What's more rewarding than butchering your own animals?.....

[Mjollnir]

....... having kids who insist on helping!

14 New Zealand Whites and 3 eager helpers!


Eldest helping skin.


Youngest tossing the feet and heads into the waste bin.


Eldest eager to move onto the Pekins.

[610Alpha]

It doesn't get much better than that!! How old is the youngest? Not sure my 3 yo is ready to see one of Papa's ducks gutted...nor do i think my 2 yo daughter is ready to see a fluffy bunny without its fluff... How did you go about getting your kids ready for this? Is there a secret?

[1Admin]

Teach them early that it's meat and don't make them pets.

Not too long ago we started a new batch of chickens. The boy loves playing with them. He picked a favorite, a Rhode Island Red and named it "George W. Bush"- some of the other chickens are Ronald Reagan, James A. Garfield, etc. The boy is a history buff.

I realized a couple months ago "George" was a "Georgette" LOL. Told him that. He wasn't convinced at first, "well he has some combs, they just aren't that big yet." From having RI Reds before I knew that "Georgette" would likely be one of the first if not the first of the new batch to lay an egg.

So we started getting eggs from this new batch recently. I brought a couple in on the down low and took a magic marker and put a "W" on them. "W" for George W. Bush.

We got a laugh out of it, I'd ask "did "Dub" drop some more eggs?" every time he went out there. Finally he saw her get up off an egg and realized old Dad was right.

The wife just said to him "well babe, George/Georgette is a lot more useful to us as a hen. Besides, we rarely eat the hens."

[Mjollnir]

Our youngest is 2.5, the oldest(now nearly 8) started helping when she was 4. We've always told them where meat comes from and explain it as part of the whole circle of life. We stress the importance of respecting our animals and treating them humanely from birth through butcher. We try to make it as normal as possible, just another part of everyday live and discourage family and friends from saying that it isn't. We also don't let them "play" with them and emphasize that their purpose is our food. Not sure if it will work for everyone but it has for us.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Awesome, thats the way it's supposed to be!

[eeyore]

Good stuff, i have a little help from mine on construction from my oldest three and my oldest helps sometimes on butchering but none of the "ukky stuff" lol,