Have you ever killed an animal, dressed it, and processed it for consumption?

I helped my dad pluck chickens. I hate to admit it, but my dad also made me hold the back legs of rabbits while he skinned them. I was raised in a farming community, so I could be petting the chicken or rabbit in the morning and having it for dinner that night – doesn’t bother me.

I never had to actually kill an animal, unless fish count.

I am just barely over 6 decades old.

Just fish. 5 years ago a customer pulled into our parking lot and offered up just shot deer to whoever wanted one. I took one and took it to a butcher who processed the meat and kept some and gave away the rest to whoever wanted some. I could do so if I had to but I have no desire to dispatch an animal for food. If I am going to be outdoors I would rather be fishing or play golf. 53 yrs. old for just a few more days.

I’m 36 and grew up on a farm. By the time I was ten I had learned how to turn cows, pigs, and chickens into pan ready products. It isn’t pretty and I am glad I don’t have to it now, but if shit goes down I know how.

Fish, but I could do others. I’ve seen rabbits and squirrels and deer done. I think I could do it. I’m 45.

I’m in my 60’s and was raised in a rural town. Plucking chickens, field-dressing game, hunting, shooting, cleaning and cooking pheasant, catching and cleaning fish, and cooking them up for dinner, all stuff I’ve done, and enjoyed.

I’ve never so much as cleaned a fish. I find it interesting that most of the affirmative answers are from farm folk ‘of an age’, @johnpowell being the youngest.

I hope we get some urban and some younger members to reply.

Hats off to those who have actually participated in the process of turning animals into meat.

More rabbit and squirrel than I can count.

I also learned how to process a chicken from my Grandmother.

Once in awhile I would see my grandfather cleaning fish he caught…from a distance. I didn’t want anywhere near there.
I am also a vegetarian.
I am 45.

I’m 32, and have never done any of this. Went fishing once, actually caught a small catfish. That’s about it.
Thing is I’ve always lived in cities, not exactly hunting ground material. Anyways I don’t know how to hunt, let alone prepare an animal to be eaten after. However I did read an interesting article once about a former homeless man who was giving steps to catching city pigeons, and how to prepare and eat them. He even tells you how to tell if the pigeon you caught is good to eat or not. I wanted to post the article here, but I can’t find it anymore. Just wanted to mention it though, as it was very interesting.

Fish, from over a half-century ago. We may have frozen some for later eating, but mostly I would also cook and eat for breakfast the fish that I used to catch early in the morning. (I wasn’t cooking so much when I was ten, but in my teens, anyway.)

Only fish.

I am over 3 decades old.

My grandfather who lived in the city used to hunt and had a makeshift farm in his backyard complete with hunting dogs.

He wasn’t afraid of anything.

He would put his hand down holes and it didn’t matter what lied beneath, he did this one time and a possum grabbed his hand and bit him my grandfather grabbed the possum by it’s neck pulled it out of the hole and quickly whipped it breaking its neck all while the animal had its teeth firmly planted in my grandfather’s hand.

If rednecks exist my grandfather was a 6 foot 3 240 lb toothless steak eating one.

After all of the stuff I saw, I have never once killed an animal.

I have never actually had a lot of meat.

I wanted to try fishing one time, but the person who had the pole told me I had to cut the eyeball off of the dead fish that was on the shoreline, I was about 5, I couldn’t do it, so I never fished.

I ate seafood once almost died,
I’ve had ground beef, but mysteriously the few times I ate it I got physically ill.

I’m allergic to shellfish, lactose intolerant and allergic to gluten. :/

When it comes to food, I’m a minimalist. lol

But I can ‘kill’, dress, and cook a mean tofu! :)

EDIT:
Just wanted to add something, I was really small at the time of the incident with the ‘possum’.
Thinking about it, it may not have been a possum, I know it was big, cat sized, but to my knowledge just thinking now, most possums are not aggressive like that, maybe it was a raccoon. That is probably more fitting. Whatever it was, along with my allergies, the whole thing changed my views.

I’m 24 now but I have dressed fish that I caught, yes.
Within the past few years, I have helped my dad dress animals that he has caught and we subsequently ate them.

Rabbits, turkeys, and geese.

I did not grow up on a farm but I did grow up in a more rural area.

I may well have become a doctor of medicine had not my dad and grandpa tried to teach me too early this way of life.
I think it was quail or pheasant. Pretty big ones, too. “Danny!” they called. So I ran into the garage where they had the one birds head already lopped off and one of them was reaching down the fowl’s neck into his body. Then he pulled his arm out, all bloody, and pulled out gore and organs and veins and all sorts of nasty stuff.

I never again had illusions of entering the medical field.

Fish all the time, several tree rats back in the day.

I have raised, slaughtered, dressed and eaten chickens. I’m 28.

Only fish. And not happily. I used to go fishing with my dad and would cry every time he pulled a fish in on his line.

I totally had an Amelia Bedelia moment when I read dressed for consumption.

“Squab” is the fancy name for eating pigeons, @Symbeline

I’m vegetarian, too, @anniereborn & @KaY_Jelly. While I’m not personally against the principle of eating meat, I do wish more people were more familiar with what they’re actually eating and how it got there.

Did you eat the squirrels, @ARE_you_kidding_me? The only time I tried it, they were tough as rubber.

I say “good for you!” to @seekingwolf and @wildpotato for making informed decisions at an early age.

Sorry to those who dredged up a bad memory for this question!

I can remember helping my Dad catch fish when I was little. I love fishing, just don’t like the killing part. I prefer to catch and release. I remember seeing him gut it and so on and so forth. Yuck! I’m 45 now. I don’t think I could kill an animal. I feel too much for them. I can remember in my 20’s when I hit a baby bunny as I was turning a corner in my car. I cried like a baby. You all may laugh at me but I drove home, got a shovel and drove back to the dead bunny and buried him on the side of the road. That’s just me.

Awww, @SnoopyGirl. That’s sweet! Are you a meat eater?

I know any number of people that refuse to eat meat with bones in it, because it reminds them that they are eating animal parts. To me that’s nuts.

@ibstubro I do eat meat. Weird huh? I don’t let myself really think about the details. There are certain things I refuse to eat though…Veal and lamb and probably rabbit!

Both lamb and rabbit are delicious, @SnoopyGirl, although I no longer partake. I don’t recall ever eating veal, however, thank the Gourd!

Seeing how veal is raise was a factor in me being a veggie. Not a huge factor, but a factor all the same,

@SnoopyGirl Good for you – it’s always a good thing to move roadkill off the road, sentiment or no. It helps prevent additional deaths to the animals that come to scavenge.

No, but…when I kept exhibition poultry I had a Silver Spangled Hamburg hen die of crop binding and I cut open her crop with a utility knife to discover she had swallowed a feed bag string that bound up her crop and caused a blockage. I can do medical things to animals, but could never, outright kill and gut one, not even a fish. Bleh!

I’m 63 and I captured, cleaned cooked and ate razor clams today. My wife stir fried them for dinner. I won’t tell her this but she added too much black beans and I could hardly taste the clams. We still have a lot of clams left and I was to dip them in eggs, roll in cracker crumbs, fry to a golden brown and eat piping hot. She’s a dietitian and says that my way of cooking the clams is not healthy. I’ll have to wait until she is gone to have my way with the razor clams.

Also I’ve caught, cleaned, fried and steamed and ate many different types of fish.

Man. Your version of the clams sounds great @gondwanalon

@gondwanalon Wait til she’s gone? Are you planning on doing away with her? lol

Hey, @gondwanalon, bring your clams on over…you can cook them at my house. That way the dietitian won’t catch the frying smell. :)

I have about 5# of real butter in the box. We’ll REALLY do it up right.

Drag netted for scallops, dove for blue shell mussels and cooked NZ crayfish, but couldn’t eat any myself because of a shellfish allergy. Off the coast of NZ you can only free drive for crays. If you get caught using tanks, there is a HUGE fine. Oh, and paua shell, as well.

I’m 61. As a child, I was taught how to hunt, dress, and cook rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, and fish. I didn’t care for it.

I’m a meat eater, and I’m grateful that I can afford to pay someone else to do the dirty work.

But at least I have the experience to fall back on if starvation comes knocking at my door.

I love crayfish, @cazzie. Didn’t know they were in NZ.

At least you’re in touch with where your meat originates, @bossob. It wasn’t harvested from a hamburger plant, it’s ground up moo-cow.

When I was a kid, it took me quite awhile to realize the “chicken” we ate was the same thing as those living things.

@anniereborn
It actually didn’t take me long…my father ate some unkown smoked eel from my grandfather when I was about 7.

I screamed and threw a temper tantrum and told him not to eat the ‘snake’, I actually remember hanging onto his leg begging him not to, my sister had a pet snake, I was sure that was our friend, and I was sure my grandfather killed it. :/

My sister had the snake, she was not home. :)

I imagine that’s common, @anniereborn. More so and more so. I wouldn’t be surprised to see kids living exclusively in big cities not knowing into their 20’s.

Wouldn’t have had to beg me too hard, @KaY_Jelly. I was determined to make a meal of eel, cooked it 3–4 different ways, never ate more than a forkful. But I realize it’s a funny story!

@ibstubro An article you may find interesting.

@wildpotato I love that. And it makes me shake my head to think of the moral outrage expressed over letting children watch the autopsy of that giraffe in Copenhagen.

As a child, especially, I loved to go fishing, my brother and I spent a lot of time on the Orakei wharf in Auckland. As an adult I lived in a rural situation, my husband sometimes hunted pheasant, goats and rabbits and we raised our own poultry, he did the killing and skinning, I did the plucking and usually the cooking. I am 54.

Great article, @wildpotato, it’s a shame there can’t be something akin in public schools.

Although I’ve lived in the sticks all my life, I’ve never seen a bird plucked, @Adagio. I can’t really imagine it well.

My first boyfriend was on farms and ranches much of his childhood, and he began hunting with BB guns at age 8 and a .22 rimfire rifle at age 9. I have helped him prepare various game he shot. He shot a large deer in New Brunswick, Canada, and it provided us with food for months. Quail and pheasants were one meal items.

@wildpotato I totally agree. Plus, I hate to see dead animals squished in the road. Nothing worse than seeing someone’s cat or dog squished.

Did you help process the deer, @BiZhen? I’d like to help. Once.

I have helped him skin several deer, and I often cook the meat.

Good deal, @BiZhen. I thoroughly approve of hunting for food.
Not so much for sport.

I assisted, a little bit, in the slaughter, skinning and evisceration of a goat this morning. I was mostly there for observation of the process and to find out if I could handle it emotionally. I just started keeping a few dairy and fiber goats, and part of the deal is slaughtering the extra boys when they come around. I think I’ll be able to do it, so long as I can manage to not get too fond of them as individuals (goats are as intelligent and as full of personality as dogs, and kids are super cute and friendly) – but by shooting them in the head, not by slitting the throat like they did this morning. It was awful watching poor Apple die gasping for air, knowing how scared she must be. To be clear – Apple was not my goat; I had no say in the manner of her slaughter, nor the knowledge to dispute the owner’s chosen method. His claim is that shooting them is more traumatic than slitting the throat and thus causing them to suffocate in (presumably) great pain and terror. I am pretty sure that after this morning, I disagree – but will have to read and observe a lot more before I really figure things out.

I’m pretty sure I would not feel good about learning to deal with slaughtering something “as intelligent and as full of personality as dogs”, @wildpotato. Just not in my make-up, but I applaud your sense of responsibility.