I ate a chicken..

[Vamoosh]

I keep hens for eggs, we acquired the current hens and cockerel because a friend was moving house and couldn’t take them. One of the hens was broody last year and hatched 3 chicks that turned out to all be male.
We have recently had them humanely dispatched and I prepared them and ate them. They have always been free range in our garden so have had a decent life and a stress free death.
A few different friends have been appalled that I’ve eaten my ‘pets’ and have reacted like I’ve cooked up my dog! (I will add that all of these friends eat meat!!)
AIBU for eating the cockerels?

U'd rather take care of them and then eat them, than buy ready meat farmed in miserable places. Ppl are f dumb, just cuz u cant see the animals mistreated doesnt make u a better person.

I grew up on Rabbit stew, and pie. Can't touch it now, but probably would if starving.
I do draw the line at hedgehog though, although it's supposed to be full of vitamins.

No, as someone who has a mostly vegetarian diet I have no problem eating animals that had a happy life and humane dispatch. I eat locally shot venison as it is culled by local hunters. They live wild and die quickly in their own habitat.

There is an argument that meat eaters should have to kill their own meat which I could never do so would become a complete vegetarian if I had to do that. But I would much rather eat your cockerels than factory chickens. I live fairly rural and it is common for people to have chickens and a pig or turkeys or lambs in their gardens for Christmas or everyday eating.

If they're feeding you, you should treat them kindly - you owe it to them.
Oh I quite agree here. Apologies for the gruesome details. I think caponisation is more commonly performed to other types of poultry, where individual young are more "valuable", and it does make economic sense to the farmer to rear males (e.g. turkeys). I am mostly vegetarian this days too, would've gone full vegetarian if I wasn't such a hopeless cook. I grew on a smallholding, quite hands on with dispatching, plucking and butchering.

@LST Well, I wasn't quite sure since you were talking about taking your kids to see lambs and then eating them as if that is the same thing. My apologies for trying to rationalise that and broaden the conversation 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

If people are upset at the thought of OP enjoying a few cocks in the privacy of her own home then there is always the choice to just move on without reading any further.
OP, I would just ignore your friends who are horrified at the idea of eating a cock. I would love three plump, fully grown cocks all to myself.

I think if OP actually had a few cocks at home to occupy her, she wouldn’t spend her time joining Mumsnet to get a reaction. 🍆 👄 ✌️

Also, I used to live in the country and we kept hens for eggs. One of the savage little buggers killed the other one, can't remember if we ate them or not. I don't eat meat as I don't like it, and keeping kosher is much easier as a result, but I don't mind if other people eat it.

At least you didn't raise it in a shitty cramped cage full of miserable undernourished chickens.

This is why I won’t keep pets that I would eat as a rule (rabbits included). That said I bet they were delicious. Not sure if you know this but Laying chickens are horrible to eat, the meat is very tough and has to be slow cocked so I wouldn’t recommend the same fate for your girls. My DGM had an egg farm in another country and we used to spend our summers there dispatching (and eating ) chickens that were no longer laying.

I name change very frequently but have posted a couple of times before.
We keep hens for eggs (and then as pets once they’ve stopped laying) we kept the main cockerel because he’s beautiful and I like to hear him crowing but having 3 more rampant roosters is difficult. They were very rough with our hens and they’d started fighting each other. I love and respect animals and I did talk to them and gave them lots of treats but they didn’t have names.
For those that wondered I cooked them in the slow cooker and they were very tasty and succulent.
I would have understood my friends’ reactions if they were vegetarian/vegan but as they eat meat it really took me by surprise.

Normal for everyone growing up in the countryside.
I do judge people who eat meat, but refuse to face the process that gets that meat on their table. Either face that your tasty meal was a living animal not that long ago - and therefore deserved a decent life - or turn vegetarian!

Yanbu at all.

Have you just registered to post about something which has the potential to be controversial? To bother the vegetarians maybe?

Oh do stop. Ops friend isnt a vegetarian so she is being a massive hypocrite nothing controversial about that.
If you think eating meat is controversial dont go on the cooking threads!

Op as i said she is a massive hypocrite. What does she think the stuff she buys from a shop was doing before it was killed? Or does she think chicken is made in a factory by a 3d printer?

We are in danger of losing all connections with where our food comes from. Its pathetic.

I'm vegan and I think your friends are being unreasonable, not you. Your chicken dinner very likely had a much better life then theirs! I don't think people should sanitise and hide away from where their food comes from.

Your post made me feel like heaving.
I am not sure whether it is a good idea to advertise your lack of empathy.
For what/who?
Keeping livestock for food is hardly new!

@EveryLifeHasASoundtrack ask Mumsnet to verify me if it bothers you so much

I’ve got chickens and adore them, so wouldn’t be able to do it. I don’t eat meat though, if you do then that’s different. Factory farming is bloody awful for animals, even if it’s weird to me to have an animal and want to eat it it’s still better welfare wise.

EveryLifeHasASoundtrack
Christ! You are like terrier with a rat. Gods sake give it up! You are the one attention seeking by being a gf. Accusing stuff like that is against the very few rules here.
All your posts since 1st one are trite little soundbites.

Nothing unusual in what op has done at all. Why would you get so riled up about it?

For Gods sake dont watch 'Alaska the Last Frontier' 😀😀

I couldn’t eat my hens as they are totally tame pets that come in the house, and I’m a soppy cow (and they are ancient bantams so be little point)
But what you did is absolutely appropriate and right. So many dumped cockerels, far better to eat them.

I'd love to know how your criticisers think people survived during the War years when food supplies were scarce and everything rationed. People reared poultry (chickens, geese, ducks etc) for their eggs and then ultimately to eat the meat.

You said it was all done humanely so they really do need to get over themselves.

Thing is people are used to seeing a chicken in clingfilm with a Tesco price label on it, they can't deal with the fact it was once a living creature scratching around a paddock.

As a vegetarian, I'm more reconciled with the thought of your chickens having a happy life, with plenty of space and ending their days peacefully than them being crammed in a massive chicken shack with not natural daylight or space!

Vamoosh

You’re okay hun.

I've always found it very strange that people can eat meat every day but refuse to acknowledge where it comes from. I see no problem at all in what you did. It's similar to choosing a turkey at Christmas from a farm.

Nothing unusual in what op has done at all.

If that was true then OP wouldn’t have bothered posting and her friends wouldn’t have reacted how they did. I wouldn’t say this is something that most people do, so I’d hardly describe it as ‘nothing unusual’.

People are so detached from their food source it's unbelievable. Your friends are happy to eat meat and buy a chicken that has been commercially farmed but are horrified that you raised your own in a free range environment and ate them? Strange how we picture our food and society norms these days. I would say you gave the the best life possible and would also value the meat more than getting a cling film wrapped bird from the supermarket. Your meat source is ideal and you should feel proud that you nurtured it from the beginning to the table there is nothing to you should be ostracized about. It's normal, it's human, it's humane.