Tomorrow we are going to butcher four Moscovy ducks at our place here.
It brought up different reactions in each of us. It was a request of our budding chef, volunteer Katie, who wants to learn as much about Farm to Table as she can. She saw nothing wrong with killing an animal to eat it, since she has made the choice to eat meat. Our other volunteer Margarita, who has witnessed home butchering, felt only sympathy for the animals. Me, the one who as a Buddhist has not killed any animals for many years, ( although I do throw slugs and snails to the chickens, then they can kill them) has considered this a lot.
Because we are a meat eating family, especially my husband, we eat grass fed, local animals, that I know have been raised humanely and kindly. Yet because I believe in the Biodynamic principles of gardening, and the value of animal manures in the compost to enrich the soil, is very important to me. It inherently brings with it the dilemma of animals whose value is no longer meeting the farming needs; and the old chicken that is no longer producing eggs needs to go into the soup pot. So that said, I knew I’d be sometime facing this moment. I’m going to see how it goes.
We then got on the discussion that taking another life creates violence within us. Then on the topic of guns. Which Katie abhorred, Margarita thought looked cute as a decoration and that I had to live with in my gun collecting Vietnam Vet husband.
Since keeping animals, especially for milk or dairy, brings with it the inevitability of babies born that won’t stay or have a long term place on the farm. The question arises as to how to humanely live a self sufficient lifestyle. Treating animals with respect and kindness and with careful husbandry is first and foremost to me. But the sanctuary I worked in seems to not fit here, and supporting animals that have outlived their usefulness is not smart farming.
The next question is whether we will put their viscera, blood and feathers on the compost pile? Are we not getting back to the roots of organic and traditional farming ? Shall I start to pick up fish heads and guts from the pier ? Why not, I regularly buy fish meal and blood meal containing fertilizers. Especially since I’ve realized that even though I was buying “organic” chicken manure, for gardens I was working in, it didn’t mean the chickens had been fed an organic diet. So therefore the manure bags were polluting my gardens with antibiotics and fly spray and the round up sprayed on the GMO corn.