Re: Are Mormons Ready For Peak Oil?

Paula wrote:
Absalom <srm2005@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The Poster Formerly Known as Craig Olson wrote:

Third, if you haven't ever slaughtered a meat animal (or have a good
friend who has), I wouldn't bother with raising anything larger than a
chicken.

Do mormons draw a morality line on whether or not it is
acceptable to slaughter animals larger than a chicken?
Is it OK to slaughter chickens but not mammals? Are
turkeys off limits?

It's not a morality line, but it is a lot different procedure. You
can just swing the chicken around to wring its neck, which is not
really feasible with, say, a cow.

Probably not, but I find the image compelling.

But I was also thinking beyond that into the actual mechanics of
cleaning and dressing the carcass (and, then, of course dealing with
the aptly-named offal). With a chicken, this is pretty small potatoes,
outside of the mess with the feathers. With a beef, it's a whole
different animal. So to speak.

Also, chickens are so annoying to
raise that you are glad to wring their necks.

When I was into my attempts at self-sufficiency, we were part of a very
active LdS subculture in our area that were all doing the same thing. It
wasn't uncommon for Primary In service meetings, for example, to devolve
into a "breedin' and butcherin'" discussion over refreshments. I would
think somewhere around 25% of the active ward members were involved at
one level or another. Nearly everyone had chickens and goats. Some had
beef calves, pigs, ducks, geese or turkeys to add into the mix.

When we made our move into beef production, my wife asked one of her
friends in the ward "How do you know when to slaughter them"? The answer
was: "You'll know. Right now, they're calves and they are all cute and
lovable. But the older they get, the more annoying they get. One day,
you'll look at 'em and say: today's the day."

So, in my experience, it's not just chickens that are annoying.

One side note, since Absalom mentioned turkeys. We would seasonally
raise turkeys for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Turkeys are so dumb they
are difficult to raise. The find the most inventive ways to die - we had
turkey chicks that would drown in the water dish (1/2" of water at the
most) or who would pick fights with the chickens (imagine a 4" tall
scrawny turkey chick attacking a 8 or 10 pound hen). So we would
typically buy 3 or 4 times the number of chicks we wanted to end up with
as adults. One year they fooled us. We bought 6 chicks and darned if
every last one of them didn't live. We ended up with 6 enormous turkeys
by thanksgiving and ended up giving 5 of them away to friends in the
ward. We counted up later and we had provided a simultaneous turkey
dinner for 80 people for an investment of under $6.

Craig, not sure what the cost per pound was

.

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