Well, that did not go well today

For the most part, I am alone when it comes to my bunny antics.

My nieces have taken interest in the animals, and I try to let them help out as best as they can, which is not very well.

The oldest, 8, has been asking to see a rabbit butchered since I got them, and she was too young before. Finally, I decided it might be time, and her parents didn't seem to object. I decided the 6 year old did not need to be present. Glad I made that choice.

Well it didn't go very well.

First she seemed way to enthusiastic. I don't think she really understood what was going to happen. I bopped the bunny, and she said "oh, my that's what you mean," and it went down hill from there.

Once the blood started flowing, it was over. She walked from the side yard to the porch, where she claimed she could still here bones breaking, although I had not gotten to that part yet. I asked if she wanted to go home, but she refused. She also refused to look at it while I was cleaning it out, though she looked at the insides by themselves on the ground.

She asked me if " I was ok with this?" Well yeah, I'm doing it. Before she wanted to taste rabbit, and though after it was skinned, she said it looked like chicken, and acknowledged that some people might just see yummy meat, that pretty much cured her of wanting to eat it.

Then it got worse. She asked if I was sure that the bunny did not have a soul. Now this is a theological matter that is NOT up for debate here, but my response was, if it did have a soul, we could not eat it. That would be murder. So if she's ever gonna eat another piece of meat again, she'd better decide what she believes.

By the time I finished quartering the animal, and packing it away, she was asking for keys to go home. She bagged and weighed the meat, and left before I started the next one. On the short walk home, she made it very clear that was something she never wanted to see again.

She told me she needed to sleep on it.

So much for that.

It's a good thing she did leave though, because I botched the other one, and started cutting before the poor thing was really dead. I usually do not have to bop twice, but it was a heavy SF buck, who was not ready to give up the ghost.

Oh no! I was wondering if you were going to try it with her.

I don't think she really understood what was going to happen.

Click to expand...

I'm going to have to agree based on your description.

With my own family, we mutually decided that if we couldn't bring ourselves to kill and process our own animals, it would have been because we knew it was wrong. It was learn to do this, or give up and go vegetarian. The kids were included with the brainstorming and initial decision to try and raise our own meat rabbits.

The few months between running out of venison and when we started butchering our own animals might just have made all the difference with how rationally the kids accepted it!
Well, OK, they were EAGER for some meat...the little girl had started keeping a close watch on those fryers, and when one nipped me...there was almost a celebration. :lol:

I applaud you for trying. Sorry it didn't go well. I wish I could convince my wife and daughter to let us raise meat rabbits. How can you not like cheap meat from an animal that was well taken care of.

Sky, I hope you are not blaming yourself for your niece's reaction. I'm wondering why she asked you to show her how to butcher a rabbit in the first place. It sounds to me as though someone (a "friend" perhaps) put her up to it... because her horrified reactions are not in keeping with her initial excess enthusiasm. Neither seems quite natural to me. She had to know that there would be blood and that you were going to be cutting up the rabbit after it was dead.

Will you be able to talk to her about it at some point? My fear is that it could turn into a taboo subject between you and I think that would be a great pity. She may need a little time to process the experience. "Sleep on it" as she put it.

I don't understand her question about the rabbit having or not having a soul. If she is religious enough to ask such a question, one would think that she would have also been taught the belief that only humans have souls... and that God gave mankind dominion over the "birds of the air, the beasts of the field" etc.

Again, there is something a bit "off" about the whole situation. I can remember being told by other kids that my father was a cruel man because he hunted. Mom, bless her, taught us to fight back with questions like "Do you eat meat?" and then go on to point out that the beef or pork they ate suffered a lot more in the slaughterhouse than the deer that Dad shot. I really think that there is a strong possibility that someone has been bugging your niece about what her Auntie Sky does.

Hope you and your niece can work this out together over time. My guesses as to what was going through her head may be right off-base, but I offer them hoping that they will help you to help her through this.

Edited to add: Thinking this over, it occurs to me that it might be her age. At eight, one begins to try to make some sort of sense of the world. It could be that she has very ambivalent feelings about the whole meat-eating thing and that she is trying to untangle them. Kids are still very tender at that age and their knowledge begins to outstrip their emotional experience, which cannot be comfortable. I remember eight as a very difficult and puzzling age, worse than the teenage years really.

MaggieJ":36ntr298 said:

Sky, I hope you are not blaming yourself for your niece's reaction. I'm wondering why she asked you to show her how to butcher a rabbit in the first place.

I don't understand her question about the rabbit having or not having a soul. If she is religious enough to ask such a question, one would think that she would have also been taught the belief that only humans have souls... and that God gave mankind dominion over the "birds of the air, the beasts of the field" etc.


Hope you and your niece can work this out together over time. My guesses as to what was going through her head may be right off-base, but I offer them hoping that they will help you to help her through this.

Click to expand...

The whole thing was off. Her mother commented that she sounded way too enthusiastic about it.

She is a strange child. She thinks she is grown, and has for a while. She thinks she's big and bad enough to try and do anything, not really understanding the consequences. And she tends to think anything I can do she can do, and sometimes better. My great fear is that she will try to cook on the stove to make herself breakfast and set the house on fire, because if something goes wrong, she's gonna panic.

She's heard discussions between her parents and I about butchering rabbit and eating it, so most likely figured she could do it too, sounds like fun. This girls has never handled a piece of raw meat before or helped to cook much less butchered a live animal.

She doesn't have any friends that know anything about my rabbits, except maybe what she tells them. She's kind of a loud mouth with no filter, she could have said something, but being the way she is, if she had, she would have came back and told me what her friends said about it.

She quickly found out it was serious and not a game.

I don't understand the soul question either, especially because we had that discussion when my favorite dog died in August. And we had it when we ate the Easter Lamb last Tuesday.

She's a self absorbed too grown bubble child. For once I did what she asked, hoping maybe she really was mature enough to handle it. After I talk to her today, I'll know more about how she feels. But one good thing, I at least shattered that bubble, now perhaps she will understand that she doesn't know it all, and she'll be more careful about what she asks for.

You and your niece will be in my thoughts today, Sky, and in the days that follow too. Reading your latest post does shed some light on the situation and your niece's mindset. Hope the talk goes well! :clover: :clover: :clover:

Sorry it didn't go as well as you had hoped, Sky. I applaud you for trying though.

At least now she will have a deeper appreciation of where the meat on her plate comes from- and will be one of the few inner city kids that actually knows that the hamburger she is eating came from a living, breathing being.

You never really know how kids will react- mine and their friends are very accepting of it, but of course they have a totally different lifestyle.

I did have an experience while showing some friends how to butcher rabbits (they raise them too, but always just sold the extras to cull buyers at the shows) that was the opposite extreme. They had brought their city-boy grandson along, and he too was excited by the prospect.

As you know, I kill my rabbits by striking them on the forehead with a piece of angle iron. Well, sometimes their eyes will pop out, which is gruesome, to say the least. But this little boy thought that was the coolest thing and couldn't wait for it to happen again! :shock:

I think the reaction of your niece is preferable to that, in that she shows a level of compassion toward the animals.

It isn't easy to see a cute little bunny or even a steer go from a living animal to meat. But it is an important lesson in finality- once you are dead, there is no coming back, to this world at least. I think that if more kids knew that truth as opposed to their video game "reality", there would be less violence in this world.

I hope that this experience has given her a deeper reverence for all life in its fleeting glory.

A lot of this really depends on her upbringing and different tasks she's been taught at home. At 8 my son could make himself an omelet - he actually just got up one morning and headed straight to the kitchen. DH and I just looked at each other, we could hear him doing stuff in there, but didn't know what. After a little bit he came out to the dining room table with a meat and cheese omelet that he just went in and made for himself! Kids hear and watch us doing things, and sometimes end up being able to just DO things without even being specifically taught. There might be a little of that in her, she hears her parents and you talking about things, and wants to be included. It could definitely be a sign that she is ready to be taught about cooking, etc. Sometimes as adults we have some made-up age that kids can start doing things, and usually we underestimate them.

If she had never handled raw meat, maybe having someone show her how to cook using it (without seeing it butchered first) would be a good place to start, with conversations about where the meat comes from maybe coming a bit later? Of course, that's something more for her parents than you.

In our house, with a hunter in the family, we just never made a big deal out of eating animals, and so the kids just naturally learn to accept it. My daughter learned to count and identify ducks because when DH came home with his limits he would lay them out on the porch and have her count them, rearrange them by sex, by species, etc. and recount the groups. Then, of course, she would watch him clean them, and willingly ate the meat! Our son was the same way. Actually, because I worked weekends, DH would take the kids hunting with him even when they were little, because otherwise he couldn't go. It's all what they're used to and how the exposure happens.

MaggieJ":1rhqg7bk said:

....

I don't understand her question about the rabbit having or not having a soul. If she is religious enough to ask such a question, one would think that she would have also been taught the belief that only humans have souls... and that God gave mankind dominion over the "birds of the air, the beasts of the field" etc.

....

Click to expand...

This aspect is *really* a personal religious belief, but it's difficult for me to interact with my animals (dogs, cats, bunny) and see their personalities, wicked senses of humor, playing tricks on one another (and on me), without developing a belief--in common with Buddhists and others--that animals do, indeed, have souls.

Animals *and* people are all on earth to serve a purpose, whether we understand that purpose or not. When an animal is slaughtered for food, I believe that its soul is released and the body remains for human use. (This is what makes the mass euthanasia in some shelters so tragic: those poor animals didn't get to serve their purpose, whether of being companions, helpers, or anything else.... ) When we die, our soul is released from the body and our body is either buried or cremated, according to our personal and/or religious belief system.

It took me a few years to work this out for myself, since we didn't even have pet cats on a consistent basis when I was a kid, much less dogs. Military families, at least in the Bad Old Days, didn't get to take family pets with them when they were transferred to a new duty station.

To me, it's just a frighteningly short step from "animals don't have souls" to "animals don't feel pain"--the belief found in the works of René Descartes (1596-1650) of Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) fame, which led to horrifying experiments on animals without any treatment for pain. Subsequent philosophers and natural scientists followed, almost all of whom supported the belief that "Since animals are not conscious/do not have souls [which were considered equivalent states], they do not feel pain." I can't imagine how these men squared their belief with the obvious screaming and suffering of the animals they were studying. The legacy of this cruel belief has only begun to really turn around in the veterinary profession in the last 20 or so years. Two in-depth discussions on this point can be found here and here.

That animals do have souls seems to be the best ethical/moral foundation we could have to support humane animal husbandry practices. These practices minimize animal suffering; they show respect for the animals; they enhance our own sense of doing right in the world. If the animals' purpose is to become human food or even food for other animals, they are in no way diminished by that purpose: in the moment of their life's fulfillment, their soul returns to the Great Beyond. We--or other animals--are nourished in a wholesome way and have respectfully participated in the circle of life.

Oh, please, DogCatMom... Let's leave our personal beliefs about animals and souls out of this. The child asked a question, wanting reassurance that the rabbit did not have a soul. Having a fairly good notion of the background of the child (through getting quite well acquainted with Sky over the years) I ventured to suggest that if the child had the religious teaching to ask the question, she likely also had been taught the accompanying belief about animals and souls. I did not express a personal belief on this subject and nor would I. I don't feel it belongs here.

I teach my own children to cook with the stove when they are about 8, but...like beliefs, all children are different too!
Kids are ready for different things at different times.
Although my 10 year old has been cooking her own food for two years now, she almost caught the house on fire a few days ago! She simply didn't think to remove an oven mitt from the edge of the stove.
I didn't forbid her to cook, instead I insisted she finish cooking the meal she has started. She's the type to take things TOO seriously. She may have refused to cook for a LONG time if I hadn't insisted that she carry on.

I agree with everyone else about introducing her to meal preparation now, if she can stand it. Jerky making is also a fun activity and a lot of kids love the finished product.

I did specify that was not a question to be "questioned."
Only to show how deeply this child thought about the experience. It was not a "eew, this is gross" reaction, but "is this really right?"

This is definitely a child who is intelligent, and oversteps her child role frequently because she knows her intelligence. But her emotional level is is not in the same place. If she was cooking and something when wrong, she's one of those quick thinking people, she would panic and cause a greater mess.

We used to cook and do dishes at that age, too. I'm not sure what happen to children of this generation, but most I meet, even with good parents, have been pretty useless. You should see the mess they cause just watering the rabbits. I don't dare let them handle the food.

MaggieJ":2scwjncl said:

Oh, please, DogCatMom... Let's leave our personal beliefs about animals and souls out of this.

Click to expand...

That would certainly be an interesting topic to discuss, but I think another thread would be a good idea.

I believe Sky's family has very firm beliefs on the subject, and would likely save that type of discussion for adult conversation so as not to jeopardize the religious tenets they are hoping to instill in their children.

Comet007":3910lp3s said:

A lot of this really depends on her upbringing and different tasks she's been taught at home. Sometimes as adults we have some made-up age that kids can start doing things, and usually we underestimate them.

It's all what they're used to and how the exposure happens.

Click to expand...

We lived in the same house during her early years, and now we live next door, so it's still nearly the same house. We raise kids village style in this culture, extended family has pretty much the same meaning as parents. We sit down and discuss what we want from this child, agree on actions and stick to the plan. And since I often find she is with me a great deal, I direct and discipline as I see fit. I've been doing this rabbit thing for years now, chickens before (and I was a school teacher for 12yrs) if this hadn't been discussed with parent and child I would not have tried this.

She's a hard headed child, doesn't listen, then freaks out when something goes wrong, so her parents have stopped letting her do things, especially things that involve fire and knives, lol. It's not like much cooking goes on anyway, when things come out of neat little bags.

She's been banned from doing a lot of things without adult supervision. Think Dennis the Menace. Her parents have had enough, but I am determined to make something useful of her. After messing up the knitting, she wants my spinning wheel. After she broke the dollhouse pieces, I almost wanted to send her home, but I knew I would regret that when she was older.

Though last year I banned her from the barn, and I'm about to ban her sister for pouring water in the feeders (while there was food in them, how did she not see that?) If you never do anything with them, how can they learn? But they are going to destroy everything here in the process...

I digress. Anyway, she's been exposed to where food comes from, because I've hatched chickens, raised chickens and she's had the fresh eggs, and knew I killed chickens before for meat.

But it's one thing to talk in theory and another to see it. Now she's seen it. And I think she realized her heart is not as mature as her mind is.

So I talked to her today.

And she says she wants to try to eat it, but doesn't ever want to see me butcher it again. Looks like it's something we agree on. I don't eat it, because I've butchered it. I would eat it, if someone else was butchering, and I think I could do it, even if I had to watch it.

We shall see. This may be all talk again. It will be interesting to see if she really can bring herself to eat it.

And if she does eat it and like it, will she change her mind about butchering? Maybe. Will I change my mind about eating? Maybe.

Sky, if she is willing to try to eat it, I think it is a good idea. Maybe buy some Shake-n-Bake coating and cut the rabbit meat into nuggets. The closer the the meat looks to her "normal" food and the less like an animal, the easier it will be for her to give it a fair trial. And that will provide something to build on for the future.

I know she makes you want to scream at times ullhair: but hang in there with her if you possibly can! Some of the most difficult kids turn out to be something special, once their minds and emotions reach a similar level of maturity.

Sky, I admire you for being an important part of her life. As a parent and growing up in a community where adults looked out for the kids and did what was needed to keep us strait, I appreciate that you are there.I wonder if some of her initial enthusiasm was the whole idea of independence--being able to raise the food, process, prepare, and not need anyone else. The books I read as a yoing girl about pioneers, Laura Ingles Wilder, Cady Woodlawn, etc left me with a strong hankering--and belief--that I could move out into the woods, live off the land and game, and be independent at the ripe age of 8-ish.. wouldn't need NO. ONE. Even though I often helped my parents butcher chickens (which was messy, gruesome, and gross to me) and helped cut up beef, the fantasy of hunting "game" seemed different. I could just see myself independently strolling the land, fighting for my sustenance, hunting and roasting the (magically bloodless ang gutless) meat, then turning the fur into a nice warm blanket. When I went hunting with my brother and saw a rabbit shot, kick and struggle as it died, that wasn't what I pictured. It also lead me to my next realization that the "game" had been alive, doing its thing, and had feelings of fear or pain like I did. I struggled with wanting to "make good" and help my brother skin the animal, but feeling really guilty that it died because of me. Made me sick to my stomache. The soul question may have been her realization that all things are living and can feel --something she knew but makes sense in a whole knew way when you see life end. Realization of mortality and probably first real.realization that for any one livng thing to live, another dies. Big thoughts for a little girl, especially when she hadn't expected it and feels 10 feet tall & bullet proof, but better experienced with a caring guide like you who not only exposed her to a humane experience, but let her work through her feelings and followed up to see how she was doing. This experience was not one of the joyful ones you can't wait to share with kids, but sounded like one that will help her as she continues to become a strong, caring woman. You are a good guide to have around as she works through life's big questions.

This experience was not one of the joyful ones you can't wait to share with kids, but sounded like one that will help her as she continues to become a strong, caring woman.

Click to expand...

:yeahthat:

re. "messed up the knitting": was this knitting of yours that she mangled, or was it knitting that she was trying to do on her own? If it was her own, try again with needles somewhere around size #7 or #8 (U.S. system) or 4.5mm/5.0mm.

re. risking your spinning wheel: maybe you could instead teach her how to spin with a spindle? The Andean cultures start teaching girls to spin with a spindle when the girls are around 5 years old. Abby Franquemont (Respect the Spindle) lived in Chinchero, Peru, with her parents beginning when she was 5 and then on and off the rest of her "growing-up" time. The local Quechua took pity on this 5-year-old girl who "didn't know anything" (she was literate and could do math, but had no survival skills) and taught her to spin and weave. Abby F. is now in her early 40s and an avid spinner. She teaches live classes, classes on DVD, etc.

It's possible to make a spindle from a stick/dowel and a CD or even a stick/dowel/knitting needle and half of a large potato. Maybe Niece would like to make her own spindle? (It should be safe with an adult watching.)