Thanksgiving Turkey for the Soul

[kpete]

Thanksgiving Turkey for the Soul
A small farmer's first-person account of the reckoning: "I need to know my birds can resist."
—By Christie Aschwanden
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/11/small-farmers-thanksgiving-turkeys-soul

Thu November 26, 2009 4:00 AM PST

I never manage much sleep the night before the roundup.

By the time butchering day rolls around in early November, I've spent more than six months nurturing my flock of heritage turkeys from day-old poults into full-size roasters. This spring I hatched eggs from my breeding stock of three hens (and a tom) that I kept over from last season's flock. I know my turkeys are destined for the Thanksgiving table, yet it's hard for me to remain completely detached.

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I recently learned that researchers are looking at the possibility of genetically engineering livestock to lack the capacity for pain. At first glance, it kind of sounds like a good idea. If my birds went calmly and willingly to the slaughter, butchering day would be far less stressful for all.

Or would it? As I drove this year's turkeys to our butcher, I thought about the first turkey we ever raised. When Thanksgiving came that year, Dave picked up our tom without a fight. As he walked it over to the butchering block on the far side of our shed, I was struck by how calm and unknowing the turkey seemed. He trusted us, and our violation of that trust made me more uneasy than any struggle I've since experienced trying to load our turkeys into crates. That first tom stayed eerily serene up until the moment we spun him around and placed his head on the block. And in an instant—before he could know what was happening—his head was off. As I held his convulsing body up by the feet, I felt heartless and sad for killing such an unsuspecting creature.

I need to know the birds can resist. Somehow it feels fairer, more like the normal predator-prey relationships I've witnessed so many times as a poultry farmer. This year, I lost a couple of chickens to a fox and one to a Cooper's hawk. Others got away, saved by their natural fear instincts. I'd be fooling myself to think raising poultry is sporting, or that my turkeys and chickens have a chance against the butcher's blade. Yet it feels wrong to remove their fighting instinct. When my turkeys resist my efforts to corral them, I know they're fully alive. I don't want them to suffer, of course, but I don't want them numbed, either. Without pain—and thus fear—I'd have no way to gauge whether I'm treating them humanely.

[Demeter]

1. Okay, that just makes my head hurt

Either one is a predator, or not, a farmer, or not, a carnivore, or not.

Only Man would play mind games with his own mind and trip up on the resulting contradictions.

If the subject of this post doesn't LIKE raising turkeys for slaughter, he should get into some other line of work...truck farming or something.

If he doesn't like raising turkeys for slaughter, he REALLY ought to consider vegetarianism so he can sleep at night.

Then he would be internally and externally consistent, and sleep well at night.

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Now I am omnivorous. My health does not optimize on a vegetarian diet. I am a predator who will kill for need, not for sport or diversion of boredom or profit.

And that's why I resisted all the lures of military service--this country has NEVER gone to war for self-preservation in my lifetime--it's all been for corporate profits and market share. Aside from Bosnia, it hasn't even been for humanitarian reasons.

And that's why I do not own a gun. If I bought one, it would be with the intention of using it on another human. I don't see gun ownership as an "insurance" plan, because unused it's such a damn liability. That's why we have police. If the police in this town were not doing their job, and I couldn't improve the situation or move to a better spot, only then would I consider it necessary to arm myself.

Logical consistency lets me sleep peacefully at night.