the cycle of life and death

[baronrenfrew]

now that my hair is starting to grey (I'm 46!) a few bits of wisdom are starting to accumulate; but I still need to remember we country folk see the world a bit differently (and more practical) than town folk.

case #1 - my wife Carla's sister Christine had a cat that had just been diagnosed as diabetic and she decided to "put it down" as she couldn't afford the meds let alone the $300 she was quoted to have the vet do it and dispose of the body.

So I offered to "look after it". A bit of conversation went by between them before Christine realized my offer of "look after it" was not to pay the vet to do it, but to do what I've done with every sick farm animal (including treasured family pets): dig a grave, a .22 kill shot, maybe including a prayer and a few tears - depending on the animal. total cost - maybe 5 cents and some sweat. After many years of being practical and doing what "must be done", you accept that there is a cycle of life and death and your part in that. And cats - so many have come and gone over the years, not to mention feral cats I've dispatched, that I don't feel any attachment to cats. if you look on Kijiji - nobody sells cats, they give them away.

You also treasure every moment before your ticket gets punched (it amazes me sometimes how many euphemisms we have for death; kick the bucket (I still remember the Little Rascals episode on this; more recently I clued in that this was suicide!), "putting it out of its misery", pushing up daisies, you "process" or "send them to freezer camp" instead of butcher a chicken etc. - this must be confusing for folks learning English!

case #2 - I was at a bird auction and a bewildered guy asked me "What do people do with all the extra roosters that hatch?" of course birds for sale were hens, or pairs of trios so the extra males went "somewhere". my answer, I furrowed my eyebrows and said "you eat them".

I say to people all the time, ask the question - if you don't know, you don't know - sometimes its just hard not to be sarcastic at the same time.

[Killerbunny]

Yes I kill birds myself sometimes although this year I'm having them "processed" because it's a lot of work and I'm getting older. Last year was the first time I took turkeys to the "processor". I found that at Hendersons they were handled carefully and respectfully, I handed each bird to the lineman. However I still do some birds here and as for the ones I process I value them and love the time I have with them. As I have said in the past the day I don't care is the day I stop keeping them. I hope that if my own life becomes too painful or meaningless for me someone will "help" me. I had good cause to think on that comment a few years ago. BTW I feel great now folks!

[ross]

great KB
Yep Baron

[windwalkingwolf]

3 a.m. musings/wisdom are the wisest of all, I think Bert, I think you are a kindred spirit and would love the opportunity to know you better.
So many people associate guns with unreasonable violence, mayhem and illegal activities. People who've never had the opportunity (or the necessity) of using one don't see them for the practical tool they are. All they know are movies where someone's brains get splattered all over the wall. They've never witnessed a suffering, beloved pet being instantly, painlessly, and near bloodlessly being euthanized with a .22 or the messier but equally effective decapitation. For that matter, few have witnessed (and even fewer experienced) the discomfort that goes along with a lethal injection or anesthetic gas.
I've always liked cats despite being very allergic, but there have been times where death was the kindest thing. Once it was a sickly feral kitten that was actively hunting my baby poultry, biting the top of their heads off and leaving the rest to rot. I had not had a firearm in my house for a very long time, but something needed to be done and I had no animal control options and few personal options due to financial circumstances at the time. I decapitated her with a machete. It was a decision I took a month to resolve in my own head, and regretted every second. I bawled every night for weeks. The kitten didn't regret anything at all.
My livestock are my food, but they get NO less consideration than my treasured and still painfully missed Uzidog that I spent thousands at the vet on. It takes me some time to steel myself for the deeds, every bloody time, and time to recover, and some I don't recover from. There have been a LOT of "those" times no matter the reason for animal death, even if I was "just" culling for food, for illness, or for faults as (I'd like to think) a conscientious breeder.
Sick or injured animals often "commit suicide", rather than be torn apart by predators. They hide, and if their condition doesn't improve, they stop eating and drinking, and wait the short time for their brains and bodies to shut down and die. They pass the short time by sleeping. Some will even hurry the end by drowning themselves or otherwise deliberately stumbling into something that will kill them. People do too, when they're free of social taboos and familial considerations, such as when people have dementia. Or when they're desperate and facing a painful terminal disease. Suicide is nature's way. It's only us as brainwashed humans, that will go to any length to prolong life.
I HATE HATE HATE killing an animal, any animal, even a suffering one. My brain is always going, well, what if I tried X, Y, or Z? What if I just didn't eat meat? Which is actually even more wasteful of animal life, in my opinion, but this is the struggle in my head every single time. It may suck a little bit for my mental health in the short term, but I accept the practicality of a quick and painless death. In the long term, those of us who understand that LIFE and animal conservation actually requires animal death from time to time (actually, animal, human and plant death 100 percent of the time) and do so in a humane and conscientious fashion? Well, we'll be the last ones standing after the Zombie apocalypse LOL.

[Jaye]

Excellent post! Well said, @windwalkingwolf .

[ross]

Ditto Jan .

[Kbr42]

Thanks for that Jan!

[windwalkingwolf]

Thank Bert, @baronrenfrew . These are the hard choices that we as animal stewards have to make. We *should* be making them as caretakers for our children or elderly parents or friends and family who are ill or injured as well, but nobody wants to talk about those things. We love hard and long, and we bury our heads in the sand when it comes to thinking about those situations and decisions, never mind actually talking about them...as if not talking about illness, disability or death will make our loved ones live forever.
I can love an animal as much as I love my own mother or my own children. I've done it, and it near killed me when I had to let her go. It still does. I think many of us have been there. To reconcile that killing something out of love takes some serious balls, or big-girl (or boy) panties. It's not something that's often talked about, and it SHOULD be, because despite society sticking our heads in the sand, it's something that should happen way more often than it does, and people NEED to talk about it. And pony up and DO it.
I still need to tell people why I killed my dog. I need to get right in my own mind, even though I know I did right by her. We all have 100 % chance of death, and it would be nice if we could achieve a peaceful painless death on our own terms, and no less deserved for any animal (or any person) in our care, but that's not always the case and the difficult decision has to be made.

[baronrenfrew]

Jan, I apologize I haven't answered this sooner. Since I'm out of birds, I haven't been here in a month. Thanks for sharing - this is a post many need to read. You covered territory that's worth following up on.

A little humour if I may.
I've always believed an animal deserves a quick death. Many years ago, we were on our way to Kingston (we lived there at the time) from the farm near Burnstown. We were ten minutes away when a rabbit crossed the road and I drove over its back (or maybe hit it and broke its back). I stopped and watched in my rear mirror as it pulled itself away. I couldn't let an animal suffer and die like that. I backed up, opened the trunk, and all I had was a tire iron. So I found it and "finished it off". Of course I was wearing a white shirt that was no longer white. Carla looked at me, aghast, and all I could think of was driving by a cop, or getting stopped for whatever reason, and I'm wearing a shirt with a bloodstain. So we drove back to the farm, I put on another shirt and drove to Kingston. At least the rabbit didn't suffer more than needed.