a breeding colony of rodents. I paired them, grew them on and killed them for fresh food for reluctant feeders and to keep the snake freezer stocked up. My DH found a badly injured pigeon and no way it would survive so I just dispatched it to save it the suffering. I would have zero issue processing and butchering and cooking etc. but, BUT I think it would take me a few attempts to be actually ok with myself eating it. I would get over it, probably very quickly, but I do think I’d struggle to consume it initially. But I was like that with my home made sourdough and sauerkraut so 😂🤷🏼‍♀️

I wouldn't have a problem killing fish, but I'd struggle with mammals. My gran's place was next door to a farm and the pigs would squeal for hours before they were killed - somehow, they knew.

I've been to a restaurant in Portugal (where I'm from) which has photos of the yearly 'killing of the pig' festival on the walls - it's a culture shock, but to be honest I think this is a healthy reminder of where the food comes from!

No way. That's why I don't eat meat because it would make me a massive hypocrite if i did

Very well put, most sensible thing I’ve read on here for a while!

Just googled it - that the weirdest machine I've ever seen!

Bit pricey. I wonder they can be borrowed from the 'library of things'?

Once you start looking into it it's just such a clinical and brutal way to eat. I do eat meat. I feel guilty but I won't give it up.