Catholic teaching on animals?

[Sarcelle]

We have a farm and raise our own cattle, chickens and turkeys. The chicken and turkeys we slaughter and dress out ourselves. I do all the day-to-day care of the animals and it’s personal. They get fed before we feed ourselves. I cannot and will not sit down to a meal without knowing the animals in our care are safe, fed, and watered. Our son knows to always treat all the animals with respect, even the chickens that don’t have names (we name all our laying hens and they stay with us for years. Only the chickens and turkeys destined for the freezer don’t get names). We give careful consideration to minimize the suffering of the animals when we slaughter them. We are raising our last batch of Cornish cross chickens for the freezer because, as their caretaker, I feel it is unethical to breed such animals.

Let me explain. Cornish crosses are the work of extreme selective breeding. They are crossbred chickens that inherit the extraordinary muscling and growth traits of both parents. Unfortunately, they cannot breed true because they don’t live long enough to reach the egg laying stage. These are the grocery store commercial type chickens. You cannot breed them yourself because they are patented. You must order them as day old chicks or eggs from a hatchery. They grow to a full sized roasting chicken in 8 weeks. You must limit their feed to every 12 hours after the age of 3 weeks or they will eat themselves to a heart attack. You don’t need to feed them hormones to make them grow (don’t fall for the natural or hormone free labels. The only non-Cornish crosses are heritage chickens with smaller beasts). They just have the genetic code to eat non-stop. They can barely scratch (a natural chicken foraging behavior) by week 7. By 10 weeks, they are too heavy for their legs to support their weight and will die. You must slaughter them before 10 weeks or you will lose some or they will be distressed from not being able to get up. Rain has made us late with this last batch and they need to hold on until Saturday. I have them in a special pen on rubber mats to keep them going until then. They will only be 9 weeks old. It feels like a mercy killing but the ethics bother me so we will raise heritage meat chickens from now on. A big juicy breast is not worth watching these animals lose their dignity. A chicken should enjoy it’s days as a chicken. Ours are supposed to only have one bad day in their lives. It will take a little less feed and about 14 weeks to raise heritage breed chickens. That’s fine because they will forage and enjoy their days in the sun.

I drop off our steers at a local butcher who puts them in a squeeze chute to ensure he doesn’t miss. He does one at a time and they never see it coming. I still feel like Judas when they follow me out of the trailer, down the lane, and into the squeeze chute. They never know a cattle prod (we don’t even own one) and they are as close to grass fed as you can get with our poor soil. I will admit that I cry for each steer. We fill our freezer and donate the rest to the church.

There are plenty of ethical issues in raising animals. I have no problem with anyone who chooses not to eat meat, but vegetarianism is not for us. I also feel like every facility that raises animals needs to be above reproach. They need to not be so secretive. If you have to hide, you aren’t doing it right. We allow anyone to visit our small farm and on any day. We just ask that they call ahead because this is also our home.

Thank you for your enlightening post.
Farmers are usually unappreciated but without you guys none of us would eat.

 

[lutheran_farmer]

Thank you. We are not unusual. I would say we are more typical, actually, which should explain the increasing popularity of many heritage breeds of farm animals. The majority of people that work with animals have a similar ethic about putting the animals in your care first. You sure don’t get rich working with animals so you have to really like them. Really these are old cowboy ethics that were passed down to me by an old Wyoming cowboy that had a lot of influence on me growing up.