To not love my pets?

[BathFullOfEels]

Just to clarify my pets consist of two rabbits and four chickens. A friend came round yesterday and animals were running around the garden. Friend has dogs and claimed she would never consider getting smaller animals as she couldn’t cope with the heartbreak when they died after a couple of years. I said I definitely wouldn’t get a dog that I knew would only live a couple of years but the chickens I’ll kill when they stop laying and replace with young ones. I won’t replace the rabbits as they’re a pita to look after, they dig holes all over the lawn and they are, at best, disinterested in me. Also they’re already six and show no signs of slowing down yet so they’re not exactly pets with a short life expectancy.

Friend was looking at me as I said this as if I’d just casually admitted murder and was then really odd with me the rest of the time she was here.

Is it really that unusual to not love your pets? If I had a dog or a cat or a horse I could totally see how I would love it. But chickens and rabbits? I like that the chickens lay eggs. I like that I have the space and time to give both my chickens and rabbits much nicer lives than they would have with a lot of pet owners. But I don’t actually feel anything towards them. No more than if I looked at a field of sheep and thought ‘they look like happy sheep’. My friend made me feel like I was being cruel not to love them

@HBMe store bought eggs are disgusting. I don’t know what they do to their chickens or what they feed them but almost all commercial eggs don’t taste like proper eggs from healthy, happy, well fed chickens. i dobt really eat eggs that much as a result.

Rabbits can be fun. When I was a kid I had a rabbit that used to get a lot of time running free in the garden, because hutches are cruel. She would come and lie beside me when I sunbathed, and I used to take her out in a dog harness. Chickens are quite single minded (where's the FOOD?) but I couldn't kill them.

my mum’s garden is full of ropey old chickens who don’t lay any more, having a lovely life.

Ahh, that sounds lovely. I love the idea of keeping chickens, but I’ve never looked into it as my cats probably wouldn’t leave them alone.

Yep I agree . We have animals . I like them but love my Ds. I would die for my Ds can’t imagine a situation where I would put myself before a pet. They are well cared for interacted with happy animals but I don’t love them.

I do like the chickens in that I find them funny. They crack me up running around like little old busy bodies. I just think love is a very ott term for some chickens. If there was someone nearby that would like my chickens once they get old they would be very welcome to them. I don’t kill them because I want to, but because they are no longer doing what I got them to do.

With regards to the rabbits - I had a rabbit as a child and it was the friendliest thing ever. It would follow you around the garden, hop on your lap, wait by the back door for you to come out. I did love that rabbit. But doing research before I got these rabbits I found out that it’s incredibly cruel to just keep one rabbit but you should have a bonded pair. Which is what I got. Which is great because they’re happy and get whatever company they need from each other and have no interest in me. My childhood rabbit was a great pet but it was being kept in a very unnatural environment which is why it reacted like that.

Do you normally call them pets? It sounds like you keep animals for good reasons, but they are not really pets.

Rabbits can be a bit harder to interact with when you have a bonded pair who live outside. They're fun to watch but are more interested in each other than humans.

A single, indoor, neutered rabbit is a much different setup and it's easy to feel affectionate with a bunny who snuggles with you on the sofa.

In any case, the important thing is that you care for them well, not that you fawn over them.

I think I would probably give you a look too about the chickens

I could never kill them just because they are no longer useful

You sound perfunctory in your approach to killing a living thing, she probably found it disturbing if you describe them as pets.

There is a big disconnect between how many people feel about pets and the animals they eat.

If your friend eats eggs or chicken she has been OK with chickens leading horrible stressful lives and many many chickens being killed. The excess baby male chicks are shredded in a macerator as they aren't needed (even naice organic farms don't need lots of male hens). Some laying chickens spend their whole lives in cages. To then pass judgement about you killing a chicken after a happy and relatively long life is hypocritical.

I know lots of people who treat animals they see like humans, and buy the cheapest meat, eggs, dairy.

I see nothing wrong with humanely killing an animal after a happy life. I do see plenty wrong with animals living very stressful unhappy lives so we can eat lots of cheap animal products.

I personally wouldn't love an animal. I just wouldn't have that depth of relationship with them. I don't think a chicken is craving human love, so it's not missing out. And the bonded rabbit pair are perfectly happy and prob living a happier life than a solo rabbit.

Not sure I could love chickens, but I’d see them as the source of eggs rather than pets. I adore my dogs, but they’re like dc, in the house, reliant on me for everything and very interactive.

Animal ownership and the type of animal is a bit marmite. You’ll get adults who love keeping gerbils, children who love their horse and lots of dog / cat lovers and haters. People who breed chickens for eggs and a roast. Others who have chickens as pets. Different strokes n all that.

We have a dog.
I do not love it. My life is not enriched by having it.

We have a fair few animals. Ponies, a dog, guinea pigs and 8 chickens.

We got the chickens purely for the eggs. Ended up adopting a pair of lavender bantums as well as 6 laying hens. The banties don't lay, or only very rarely anyway. But they will stay until they die of natural causes. I would keep my laying hens too if they stopped laying. They are funny things, each with it's own personality and preferences.

I didn't think I loved the guinea pigs but my favourite was pts a few months ago and I cried like a baby.

I would rather someone gave a good life to an animal than loved it and neglected it. My dsis claims to be an animal lover but I find her very neglectful.

I detest your attitude.

I loved my rabbit. She would follow me round the house, lay out on the bathroom floor whilst I had a bath, sleep on my bed, she was lovely. I'm not sure you can be annoyed that they dig holes, they're rabbits.....

I think it's very odd that you openly said you would kill your chickens once they don't lay eggs, that's probably why your friend was take aback. Why would you kill them? Why can't they just live the rest of their lives happily?

I love my dog and cats. I like my quail and rabbits but I wont be heartbroken when they die.

Will you eat the chickens out of interest?

I don't think you see them as pets tbh. Pets have an emotional connection and you don't feel this for the chickens as they are there to produce eggs. They are well looked after by the sound of it and have good lives.

Rabbits make terrible pets. Ive had them and they are hard work. Decimated the garden and i was a shit owner.

Im a vet nurse so get to cuddle other peoples rabbits but i wont have anymore. What i will say is that ot sounds like your rabbits have a better life than other pet rabbits who are lucky with a postage stamp run and a bit of a crap life

I agree with Starlight345. I have had horses, fish, rabbits and currently have a cat. I have been very fond of them all and made sure they are well and happy.

However, I didn't love them, in that I wouldn't have given up my life for them as I would do for my children. I was very sad when they died, but I did not consider my life to be ruined.

Just out of curiosity, those of you who have dogs and cats but say you don’t love them, why did you choose to get them? Not judgey, just genuinely curious; if you don't love them and see them as family, was your reasoning for getting a pet?

That’s a bit harsh silentisla! I’m a very nice person, honest.

I don’t normally eat the chickens myself, my dm likes to make a stew out of any old girls. This is only my second round of chickens so I may do this time though, hopefully we’ve got a couple more years of them laying first. I don’t kill them the first morning they don’t lay an egg, last time I waited until she definitely hadn’t laid for a couple of months. I could keep them until old age I suppose. The friend who I got the eggs that I hatched these chickens from recommended I dispatch them after they stop laying. Apparently as they get older and slower they can get picked on quite a lot and have a stressful old age. Also I had originally only got chickens so I have eggs and my dc understand a bit better where food comes from. Maybe I’ll see how happy they seem for a bit this time.

I did only tell friend I was going to kill chickens as she asked me why I kept them if o didn’t love them.

Im afraid im not sure i’d look at you the same way again.
I’d be disgusted if i heard a friend say that.

It's only farming people I know that could causally kill their pets when they stop being useful. And I find it odd.

However, I don't find the not loving them odd. I really adored animals as a child and always thought I'd be a vet, but since I had children (young) I have become completely indifferent to them. I can understand loving a dog, but nothing else. I'm on a hamster Facebook group, I joined to make sure we were getting the correct sized cage and food etc before DC got one, and I find them all bayshit crazy. I can not understand cat lovers either. My DH's family all talk about their cats like they are children and it's so boring.

Your chickens aren't pets, they're micro mini smallholding livestock. I think the word pet is the problem. Some people keep chickens as pets and some as livestock, even if they only have 4.

Our rabbits lived to be 12, which I think isn't uncommon, so they do live as long as some dog breeds.

There are organisations that will regime old chickens- I'd assume old and stringy ones aren't particularly tasty. It would also depend a bit for me (wrongly I know) what kind of set up you have. Commercial layers, I'd understand more than a backyard chook keeper. You don't have them as pets- all good, but they are in a more 'pet' than livestock environment so I'd probably regime before killing.