The third grade classrooms at my school hatch chicks. On Friday, the chicks were in their boxes in the office, waiting to get picked up to go who knows where. When I went into the office that morning to do my laminating, I could hear the cheeping from the chicks. I looked in the boxes. They were so cute!
But one chick was in a box all by itself. It was huddled in the corner. I could see it was breathing but it's head was down and it wasn't moving. Someone explained to me that the chick had a hurt leg so it had to be away from the other chicks. I noticed it's food wasn't near him. I asked if I should move the food closer to the chick so it could eat, but apparently the chick wasn't eating food anyway so it didn't matter. If the chick was hurt and refusing to eat, it was probably going to die.
This made me very sad. Like, I was almost going to cry, that's how sad I was.
It has been an emotional week for several reasons, so on a normal day, I'm not sure seeing the injured chick would make me want to cry, but I am sure it would at least make me sad.
But this isn't why I think I have issues. I have issues because I eat chicken ALMOST EVERY DAY. My love of animals and my desire to eat meat is in huge contradiction of each other. I try not to think about it, but lately, I have been thinking about it more than usual.
I can't see myself ever becoming vegan, but I wouldn't rule out at some point in my life deciding to be vegetarian or pescetarian.
Has your love of animals ever been in contradiction with what you eat?
Yup, All the time!
ReplyDeleteOur school hatched the chicks too!
Last week I cried because there was a dead bunny on my pool deck. I couldn't remove it. I left it there for three days until Scott came home and I asked him to take it out back and bury it.
But then again I have lots of issues with regular things that are just the "circle of life" things and I just question "why".
Aw poor bunny. I'm with you on the circle of life stuff... it's a thinker.
DeleteChicks? So cute! That is heart breaking to hear about that chick. I can relate with those feelings having some "high needs" foster kittens last year. Devastating to try to hard to "fix" something and you can't. :(
ReplyDeleteYes I admire you for doing the foster kitty thing. I could never handle that emotionally.
DeleteLast weekend I was running loops in the local park and saw a bird wobbling about and then it toppled head first into the grass. I was so sad because I thought surely I had just seen it die and I started crying. On my next loop I saw it get up and move a little bit. And on my third loop it looked like it was doing just fine, kind of sitting next to a log sleeping. I have no idea what happened... if it had a stroke or something but it seemed to be fine after whatever happened. The next day the bird was gone so I like to think it went on it’s way.
ReplyDeleteI think about the contradiction beteeen my love of animals and my enjoyment from eating them too, especially chicken. I don’t know if I’ll go vegetarian again someday because it’s hard but I hope I do.
Omg I hope the bird is okay. That would have made me sad too. I know you and I feel the same way about animals. I think you do more than I do though, since your buy cruelty free products. I fee very much like a hypocrite.
DeleteI definitely would be vegetarian, if I had to kill my own meat. I can tell you that for sure. But at the same time, I think it's a "food chain" thing and I don't try to think about the animal vs. meat on my plate when I eat it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely see that side of it- the food chain. And I would never want to kill my own meat but in a way that would be more natural/humane than factory farms. It's so weird! Like, we don't want to do it ourselves for sure, we'll just turn a blind eye. I'm not judging you, I do the EXACT same thing.
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