Raising and Slaughtering Livestock: Legal and Practical Considerations

Reader Contribution by John Klar
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For the uninitiated, slaughtering animals is a repulsive thought. When we first raised and slaughtered our own animals, we feared that our 5-year-old daughter would be traumatized. After the chickens’ heads were removed, she giggled.

This reminded me of how routine such a practice was to my Vermont grandmothers, both of whom were raised on farms. Our forebears thought nothing of it — and neither would people today if we were not so alienated from our own food production.

But this is not to say that we should be unfeeling about our animals. Humane treatment is a moral imperative, and also ensures meat quality: stressing animals at slaughter time compromises the meat in numerous ways — even making it inedible. (See “Effects of stress and injury on meat and by-product quality,” FAO).

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