Teach Your Children Well About Where Meat Comes From

My six year old grand daughter recently spent a couple of days with us and was following me in and out of the house while I worked in the backyard. I decided I would dress out some Coturnix Quail Cocks I had finished feeding out for the BBQ pit. While I was dressing the quail out my grand daughter came around the corner and caught me right in the middle of the act of skinning one. The look in her eyes told the story. She ran in the house and told her grandmother what I was doing and that she was very mad at me for killing the quail. My daughters were raised around the ranch and hunting so it was not a problem with their generation. My grand daughter has been raised in town and had not had agricultural livestock or hunting experiences involving harvest or killing of animals. When the quail were all dressed out and clean I had a talk with her and showed her the clean carcass and how it looked just like a little chicken her mother would buy at the store. I also explained how someone somewhere had to kill and dress out the chicken, beef and pork that her family brought home from the market. I told the story of how GOD gave man dominion over animals and that we used them so that we could live a better life. Her Grandmother and I also explained how it was our responsibility to harvest or kill all animals humanely so that they did not suffer. I wanted her to understand that we did not kill lightly and that was why we used as much of the animal for food as we possibly could.

Take the time to explain about meat to your children whether you are a hunter or not. Don’t let them grow up to be like that lady that wrote in to a hunting magazine wanting to know why anyone would hunt. She said hunters should buy their meat at the grocery store like other people, where no animals were harmed! Don’t let your children or grand children turn into one of those kind of people, Wild Ed