Killing an animal

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Qhergt

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well, Iv killed many critters over the years. All from a distance with the bow or a gun. (besides the raccoon I killed with a steel pipe, and the odd chicken)


Today I had the opportunity to slaughter a sheep. I tell you, taking an animal in your hands like that and sliting its throat open and watching their eyes glaze over as they "leave" is quite the experience.
 
I have killed many animals over the years up close and personal, sheep, cows, llamas, horses. One way or another it had to be done, to put the animal out of its misery or for food.

It is a part of life, someone or something has to do it. Never took it personally...
 
I too have killed many up close and personal. Its a job that I simply do as quickly and efficiently as possible. Yes, the first time you see the eyes glaze and the life leave it is eerie but it is normal -- as is the occasional big twitch a few minutes after you consider the animal to be truly dead.
 
You just do the best you can, and understand that its part of the order of things on earth. Hard not to be touched by the experience though. I definately remember the 1st time I saw that up close on a farm as a kid.
 
Yes, I've been through that farm killing route. From my earliest memories I saw all farm animals butchered, then, starting when barely a teen ager, I did quite a bit of the shooting. While just a teenager I shot 4 or 5 beef animals in a fall.
And when just big enough to swing an axe, about ten, you chop the heads off of the roosters your mother asks you to get for dinners.
Starting so young, you get completely used to it. But I will never forget the squeals of the pig, actually two different pigs, running around the yard after I had made poor hits on their heads.
And please, don't someone who has never seen a pig shot, tell me I'm a poor shot, or I boo-bood. The brains of a farm pig are used, so the shot can't be from the front, but rather near the ear from the side with a .22. It is very tricky to get it right.
 
Serious questions ... why cut the throat? Why would you not shove a knife at the base of the neck/head and up into the brain?

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
 
Otokiak said:
Serious questions ... why cut the throat? Why would you not shove a knife at the base of the neck/head and up into the brain?

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
Click to expand...

After stunning you would cut the throat to bleed, but I'm not sure if the OP stunned the animal first of simply cut its throat.

H4831 said:
Yes, I've been through that farm killing route. From my earliest memories I saw all farm animals butchered, then, starting when barely a teen ager, I did quite a bit of the shooting. While just a teenager I shot 4 or 5 beef animals in a fall.
And when just big enough to swing an axe, about ten, you chop the heads off of the roosters your mother asks you to get for dinners.
Starting so young, you get completely used to it. But I will never forget the squeals of the pig, actually two different pigs, running around the yard after I had made poor hits on their heads.
And please, don't someone who has never seen a pig shot, tell me I'm a poor shot, or I boo-bood. The brains of a farm pig are used, so the shot can't be from the front, but rather near the ear from the side with a .22. It is very tricky to get it right.
Click to expand...


I can attest to that after chasing one around the yard last fall as he ran screaming and with blood pulsing from his snout after a shot that was slightly off. Finally caught up to him and was able to put another in his ear while at a full run -- that was a rodeo and a half.
 
Never had an issue with killing an animal if it was used to feed my family.

Although i could see where there would be an issue with it with some people, it is a living breathing creature, we as humans often relate our own life to those lesser creatures, and killing the animals does draw out some emotional response.
 
Otokiak said:
Serious questions ... why cut the throat? Why would you not shove a knife at the base of the neck/head and up into the brain?

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
Click to expand...

For some reason I could never figure out, sheep, meaning young sheep, or lambs, are killed in commercial slaughter houses by yanking their heads back and cutting their throats.
Unless there has been a change in the last very few years, hogs are also killed in a very inhumane way.
I have been in a small slaughter house, owned by a commercial meat shop and saw how they did it. From the hogs in cages, they snap a rope on each hind leg and quickly yank them up so they are hanging by their hind feet. The butcher then walks under them and with one fast swoop, drives a knife in from the base of the neck, to cut a large artery near the heart.
I saw ten pigs squealing at once. The first one was still not quiet, when the last one got it!
Sorry, that was not a nice post, but it is exactly what went on for a hundred years, or more, and maybe still does.
 
Otokiak said:
Serious questions ... why cut the throat? Why would you not shove a knife at the base of the neck/head and up into the brain?

Otokiak
Rankin Inlet, NU
CANADA
Click to expand...

sjemac said:
After stunning you would cut the throat to bleed, but I'm not sure if the OP stunned the animal first of simply cut its throat.
Click to expand...

From what I know sheep are not stunned, you just grab from behind under the chin, and draw knife from one side of the neck to the other, it's actually a quick way and it allows the animal to bleed out.

Watched one done this summer in Europe, then I was asked to do the other.....


EDIT

@ H4831 - it allows the animal to bleed out, no blood left inside to contaminate anything, heart continues to pump and forces it out
 
H4831 said:
For some reason I could never figure out, sheep, meaning young sheep, or lambs, are killed in commercial slaughter houses by yanking their heads back and cutting their throats.
Unless there has been a change in the last very few years, hogs are also killed in a very inhumane way.
I have been in a small slaughter house, owned by a commercial meat shop and saw how they did it. From the hogs in cages, they snap a rope on each hind leg and quickly yank them up so they are hanging by their hind feet. The butcher then walks under them and with one fast swoop, drives a knife in from the base of the neck, to cut a large artery near the heart.
I saw ten pigs squealing at once. The first one was still not quiet, when the last one got it!
Sorry, that was not a nice post, but it is exactly what went on for a hundred years, or more, and maybe still does.
Click to expand...

Yep. It's just as bad with horses, cows' etc... I laugh when people say hunting is in-humane. Take a trip to a couple slaughter houses, then talk to me.
 
Whether you are a vegetarian killing plants or just breathing you breath out carbon dioxide killing the oxygen you must kill something to survive. Everything a living organism to survive kills something else. It is a fact and when you are taking about killing animals you raise to survive it is not a nice thing to do but it is a reality. Many people do not realize the steak they just ate was living at one time, the same as the potato.
 
Found said:
Whether you are a vegetarian killing plants or just breathing you breath out carbon dioxide killing the oxygen you must kill something to survive. Everything a living organism to survive kills something else. It is a fact and when you are taking about killing animals you raise to survive it is not a nice thing to do but it is a reality. Many people do not realize the steak they just ate was living at one time, the same as the potato.
Click to expand...

Ahh, carbon dioxide and oxygen aren't alive, and there is a long, long path between a cow and a potato. lol. But I get the idea your trying to get across. Besides, people don't have to kill animals to survive in the first world, we choose to. Own it. Don't hide behind platitudes. (not to be confused with the platapus)
 
H4831 said:
For some reason I could never figure out, sheep, meaning young sheep, or lambs, are killed in commercial slaughter houses by yanking their heads back and cutting their throats.
Unless there has been a change in the last very few years, hogs are also killed in a very inhumane way.
I have been in a small slaughter house, owned by a commercial meat shop and saw how they did it. From the hogs in cages, they snap a rope on each hind leg and quickly yank them up so they are hanging by their hind feet. The butcher then walks under them and with one fast swoop, drives a knife in from the base of the neck, to cut a large artery near the heart.
I saw ten pigs squealing at once. The first one was still not quiet, when the last one got it!
Sorry, that was not a nice post, but it is exactly what went on for a hundred years, or more, and maybe still does.
Click to expand...

no one said death was pretty.
 
I can vividly recall carrying a steaming pigs head, in a large plastic bowl, up the hill to my grandparents farm house, my father and uncle had just slaughtered a pig and I was having a grand old time. 30 years later I decided to raise and slaughter my own pigs. I really enjoyed feeding time and would sometimes bring 2 or 5 beers and hang out for a while. After a while I really got attached to those buggers. Then I shot them in the head. Hmmm ... bacon.
 
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