Odd question, have you ever killed and cleaned an animal to eat?

[ThomWV]

Sarah and the turkey caused this question to be asked.

Fish don't count; have you ever killed and cleaned an animal to eat?

The question is really about how close we are to some of what we eat.

[Hard_Work]

1. First no vote.

You disqualified me when you excluded fish. :)

[JDPriestly]

2. I haven't but I often watched my parents do it

poultry and fish. I also saw a pig slaughtered. It's pretty awful.

[YOY]

3. Yes I have and it's not exactly "fun". It's work.

Anyone who takes odd joy in it needs to have their head examined as does anyone who would call me a "murderer" for it. Blood is sticky messy and innards reek to high hell.

[Marrah_G]

4. No- I've seen it done, but have not done it myself

Just fish.

If I had to I could do it.

[onehandle]

5. I'll resist asking if humans count.

Except I didn't.

:evilgrin:

[flowomo]

6. sure, we raised rabbits and chickens back in the early 80s....

and I'm going to construe "animal" to include fish, so I've caught and cleaned a lot of those.

[pampango]

7. Fish - yes, but not the kind of animals you're talking about. n/t

[seemunkee]

8. Fish

No mammals or fowl.

[GodlessBiker]

9. A chicken when I was in the Peace Corps.

[YOY]

25. What country? what group?

I slaughtered a couple of pigs in Bulgaria. A few chickens as well.

[GodlessBiker]

28. In Ghana...chickens were plentiful.

[YOY]

32. Oooh...Africa. You da hard corps!

Taverner and Crispini are also RPCV, by-the-way. Thailand in seperate groups about 10 years apart if memory serves. We occasionally all wind up on threads where the PC is mentioned.

[GodlessBiker]

38. Great. I figured there had to be a few RPCVs around here.

[crispini]

71. You rang?

:hi: I helped kill a turkey once, in Thailand. Our Thanksgiving dinner!

[YOY]

76. If I tell my Christmas piggie stories I'll scare the shit out of some people here.

I looked a little like this except male and in an old beat up jacket.

Balkan Bloodbath...

[alfredo]

67. Were you issued you own pet amoeba? All the Peace Corp in Ethiopia

had their bouts with them. One got eaten by a croc. He was stupid, he was sunning himself by a river. I saw a picture of his remains. gross

http://playwrighter.blogspot.com/2008/05/so-i-was-going-through-some-really-old.html


I was ASA up in Eritrea. We weren't allowed to fraternize with Peace Corp because of the potential risk for them being associated with spooks, and for us accidentally spilling secrets to them. We still did hang with them. I also hung with the French and Swedish versions of the Peace Corp. The Swedes were serious, the French loved to party. Both got the jobs done, but were very different off duty. I was there 1966 to late 69.

I was freaked when Reagan put a CIA man in charge of the Peace Corp. He must have wanted our people imprisoned under suspicion of being spies, or kicked out of the country.

[YOY]

74. Well, you're added to the DU list now.

Hmpf! 2 more RPCVs on a thread that has nothing immediately to do with the PC. Interesting.

[alfredo]

102. What coincidence! My wife just told me that I'm on her list.

Damn, I'm getting popular.

Anyway, I was hoping to guide it to killing crocs for a living. I was offered a job as a croc hunter down in southern Ethiopia. Their hides were the real reason for the hunt, but the meat is used by the hunting party and to feed the locals. The population of crocs had exploded and they were endangering people and their livestock, so commercial hunting was allowed to bring their numbers down.

I turned it down because I didn't want to work all night in a crocodile infested malaria swamp. Anyway, it is bad enough gutting a chicken. I can imagine the offal from a Croc. I might find the hunter I replaced.

[Name removed]

103. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[alfredo]

114. thank you for clearing that up. That's what happens through the

grapevine. There's another danger in the waters of Ethiopia, Schistosoma (blood flukes). At the high elevations where we lived, there wasn't much problem with the flukes and malaria, but we still stayed out of the water. The only swimming I did was at the beach north of Massawa, but then the sharks and stingrays were a concern.

I remember one PCV telling me about living in a village where the all women had the same splayed teeth. She seemed to be experiencing culture shock as it related to the treatment of women.

Most PCV's I met were in Asmara for medical treatment at the Kagnew Station Army hospital.
http://web.mac.com/alfredo_tomato/Kagnew_Images/Kagnew_page_1.html




I remember the house girls used their money to buy gold.

[alfredo]

116. BTW, welcome to DU!!!

I see you were in the land of burnt faces at the same time I was there. I was there from July 3 1966 to august 22 1969.

[Gormy Cuss]

10. No, because fish don't count.

[dysfunctional press]

11. why don't fish count?

:shrug:

[GodlessBiker]

Some animals are more equal than others.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

20. Yeah, they stay in schools, how come??? n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Because they are not warm and cuddly, of course. nt

[cobalt1999]

46. Dolphin-safe tuna, that’s great if you’re a dolphin. What if you’re a tuna? ...

Dolphin-safe tuna, that’s great if you’re a dolphin. What if you’re a tuna? ... I’m not cute enough for you?” - Drew Carey.

[slackmaster]

42. My ex-wife once had a job as a lab assistant for an icthyologist at a university

His words of wisdom when she started the job: "Fish are dumb."

[cobalt1999]

47. Hey, I did that job while at the University too!

I always smelled kinda bad going to my class afterward though!

[YOY]

75. I had some guy in the Peace Corps tell me that there was a study showing that they had feelings.

I asked exactly how they determined that fish had feelings. He had no answers.

[slackmaster]

86. I've had pet goldfish before, and do believe they have some semblence of personality

Not anything like my cats or even my tortoise, but they do seem genuinely glad to have something to look at when you are around.

[YOY]

90. I think I know the action you are talking about.

Interested because it may involve food or a threat might be what you are seeing as glad...maybe that's just me.

[Posteritatis]

100. Because if they did that would reduce the no votes and risk undermining the OP (nt)

[sandnsea]

12. Yes, I've helped

I've never hunted and don't think I could ever shoot an animal. But I did help kill farm animals as a kid. And I've helped skin and gut and cut and wrap. The turkey scene didn't bother me, although I do think it's a horrible way to kill turkeys. The idiot talking about having some "fun" and "levity" at a turkey slaughter was so macabre it was almost funny in a very Monty Python sort of way. What a complete fool.

[tularetom]

13. We had cows here for 20 years and I never slaughtered one of them

but we have killed and cleaned lots of chickens.

As a kid I helped my grandma make sausage right from the pig. It was pretty yucky.

And of course the occasional duck, quail, dove or pheasant.

[atreides1]

14. Yes I Have

A deer and wild rabbits.

[KansDem]

15. Do fish count?

I used to go backpacking in the High Sierras and would catch trout that I cleaned and cooked.

But that was the only animal I ever "killed and cleaned."

[Island Blue]

16. Yes, but only if you are counting fish in your poll. n/t

Edited to say: Nevermind, apparently fish don't count. I would be helpful to read the entire post before responing, I guess.

[cali]

17. no. I've raised chickens and a pig once, but I don't do the killing or cleaning

[flvegan]

18. Nope. n/t

[Alter Ego]

19. No, but I have eaten an animal that was killed and cleaned by

an immediate family member.

Is this another "you should totally be a vegetarian" thread? Because you're not going to convince me to give up steak and venison.

[BurtWorm]

21. Do houseflies count?

:crazy:

[YOY]

27. Only to Renfield.

[GodlessBiker]

30. You cleaned and butchered a house fly?

[Occam Bandage]

23. Why don't fish count? They're animals, and the cleaning process isn't that different.

I assume the answer is that many people have cleaned fish, since just about everyone has the opportunity to catch, clean, and cook a fish, while it's a bit harder to acquire livestock or game.

On edit: I'm aware that it's more unpleasant to clean a mammal than it is to clean a fish, since there tends to be more blood and stink.

[cobalt1999]

24. Yes to both.

I've done a bit of minimalist camping/hiking in the past. That included catching and eating rabbits, birds, and fish.

I've killed chickens while on my aunts farm while growing up too.

Obviously most people are far removed from what they eat and it's not just meat. How many people grow their own fruits & vegetables now a days? How many people can go into a forest and know what is edible and what isn't?

To most of the modern world, hunting/gathering/growing has been replaced with the local supermarket.

[Sabriel]

26. Yes, and there's nothing worse than the smell of grouse guts

Ewg. That's a smell that takes me back to childhood.

[ThomWV]

37. But, oh my Gawd!, there is nothing better than Ruffed Grouse

It is my very favorite fowl.

[RebelOne]

29. If I had the choice of killing an animal

and starvation, I'd probably choose starvation. I could never kill an animal.

[Occam Bandage]

31. You may reconsider around day three.

Mammals have all sorts of instincts against starvation, and you are, after all, a predator. Your eyes are forward-facing for a reason.

[cobalt1999]

36. You've never experienced true hunger then.

Otherwise, you wouldn't be so sure of that choice.

[Ysabel]

33. why don't fish count...?

- yes once (24 yrs. ago) a fish and imo that counts / i didn't vote in this poll...

[Downtown Hound]

34. Since fish don't count, then no

But I gave up fishing years ago. I hate killing animals, and I don't like it that they have to die for me. I would love to be a vegetarian, but I simply like meat too much. If there's any vegetarians out there that can help me to change my carnivorous ways, I'd be glad to listen.

[tosh]

35. Nope, but....

my cat critters have.:cry:

[slackmaster]

39. No (other than fish), but I would like to try my hand at hunting some day

Once I have enough free time and someone to teach me.

[OwnedByFerrets]

40. Yes, before I grew up and matured in my thinking.

[sharp_stick]

41. Oh yes I have

Grew up on a farm, we had get togethers for the work. The entire family and neighbors would all help out each other. Chickens, ducks & turkeys were done over a couple of days on each farm. Cattle were slaughtered and dressed by the individual farmer and then hung in a cooler for a couple of weeks before everyone got together to butcher the meat. We didn't raise a lot of pigs, occassionally we'd have one but we usally bought pork from neighboring farmers or co-op's. I have helped butcher pigs but never had to kill one.

Oddly enough, I remember these days fondly. It was one of the few times that everybody was together and we were all able to talk.

[AlCzervik]

43. yes, lobsters, it was the first time i ever cooked them and after that i couldn't eat them

they kept knocking the top off the pot and i swear to god they were screaming, it literally made me sick to my stomach and i haven't eaten lobster since and i no longer eat any meat.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

126. That's why you stab a knife through their heads first

:hide:

That never really bothered me, but I grew up with lobsters, blue crabs, etc being a "normal" food, so that probably makes a difference.

[boozepusher]

44. Yes

Deer, rabbit, squirrel, chickens, and lots and lots of yummy fish.

[OKNancy]

45. Quail and Rabbit, killed, skinned the rabbit and cooked

and ate it. All this when I was a newly married gal many years ago.

[IndianaJones]

95. squirrel, rabbit, deer, wild pig, chicken. nt.

[Mari333]

48. never.

We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.
-- Rachel Carson

[jobycom]

49. Well, I've killed and cleaned a zuchinni, and since I'm vegetarian, that

puts me pretty close to what I eat.

I've killed and cleaned fish (not sure why that doesn't count) and other seafood, and helped with chickens and rabbits as a kid. Didn't help very much, though.

[TygrBright]

50. Not killed, but definitely cleaned.

Used to have a deal with a hunter; he'd shoot the birds and bunnies, I'd dress and clean them and hang them if needed.

I don't have the hand/eye coordination to shoot well enough for responsible food hunting.

informatively,
Bright

[mike_c]

51. I do several lambs every year with a couple of friends....

Free range, organic Humboldt County lamb. I have a freezer full. Yum.

[hunter]

69. For some reason the sheep herders get upset when I hunt lamb...

:P

[rasputin5]

120. Well don't switch to cows...those cattlemen can be real cantankerous.

:D

[Ganja Ninja]

52. Lots of times.

I come from a family that had 8 kids. We raised chickens and killed and ate them all the time.

[RedCappedBandit]

53. Yes, considering fish are animals

I didn't vote, considering your limitations.

[TwilightGardener]

54. Yes, fish.

[JimWis]

55. Squirrels. But that was a lot of years ago. I came to a point where

I couldn't kill animals anymore. Just the way it is.

[Qibing Zero]

56. Fish and nervous systems

What's the consensus on that these days? Are fish not considered to be a big deal because they can't feel pain in the same way other animals can? Not going to lie - that was a decent justification for me when I used to fish, heh.

[AngryAmish]

57. Have I cleaned an animal I killed? No.

I have killed and cleaned animals. But I have never cleaned an animal I killed.

I don't hunt but my BIL does.

And for those out there that don't know: Pheasants are tasty.

[LostinVA]

58. Fish many times, and I've eaten animals that had JUST been killed and dressed

Including chicken, turkey, and venison.

[alfredo]

59. Mostly fish I caught, and when I was a kid, chickens from our coop was

on the menu.

[Cleita]

60. Never killed a chicken, but did have to help with the plucking and cleaning. n/t

[kestrel91316]

61. I am gonna say yes because I have gone hunting with my dad as a kid

and been right there when he killed it and assisted in the cleaning and butchering, so that's virtually the same to me.

Oh, and in vet school we all had to learn how to break a chicken's neck but that was for doing a postmortem exam and not for eating, but there's really no diff to me when it's a chicken.

I have done enough postmortems on cattle and other livestock that it has to count for SOMETHING, lol, and I euthanize animals on a regular basis. I would have no qualms about killing and butchering my own meat and have done enough different components of the process already that it's all the same. The physical logistics of slaughtering a cow would deter me - that's why you call out the custom slaughter guy with his trailer to do the job on site for you if you have a farm or ranch.

Chickens are a piece of cake, and I plan to keep AND EAT them some day.

Oh, and even though fish supposedly don't count, I have caught and cleaned (and eaten) so many since I was about 4 years old that I have long since lost any idea how many.

[guitar man]

62. yessir

Country boy here. Deer, quail,squirrel, tons of fish. On the domestic side, have butchered hogs.

[LeftyMom]

63. Fuck no.

I worry about people who do shit like that. :scared:

[EstimatedProphet]

65. I worry about people that worry about things like that.

[LeftyMom]

72. Good.

That means I'm on the right track. :D

[EstimatedProphet]

64. I have

Deer, and numerous fish, both wild and raised.

The issue IMO is not whether people are offended by the fact that turkey slaughtering is going on, but that it happens as shown in a TV interview. For myself, I don't think it should have been staged the way it was on camera, and I am very close to my food sources.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

66. Deer, Beef, Hog, Chicken, Pheasant, Rabbit, Squirrel, Grouse

All in all, the deer was the most disturbing, especially "caping" it, i.e. the careful process of starting at one end of the deer's hide and gently pulling it off so as to create a single large piece of deerskin. "Peeling" would be another appropriate term. Seeing what had been only an hour before an animal gracefully leaping through the hills reduced to a skinned nightmare of a thing was most unsettling the first time I saw it.

Many cultures that process their own meats do so in a celebratory atmosphere. While we Americans think beef, pork and chicken comes from the grocery store, peoples who butcher their own know better and are far less wasteful in the process. There's a great scene in one of Tony Bourdain's shows where he records a Portuguese hog-killing. Lots of people doing lots of work in a genial-but-determined atmosphere. Lots of wine. Kids playing soccer with the blown up pig's bladder. It struck me as a very faithful rendition of what it actually means to "eat."

Compare that to the Smithfield Meats slaughter line in TarHeel, NC, where hogs zoom past on an assembly line and they kill and butcher 32,000 animals per day. Compare that to the Cowschwitzes of Nebraska, where soon-to-be-killed cattle stand knee-deep in their own feces while eating food that they were never meant to consume.

An interesting side-note: in decades past, the arrival of October meant hog-killin' time here in the hills. In the last thirty years, however, October is still warm weather, too warm, in fact, for "cuttin' a fat hog," (an old Southern euphemism for having a big celebration) when higher temperatures vastly increase the risk of pathogen growth and cross-contamination.

I've been talking with my son-in-law about us building a smokehouse and killing a couple of hogs in the fall as a money-saving and less hormone-infested, anti-biotic doped way of feeding the family. If you're a meat-eater and you've never had home-smoked chops, bacon, ham or sausage, you haven't lived. In addition, I've a grandson and granddaughter now, and I'm working on building them some memories.

Growing up in the Depression here in West Virginia, my father, a little boy then, cherished his Sunday morning trips to his Grandfather's house, where "Pa Davis," through the week a coal miner, but a doting grandfather on Sundays (this was before the five-day work-week; the "Cump'ny owned him six days a week and paid him in "Cump'ny Scrip," as opposed to American money) would take the little tyke to the smokehouse out behind the company house he lived in, open the door to that dark and shadowy room with the light piercing in rays through the chinks room where the butcher block stood in the center and the meats hung from the rafters and say "What you want for breakfast, boy?" Dad always chose the pork chops and Pa Davis would haul the rack off the hook, lay it on the block and cut off what Dad swore were, to his young eyes, "pork chops three inches thick" and then say "C'mon. Let's go take these to Ma for our breakfast."

After he came back from the war, Dad would re-pay the kindness by bringing Pa Davis an occasional pint of whiskey "For Ma Davis wouldn't want me seen at the liquor store. She sets great store by the respect of the preacher. You bring it in the back door, now, in case he's here when you get back."

Dad learned to loathe a preacher in those days, and never forgot the shame they made a noble old working man feel.

Sorry for running off-topic, but topic itself got the memory-juices flowing.


Get On The H.O.R.N.!
www.headonradionetwork.com
America's Liberal Voice


On Edit: Pronoun trouble

[PufPuf23]

68. Domestic and wild both

Grew up rural with cattle, pigs, and chickens (and horses but not for eating). Killed and cleaned chickens on occasion to help my mother or grandmother. We sent most cattle to market and had beef and pork custom butchered for family use.

Fished regularly until mid 30s and no fishing since. I miss the plentiful smoked and canned salmon and steelhead of my childhood.

Grew up in a hunting and fishing culture (grandparents had a hunting and fishing resort for 35+ years) and have killed and cleaned deer, blue and ruffed grouse, quail, and band-tailed pigeons as a young teen. I also killed ground squirrels (as varmints colonizing alfalfa)and a raccoon once that got in the chicken coop. I have seen bears butchered as well. However, I have not had a hunting license nor hunted since age 16 because I neither liked to shoot guns recreationally nor otherwise nor kill. This change came about when I went to prep school near San Francisco and became active in anti-Vietnam war events. I am not anti-guns nor anti-hunting (except bear), the activities are just not my cup of tea.

So I am a HUGE hypocrite in that I eat meat but would never NOW raise nor hunt my own nor do I enjoy being around food animals.

[Undercurrent]

70. I'm a country gal

so yes to both. I've killed, cleaned, and eaten all sorts of animals from fish, to fowl, to mammals. I've even eaten snake and insects. In fact I never ate beef until I was 9 years old.

My mom was part Mennonite and part Cherokee -- and a hunter. She imparted in me a reverence for animals, even in the killing of them for food. They were respected, and were given a thankful prayer for their giving their lives so my family could eat.

An animal was NEVER killed for sport in my family.

[RT Atlanta]

73. Doves and rabbits

n/t

[RedLetterRev]

77. Yes. I grew up way-out in the country

and I live way-out in the country now. I have a feeling the economy is going to dictate that those who can do some growing and processing of our own meat -- or learn to do without it.

I plan to have chickens this spring for meat and eggs. Deer are more than plentiful where I live and I've plenty of land where I can legally and safely hunt, so, yes, I'll probably have one or two in my freezer next winter. I'll admit, though, I'll probably do the shivering, the shooting, and the bringing back while my husbear will probably do most of the processing. I'll probably have to deal with the chickens, though. I've processed those before; he hasn't. He's processed deer before; I haven't. We both grew up in the country, but we've got different skill-sets that we're teaching each other as we put our own farm together.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

78. Family of Scots

. . . so hunting was always a big deal. The menfolk tend to live for whatever's in season (guns and bows) and I hardly remember a weekend the garage didn't stink of an abattoir. My brothers probably couldn't feed their families if they didn't have freezers full of carcasses. My dad, especially, would eat anything, from amphibians to large mammals. Nothing was ever wasted--this was a guy who even sucked the marrow out of the bones. . .

This may be why I always leaned toward vegetarianism.

BTW, I don't think fish are quite as dumb as they're cracked up to be. I've had a couple Oscars as pets and they were like watery puppies--they'd even get excited and pace the tank when they heard the car pull into the drive.

[WeDidIt]

79. Many many many times

Chickens, rabbits (tame and wild), lambs, fish (wild), antelope,...

and many others.

[superduperfarleft]

80. I've killed fish when I was younger (yes, they do count)

But that was many many years ago. Haven't since and never would again.

[rucky]

81. Trout. n/t

[jmg257]

82. Sure - squirrel, rabbit, pheasant, duck, deer, crab, lobster, clams...nt

[mb7588a]

83. Only fish. nt.

[Paladin]

84. Yes, Lots Of Deer, Wild Birds, Years Ago.....And Guess What?

Even with all that field dressing and eating of wild game, I somehow managed to avoid the sort of obnoxious superiority complex invariably on display in threads such as these, wielded by DU outdoorsmen against supermarket shoppers....

[Greybnk48]

85. I've killed, cleaned and eaten fish once. Having worked in the O.R. at one

time, it really wasn't much different than a human, which grossed me out. Now if we fish it's catch and release. I try to eat a vegetarian diet, but I haven't been successful so far.

[Karenina]

87. Modern societies' "conveniences" place them

too far removed from that which sustains them.

[Swamp Rat]

93. Liebling!

:hi::hug: Wie Gehts? :loveya:

The only thing edible 'in the wild' I found near you was in Schwarzwald: a huge, orange slug.

[Karenina]

94. TRAIFE!!

:rofl::puke::rofl:

How 'bout that Palin turkey slaughter, eh? :rofl:

[Blue_In_AK]

88. Not me personally, but I was around it a lot as a child.

I spent my early years on a farm in southwest Ohio. I watched my grandmother kill and clean many a chicken, and my uncles used to hunt squirrels, rabbits and other little critters that we ate. I saw them skin and clean a lot of those.

[NNN0LHI]

89. Why the fish don't count exception?

Just curious?

Don

[threadkillaz]

91. A Hot Dog.

Shot him with my BB gun and microwaved his ass.

Didnt even skin him.

Added cheese.

[ljm2002]

92. Why don't fish count?

It's the only animal I have killed and cleaned. Ironically, I couldn't eat them as I am allergic.

I grew up in a hunting culture and have no objection to hunting and using the meat. Love venison. Had a neighbor who hunted every year and made wonderful sausage among other things.

I think that people need to examine their attitudes in this area. If you're a vegetarian, then you get to be more militant on the topic. If you eat meat, then you don't get to be all "Ooh, that's gross!" about killing animals. Although everyone has the right to demand humane treatment of animals and humane methods of killing them. In fact meat eaters have more of an obligation in this area IMO.

I have little patience with people who get their meat all neatly packaged in plastic wrap and think they can wash their hands of the killing part. You can't. If you buy meat, you have contributed to killing that animal just as surely as the person who did the deed. Deal with it, and take responsibility for helping to ensure those animals are properly treated when alive, and are butchered as humanely as possibly.

PS: I loathe Sarah Palin and I think it's funnier than hell that she would do her turkey pardoning on tape while turkeys are being butchered in the background. It shows what a moronic person she is IMO.

[City Lights]

96. No. nt

[Phoonzang]

97. A crab. Kind of.

I helped.

[Sanctified]

98. I think Animals taste better when you do the work. n/t

[NeedleCast]

99. Yup

Cattle on my grandfathers ranch.

Most got sold. The rest were some of the best steaks I ever had.

[Shrek]

101. Many times

Quail, pheasants, doves, ducks, geese, rabbits, and squirrels.

Fish too, although for some reason they don't seem to count.

[SoCalDem]

104. When I was a kid, my parents fished for BIG fish

they would lower them down onto the raft-float thingie where us kids would straddle them, scale them and gut them.. I was about 8-10 years old.. We did that for ages, until one of the parents saw our ritual.. *this was wee-hours of the am fishing..anyway.. we would be covered with fish scales , so we took turns jumping from the raft to "wash off".. It had never occured to any of us until that night, that there were sharks & barracudas that were feasting on what we were putting into the water :scared:

Those fish we cleaned were 40lb & up

[sohndrsmith]

105. Fishing doesn't count? Why?

In my view, fishing is hunting, one just uses a different weapon.

The process of seeking a wild creature to capture, kill and consume is the same even if the tools are different.

As far as using firearms to kill an animal, the only creatures I've ever assassinated with a bullet have been none other than those wily, elusive, inimitable... paper targets, empty ammo boxes floating on the pond, or, depending on the season, the rare tin can or old coke bottle. I know, I know... it's sick to find sport in such violence... what's worse, it was purely for sport, and it was tough to outwit some of them, I must say.

I never did eat any of those cans, bottles or targets. Ever. Didn't even try to acquire a taste for any of it, either. Dayum... I feel bad, now... <wink>

I used to love to fish, but I gradually found it harder and harder, and oddly enough, the first thing that started this process concerned hooking the worms. I couldn't stand it because they would clearly writhe when impaled (which was the objective - the writhing entices the fish). I never minded gutting and cleaning fish, but I always had trouble with the killing part. Toward the end of my fishing activities, I'd always throw them back, but that didn't work for me either because they would often bleed and would always be terrorized, there were times when I'd wonder if they would be so weakened they wouldn't survive.

I'm not sure why fishing is different than say bow hunting.... you go to the animal's habitat with the intent to capture and kill using a pointed metal (or carbon, etc.) object. Aim and skill are involved in both, so I don't get the exclusion, personally. But the distinction seems to have always been around, so maybe I'm missing something. It's been known to happen on occasion : )

[litlady]

106. Have been involved in raising many farm animals but not killed them.

In fact, many of the animals were raised for eventual slaughter and some slaughtered on site, but I never participated.

[LaurenG]

107. No - this is part of the reason I don't eat meat

I can't/won't kill it. :cry:

[B Calm]

108. I raised rabbits for awhile. Killing lop ear bunny rabbits got the best

of me. I ended up never raising livestock again. I gave up hunting too. I still kill an occasional raccoon or opossum that turns up to be a garden pest, but I hate to kill animals. I still fillet hundreds of fish every year with no regrets. . .

[Seldona]

109. Yes.

I was a bird hunter myself, mostly waterfowl. Duck hunters are very conservation minded people in my experience. Still get teary-eyed thinking about my chocolate lab Tipper from those days. We spent more time training than hunting.

Going to get back to it if I am able sometime.

[mnhtnbb]

110. Hubby used to do a goose/duck hunt every December. He would bring home

the frozen birdies and I would eventually make duck/goose gumbo, then freeze individual portions for
him to eat for lunches (I didn't like the stuff).

But, no, I haven't personally killed and cleaned animals to eat--just done the cooking.

[ThePowerofWill]

111. All the time.

I raise my own livestock out of self defense. I do not hunt anymore, but have and can again if needed.

[Dorian Gray]

112. No

Just fish.

[LWolf]

113. Which animals count as animals?

Since fish aren't animals.

[aikoaiko]

115. Only fish.

[scarletwoman]

117. I killed, cleaned, and ate a rattlesnake once. Other than that, scores of fish -- 32 salmon in one

evening after a weekend of dipnetting when I lived in Alaska. Froze, canned, or smoked the whole lot -- it was part of our winter food supply.

I helped clean a moose once, that had been hit by a train. I got a share of the meat for helping out, it was great!

I love venison; deer hunting is a big deal where I'm living now, and there are always friends who give some away, so I haven't had to do my own hunting. If it came down to a matter of survival, I think I could kill a deer myself, but I'd prefer not to be faced with that decision.

The rattlesnake? It's a long story. The meat was actually quite tasty, however. ;)

sw

[jmowreader]

118. I can tell you how NOT to kill a juvenile rabbit

My unit at Fort Drum had a week of training with a Special Forces A-team. It was pretty fun--one day medical training, two days explosives training, a day of survival training and a day of firearms training. The survival training included instruction on how to kill wild animals silently. Because they didn't want to spend the time trying to teach us to catch them, they went to a feed store and bought a bunch of rabbits. I got the smallest one; it was about the size of a 3-month-old kitten.

Naturally, the SF guys are all "you'll never be able to kill that, it's too cute."

They taught us that if you want to kill a rabbit silently, you grab it by the back feet and whack its back against a tree. This works on an adult rabbit and it's humane--they die instantly of a broken back and shock. When your intended victim weighs a pound and a half, that doesn't work at all--there's not enough weight to cause its back to break and it just bounces off the tree. Unfortunately, NONE of us--either I or the SF guys--knew this. And I've got this pissed-off juvenile rabbit ready to kick my ass...fortunately, I carry a nice hunting knife into the field. I should have just beheaded it in the first place, because that's how I finished it off.

In non-rabbit kills, I've shot grouse, cleaned and eaten them, killed deer, cleaned a lot of the fish that supposedly don't count...

[texanwitch]

119. I grew up on a farm.

I know where food comes from.

Every winter a young cow and pig would be killed for the freezer and smokehouse.

I chopped the heads off a lot chickens.

You learned not to make pets out of what you would eat.

[trayfoot]

121. NO.....But....

I have watched my father, brother, and husband do that more times than I can count.

[Ilsa]

122. No, but I have held rabbits while Dad skinned

and cleaned them. I think there is more respect granted to animals by those who have had to perform these tasks.

And yes, I have cleaned fish that I have caught.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

123. Why don't fish count?

[hlthe2b]

124. fish... does that count?

[WindRiverMan]

125. Yes, I have done both

My family has basically "lived off of the land" in Alaska for many years. A moose will provide meat for two families for an entire year. A moose or two caribou for red meat, lots of halibut and salmon, razor clams and butter clams, and prawns a few ptarmigan and grouse. Maybe a deer some years or if I am lucky a sheep (dall sheep meat is the finest table fare of any wild game), and I have even eaten black bear but I don't care for it all that much, so the blackies are safe from me.

Really, it came to down to a simple question, "Who do you trust more, feed lots and meat packers or mother nature and me". I know where my meat comes from, I know how it was treated once it hit the ground, and I know how it was processed into food for the dinner table. No hormones, no antiobiotics, no ecoli from cross contamination. My meat is all free range organic and processed at home where I am meticulous about being clean.

For those who critcize this lifestyle, all I can say is this. Taking a life is serious business. Oh, the hunting experience is in and of itself great fun living in the deep bush for two weeks, mentally, and physically challenging, and a time to forget the civilized life and get back in touch with a simpler existence. But no mistake, when the time comes to pull the trigger, I am well aware of the life I am about to end. I have the greatest respect for these creatures, and I love them all. I take what I need to feed my family and maybe a friend or two, but no more. The act of killing is not joyous, it is solemn, for I realize a living breathing being will cease to exist by my hand. I have respect for vegetarians, they live their lifestyle and more power to them. It is their choice. I don't feel the same about those who imbide in prime rib but call hunting "barbaric". A life is a life, and I personally, have never been able to make the quantum leap that a cow's life is less valuable than a moose's life. I am sure the cow agrees, as I grew up on a working cattle ranch, and I never saw a cow seem to think its life was insignificant. If they think they are in danger, they react in terror just like a deer or a wild boar.

Just my thoughts.