how many of you eat what you kill/grow?

[jc75754]

I have found that an alarming number of people hunt but only for the thrill. I have alwayfrom an early age been taught to have respect and reverence for the game that I have.hunted. not to mention the benifits and satisfaction of preparing your own food.

So here is my contribution to wild / organic food post workout meal.

2 grilled squash grown in my garden

1 slice of grilled tomato from my garden

2, 1/2 lbs chipolte rosemary and mozzraella cheese grilled burger.

Pics incomeing

Ok I give.up how do I download pic from my phone to m4

[Raven Armament]

We don't have a garden yet and our yard isn't big enough for one, so we're planning to plant a 1 acre garden on the farm. For vegetables we just buy at the store or farmer's markets in season.

For meat, mostly eat what I kill. There are things I will kill and not eat, like most furbearers except raccoon and squirrel. Stuff like coyote, weasel, opossum, skunk, muskrat I just kill or trap for their fur and use the meat as bait for the next set. Coonpfeffer (hasenpfeffer but with coon instead of rabbit) is good and squirrel is a nice sweet meat. Here in MI, red squirrel season is open year round with no bag limit. Good way to stay sharp during the year and it's good meat. Most of the time I use an iron sighted .22 rifle, but sometimes light for caliber lead bullets in handguns does the job.

I give the tails to Mepps Lures and get fishing lures in trade (Mepps uses squirrel tail on their spinners). The rest of the fur I sell to a local taxidermist who uses it for trim on gloves and other clothing stuff he makes.

We also raise cattle and pigs on the farm, usually 3 cows and a couple dozen pigs. 140 acres about 50/50 woods and hayfield. No one else in the family can handle the animal care and then killing and butchering it, so it's my job to kill and butcher while the others do the animal husbandry (care-taking). Doing that we pretty much eat nose to tail. We get all the cuts of meat not offered except at custom butcher shops like hanger steak, tongue, cheeks, and tail. Tail meat is excellent in stews and soups.

Cows are just butchered in the fall with the pigs. For the pigs, we buy two pregnant sows in the spring. Once the piglets are weaned, I butcher the sows and that's our summer meat. We'll keep two of the piglets for ourselves for fall/winter meat, and then kill and butcher the rest of them for sale to locals. They have 6-10 in a litter, so we're looking at 12-20 piglets plus the two sows.

[jc75754]

I am in the process of convincing my wife.we need sheep and I have a plan to capture some wild rabbits and fence in an area and allow.them.to.create Thor.own hurries. I wish we had the land to raise cattle and pig. That my friend is awsome.

I feel like younger generations lack in fiber by not slaughtering their own food. They don't understand the.effort it takes to do so.

[Hot Holster]

I hog hunt and will keep the meat to eat and will also pass some around to friends if the freezer is full.

[Servo]

After deer season my father's side gets together and we grill what we shot. It's basically Thanksgiving with back straps. Whatever we don't grill gets sent off to be made in to venison.

[Raven Armament]

I feel like younger generations lack in fiber by not slaughtering their own food. They don't understand the.effort it takes to do so.

I think I'm in the younger category just turning 31yo. I learned butchering from my uncles at deer camp. I don't understand the hunters that hunt for meat, but then pay someone else to butcher it. Sure I make money doing it for those types, but why get your meat yourself and not butcher it yourself? Generally from what I noticed is small game hunters do it themselves, but deer is different and they would rather pay someone. It takes two hours to skin a butcher a deer. They spent more than that sitting in the woods waiting for it to walk by.

[tpd223]

I have two deer in the freezer right now, been working on eating them since Jan.

We have a bumper crop of cucumbers and zuchini right now, and the tomatoes are starting to come in. We already ate the radishes and onions, need to plant more next year.

[jc75754]

I am 25 and since a young age i have been hunting and growing a garden. The students i have in high school think food grows at Mcdonalds or at the grocery store. Last semester i only had 15 students that hunted, fished, or even helped with a garden. I teach in a pretty rural area where this used to be a way of life.

Maybe i am just nostalgic and want to go back to the days of making it yourself. On a similar note i had pics of the 2 bucks i killednthis year on my desk and i had a young lady tell me i was a barbarian for killing those animals

She had a chicken biscuit for a snack between classes.

[yellowfin]

Growing up hunting and fishing with my family and enjoying farm fresh produce gave me an appreciation for food and life as a whole which I cannot imagine life without. Eating store bought fish just feels weird to me; it strikes me as somehow cheating or unnatural to actually buy fish as I grew up always eating that which we caught. My mom's side of the family raised beef and grew peas and all manner of other fresh produce, and my dad's side were multi generation hunters and fishermen with a lot of travel exprience, so every home cooked meal was amazing.

I eat every possible gamefish or wild game animal I can possibly get my hands on. It just makes living seem more real to me, as conversely life without it doesn't feel like life at all.

[JB326]

Between work, my three kids, and a holster shop I don't have much time for gardening anymore. But, I stockpile deer meat as deep as I can every season. There is also not much better than a few dozen dove for dinner after a good shoot. So yes, I tend to eat what I kill outside of coyotes and other vermin.

My parents keep a garden that would feed a few dozen people, so I get summer veggies from them when I can't grow my own.

One day when I grow up I'm moving back to the country.