It came to me, quite unexpectedly, that if I thought too much about it I could become vegetarian!
Now that's a scary thought, having been brought up on a farm & eaten animals that I have 'known', but the past week or so has brought the more contemplative side of me to the fore. Let me explain. The chicken family that we have is a pure hit or miss with gender. We have chickens because we like the eggs they produce. Try as we like we cannot get roosters to lay eggs, thus they do not earn their keep. They get very hungry though and we have to feed them. They cannot scratch enough feed in their run. So several weeks ago we heard about a place that would do the 'deed'. It took a while to find where this place was. In fact it was while visiting the place I get beef from that I found about the chicken place.
While I was at the beef place, the farmer told me he had just killed a bull - did I want to see it? Well, not being squeamish & being a farmers daughter there was only one answer - 'of course!'. So there the bull was in all his undignified glory, hind legs hauled high, belly bared and head on the drain. In his mouth was his last mouthful of grass - his last supper. This beast had no idea what was happening as the .22 was put to his head. He had no fear of his impending doom. Which brings me back to our chickens.
We had to get our chickens to the 'processing place' on Wednesday morning. Phil wanted to catch them when it was still dark as they still roost then. Our only means of transporting them was to bag them. An undignified way to travel, but safe. Once at the destination they then had to be put in crates to await there turn(!). Phil was very uncomfortable about the whole proceedings, but was realistic that it had to happen. My thoughts were more convoluted than that. I have a tendency to put human emotion to any situation, be it an animal, book - anything! I worry about the fear that went through the heads & hearts of our chickens. It upsets me - almost enough to not want to eat meat. I say almost, because I enjoy the meat & we were designed to eat meat, but I only wish our chickens could have gone the same way as the bull!