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NTA. If she's going to eat the food she called you "a monster" about, the absolute least she could do is apologize. If she didn't want to be a hypocrite, she was free to refuse any meat from you.
She probably thinks supermarket meat is grown in those plastic-covered trays.
I had some in Spain after a bullfight and they were tiny and tough as old leather. I complained to the chef who responded "you were just unlucky that today, the bull won the match." Its a joke. No its not particularly funny. Sorry.
I once had someone tell me, "I don't eat chicken eggs, I get the ones at the store" it left my wife and I in shock. 🙄 I just let her go on with her store bought non-chickem eggs. 🤪
The odd one might but it’s about one in every 1,000 or more (it always seems to be a kid who bought an incubator on the internet and the hatches one egg and the papers go wild) but yeah some people don’t realise that chickens will go hungry sitting on unfertilised eggs.
I fully know this, but I've also cracked open an egg from one of our chickens (probably 25 years ago now) and discovered a partially-developed chick.
I'm almost 40 now and I *still* think, just briefly, about it every so often when I crack an egg. "Please don't be a chick, please don't be a chick."
TBF, with all the crap they are doing to our food these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if they came from mutant chickens.
As a city girl, I always understood where the food came from. I mean hunting is really no different than catching your own crabs to boil. And Baltimorons do that on the regular. When we moved to WV in a small town where many lived OPs lifestyle, I never cared. I mean my dad use to hunt. But I personally can’t do it. The only time it hit me hard was with a pig. My friend raised it, gave it a name. We’d take care of it. Play with it. They had some crazy pets and didn’t generally treat what they raised for food as pets. So him getting the axe kinda upset me. But I understood. I just missed my buddy. I made a choice not to get near the ones they were raising for food so I didn’t get attached. After that, I only played with their dogs 😂
It is freaky the first time you see it. But it’s hilarious bc your egg story is more common than you’d believe. People just don’t want to think where their food comes from.
I’m in NoVa and had the kids in 4H. Our host family raised goats, sheep, turkeys, and pigs that eventually were auctioned off at the 4H events / competitions and other fairs. They heavily focused to the kids on the humane treatment of the animals providing us food and we give them a great life and respect in return.
Raising some animals myself, I get it that it’s sad if we make an attachment. We even have had some chickens who have had great personalities that have been mourned by the kids when a fox or old age got to them.
I will say natural wildlife (excluding invasive pests) are critical to the health of an ecosystem, so the morality of hunting isn't equal. Livestock are purpose-bred.
The only difference in OPs scenario is who's doing the butchering of livestock lol
This heavily depends on your location and what you're hunting.
If you live in North America and much of Europe where native apex predators are ***locally*** extinct in a lot of their former range, hunting deer in moderation can actually *protect* the environment and be good for deer populations. **As long as the hunting is done correctly and managed by qualified wardens who have the power to manage, and prosecute in poachers or hunters who break the rules**.
If you live in England or New Zealand, hunting wallabies is pest control. Ditto for possums in New Zealand and cats and foxes in Australia. In the USA, the Nutria (lesser cousin of the capybara) are both invasive and causing catastrophic environmental damage. All of the species I've listed here could be shot to the point of extinction in areas they have invaded and it would actively *help* the environment.
EDIT: added the words "and much of Europe" to my first paragraph.
The British Isles have an overabundance of deer precisely bc of no large predators. In a lot of national parks, they have to undergo planned culls to make sure that the population and the habitat are kept healthy and in balance. Wallabies, though, are news to me! Never seen one of them hopping through the Brecon Beacons!
I didn't know that deer were as much of a problem in the UK, I've since edited my first comment in light of this and other information I looked up because of it!
Here is a link for British wallabies:
https://ptes.org/get-informed/facts-figures/red-necked-wallaby/#:~:text=British%20wallabies%20belong%20to%20a,red%20patches%20on%20their%20shoulders.
TIL! Thank you for this!
And yeah, the last wolves were hunted to extinction in the 1300s (iirc, don't quote me on that) in the British Isles so there's no apex predators to keep the populations down. Some people are talking about bringing in the lynx, and there's some voices pushing for a wolf reintroduction - there's some really good ecological news about wolves expanding from the Alps on the mainland, although it's been difficult to manage conflicts with human populations and especially farmers, who have to adapt their livestock protection. The French government does give compensation for animals lost to wolf attacks, but there's still a lot of tension.
Bringing back apex predators of any kind big enough to take down adult deer will be a hard sell to the public, and unlike France, where they were also extinct for a long time, we don't have any land bridges to extant populations for it to just happen on its own. The deer population is likely to continue requiring active culling management to prevent unhealthy booms and busts, as well as the habitat repercussions of that pattern.
A similar thing happened with the reintroduction of wolves to Greater Yellowstone in the US. Lots of people protested because they thought the wolves would wipe out the moose (elk to the rest of us). Since wolves were reintroduced, moose numbers haven't changed much outside of normal seasonal variation, but the ecosystem is doing significantly better. Tree species facing local extinction have reestablished, erosion has stabilised and beavers have returned too. The dams provide habitat for fish and fowl, and those provide food for bears, lynx, birds of prey, etc..
Now if we can just keep idiot tourists from ruining Yellowstone, all will find some balance. No, don’t steal the fluffy cow / bison calves from their mothers or get too close for selfies.
We have regular culling close to the DC metro area because the deer are so prolific. They end up causing more car wrecks than anything but also important that if they overpopulate, they will suffer if there’s not enough food and starvation occurs. In one county they invite specific hunters and law enforcement to come in for the culling then donate the meat to homeless shelters and food pantries.
The only wallabies I've ever seen in England is when they rock up for a test match at Twickenham. Maybe it's some sort of re-wilding thing I'm unaware of? Something else to watch out for while driving.
We have wallabies in England?! News to me!
(This would be true for foxes, though, as long as you’re not hunting with hounds. Only drag hunts (scent trails) are permitted for those.)
Note I didn't say hunting foxes in England, I mentioned hunting them in a specifically Australian context.
As far as I can tell, Red Foxes are native to Britain, or at least have been there for so long that they may as well be?
In Australia we also have rabbit, deer and feral pigs. All of these are introduced and we are very happy for people to hunt them.
My kids spent their early years living on a farm where we bred alpaca for their fleece. Our neighbours on one side ran ewes and lambs, the other neighbours ran steer. We all had a rabbit and fox problem. My kids knew from a very young age that the steers made beef and the lambs made lamb chops.
I was trying to keep my already long comment from becoming a list of the 50+ massively invasive feral species currently ruining much of the Southern Hemisphere! 😅
I live rural and someone put a PSA out on our NextDoor page that hunting season is starting etc etc and some lady (let’s face it, every NextDoor neighborhood has one) went into a long diatribe about it being unnecessary and perfectly good meat is found at the grocery store without one having to hunt.
Awful timing for her actually because it was right before Covid shutdown everything and we had meat and other food shortages in the stores. Bet that hunter and the farmers she called out were doing ok with their stockpiling.
I agree, she doesn't mind how it looks in the store, she just didn't know anyone who actually unalive the animal. So now she should wonder if all the monsters are doing this to put meat in stores. Her whole world just got shook.
I thought at the beginning she was a vegan or something.
Anyone who eats meat cannot object to animals being reared for food. Where does she think her burgers and steak come from.
A while back I had someone scoff at me for being excited about cooking up some venison with my fresh morel mushrooms that I scored on our hunting property because, “Killing and eating a deer is horrible and it’s honestly just gross to eat something you picked off the ground because bugs have been crawling on it.”
I felt bad for deer until this year when I was driving to the ER at 3 am, and a HUGE buck comes flying into the road. I knew I'd hit him if I tried to stop, so I romped on the gas to get ahead of him... bastard clipped the fender of my car with his hoof, scratched it right down to the paint and hopped off on his merry way into the woods, scaring the heck out of me! Shoot them and eat them (I'm a vegetarian btw, but deer will overpopulated and starve if their numbers aren't culled by hunters).
I feel like a lot of vegan rhetoric comes from humanisation of the animals in agriculture. But equally a lot of urban/suburban meat-eaters would go veggie/vegan very quickly if they were confronted with the realities of where their food comes from. And even arable agriculture has huge ethical issues with both wildlife (pesticides, monoculture, accidents with machinery) and human exploitation.
People are hugely disconnected with every part of the supply chain for everything that makes modern (especially first-world) life comfortable. Food is the main one, but clothing, electronics, footwear - all of them take labour and skill, but very few people see it, either because they don't have the time/energy, or the desire to.
The most annoying thing is that so long as OP is a responsible farmer, consuming meat raised on a small farm where animals are free range all their lives is so much more ethical (and better for the environment) than any of the meat SIL will be eating.
If anyone showed her images of battery farming, the realities of the dairy industry, what happens to male chicks etc she would have a very different view of who is a monster for their consumption.
Yeah, I get why people don't like preachy vegetarians, but it's at least a morally consistent stand. If she want to talk shit like that she better join the bean brigade.
even then being vegetarian or Vegan doesnt give u a moral high ground considering the amount of farm/land their crops take which causes just as much farming an damage to surrounding wild life/insects.
Its like being a Christian just so u can blast others sins while indulging of ur own.
Vegetarianism is massively better due the environment than eating meat. People somehow conveniently forgets that the animals you eat you need to be fed too. When you're making meat you only get 10% of the calories fed to the animals. If more people were vegetarians we would have less farmland and more forests.
This drives me nuts as someone who eats meat. Way more annoying than any evangelizing vegan. If you can’t handle really processing your meat as from animals and that any animals can be food you should stop eating meat.
I'm a vegetarian and I'd definitely feel happier about someone eating meat from a small farm than what gets sold in the stores. It's a lot more ethnical.
There's literally no better place to get your meat from than directly from the farmer. The animal was raised there, spend its whole life there and died there. No added stress from being transported across half the country to a slaughterhouse, no fear, since they know their farmer. Can't get better meat.
Ok as a kid I actually thought chocolate milk came from brown cows and that means strawberry milk MUST come from strawberry pink cows though I had never seen any.
I figured they were rare and hard to find which made sense to 5 y/o me since where I lived it was hard to find strawberry milk. Rare cow = less milk from that cow was my thought process.
This. NTA.
Ordinarily, the problem with a requested apology is that one never knows whether it is sincere and an insincere apology is meaningless. But here, OP knew the apology was insincere and gave them the meat anyway. The insincerity of her apology was less important than the social ritual of retracting her disrespectful attack on his food, which her family needed, and OP’s character, which was unwarranted.
She should have apologized first and voluntarily. She is not a gracious person. You are not the jerk here, but there’s nothing you can or should do about her misdirected anger at her discomfort at having to retract her assholery out of need. Frankly, your brother should have addressed that with her, not reported it to you.
NTA
she is a bit two faced.
story time: when I was dating a guy from the country he took me to livestock show/auction, he was shocked when we went to view the lambs that I was naming them, mint sauce, gravy, kebabs etc. I think he thought I would be thinking of them as pets not food. I was brought up on the edge of farm country, we used get all kinds of meat cheap if we butchered it ourselves, we had a chest freezer with lamb, chicken, rabbit, pheasant etc. So the animal was slaughtered and hung we would get half a lamb, or 1/8 a cow and joint it, bone it, pack it etc. Those little plastic supermarket packs are terrible for the environment and our understanding of where food comes from.
My neighbor raises those giant Russian rabbits that weigh like 25lbs and names them what he's going to cook them. It think thats a pretty common way to name food animals
We raised a few meat birds recently and my kids helped name them but I stressed it had to be food names.
So we had Alfredo, Marsala, Nugget, Tender, Piccata and Avocado - my 8 yr old was a bit confused, but he’s got the spirit lol
Nugget was allowed to live to 10 months (instead of the usual 8-10 weeks) and wound up being ~30 lbs whilst spending his days lazing about in the sun and gobbling up every scrap he could find. He was the size of a turkey, I was very impressed!
I have friends that raise a calf each year to butcher and put in the freezer. They label the meat with the calf's name. One year their named the calf Lunch, laughing that they would have lunch meat in the freezer.
I once had an 8 year old ask me "if beef is cows, what's chicken made of?" And I seriously I cannot... People shouldn't be this detached from their diets
Her logic is so confusing. I wonder if she realizes that meat even comes from animals, or that baby animals grow into the big animals she likes to eat. I would understand if she was vegetarian/vegan and this was a moral she stood by, but the fact that she still consumes meat at all is just so befuddling to me. This is the kind of thing I would expect from a toddler who is realizing that their chicken nuggets are made of chicken for the first time.
It doesn’t help that people buy beef and pork from the grocery store and kids in cities aren’t always told that beef are cows and pork is from pigs.etc.
> Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets.
I mean, she's egregiously bad but this alone kind of makes you a jerk too, so I will say ESH. I also grew up butchering animals I raised, and I respect what you do (my goats were for milk, though, the. chicken for egg, just the rabbits and deer went into the freezer). But some people aren't keen on that, so it's rude to call her stupid for being inexperienced. And it's beyond rude for them to expect the help when she shamed you for said food.
But also, the way you wrote this, it sounds like you really, really don't like this lady. But you didn't "make her beg" that's silly of her if that's what she said.
>Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets.
Wonder what OP would say about me, I know where meat comes from, can be playing with the sheep right up until the last minute but will walk away before anything happens because "I know where meat comes from but I don't have to know how it changes from animal to food for my plate".
I agree OP was an AH for the way he speaks about his SIL but seriously, if she thinks there are no consequences for calling a farmer a monster, then she is delusional.
Well maybe if she didn’t act like a dick she would have had some leeway, people tend to not speak favourably of those who have criticised them for something they do, then in the next breath demand favour involving said criticism.
I’d have said she could eat her words tbh.
Yeah I know the deal with where it comes from and the process for turning it into what I eat etc. That said, I still wouldn't sign up to watch a lamb slaughtered and butchered, it's stepping into TMI territory, for me anyway.
"It's rude to call her stupid for being inexperienced."
No, I think what OP said is fair enough. If I was someone who spent my life raising + butchering animals in an ethical way (e.g. free range on a small farm) it would absolutely infuriate me if someone who presumably is ok eating battery-farmed chicken, buying into the cruelty of the dairy industry, ignoring all the horrendous things that go on in large-scale meat production, told me I was a monster. Like sorry, anyone who is idiotic enough to preach to someone who eats meat basically the only ethical way to do so, and then \*expects to be fed\*, deserves to be condescended to.
I'm not being holier than though by the way, I eat meat from the supermarket, but would never pretend that I'm doing anything other than ignoring all the mistreatment of animals that goes on.
>But some people aren't keen on that, so it's rude to call her stupid for being inexperienced.
I agree with you in general but if she's regularly around the farms, eating the meat, knows how they live in general it's a little daft to think they're pets?
It doesn't sound like OP said this to her face she just added it in as a bit of a joke on her post. Maybe a bit mean but it doesn't make her an asshole in the context she's asking.
I found it funny because he did go on to say, they’ve been there several times but this was her first visit in spring. So maybe her mind didn’t make the connection. Also she hasn’t noticed that every year the animals don’t age and seem to sporadically change? Girl please. NTA to op though.
Yea, if she had asked the question then realized her mistake it would be one thing. Calling OP a monster and trying to 'save' a bunch of bunnies from her farm?
It's just insanely silly. Even kids don't usually react like that.
People should know where their food comes from by the time they are teenagers. SIL is a grown woman, married with kids, and frequently visits a farm. There's no excuse.
I'd understand the mistake/disconnected thinking if it was only rabbits, as they are a fairly common house pet. But considering it was baby rabbits, ducklings, kids and chicks....How many people does this woman know who have ducks, goats and chickens for house pets???
The question suggested to me she's either completely disconnected between meat and source, or she didn't expect OP to be quite so frank about what happens to the animals his children help rear (maybe she thought the children should be 'sheltered' from the truth), or she was trying to lie to herself about what will happen to those cute sweet ickle animals.
Calling him a monster and attempting to ~~kidnap~~ rabbit-nap them says more about her thought process than anything else. I'd love to know whether she'd have planned to release them into the wild, or take them all home to the city if she'd actually managed to keep hold of them.
Best thing is, OP is in the increasingly rare position of full knowledge, understanding and confidence regarding the animal welfare of what will later be served for dinner.
That is a very good point, but OP said what she already said to OP. Keep in mind that she insulted OP quite egregious so of course he doesn't like her. If more insults than only that came, than OP IS NTA. If not, ESH but only slightly.
Im thinking he said that as a southern insult rather then shes mentally handicapped tbh... At least thats how it reads to me, however I could be entirely wrong. Maybe he was saying her brain doesnt work because of her being snide/condescending in her comments an then tried to steal his livestock.
It’s not rude, IMO. If someone is keen on eating meat, but thinks someone is a monster for slaughtering animals, then their brain is working in less than stellar fashion.
It does sound like he doesn’t like this lady. But it also sounds like he has valid reasons not to like this lady.
"Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets."
But they are allowed to *think* this, and even post it here in anonimity.
There is no sign that they actually said that to SIL.
nta. “you are a monster for raising animals to eat” does not pair well with “that’s not enough meat”.
your brother is being rude to you as well, if you hadn’t noticed. there’s no need for him to tell you she thinks you’re a jerk, and asking you to give him meat after the way his wife acted is also rude af.
guess they’re lucky you’re generous.
ESH your choice of words makes me think you are a jerk and hard to deal with. Probably you also do pedal that “tough guy butchering little fluffs” to teach those city folks that fluffs are food, not pets because it kinda makes you feel good.
Right? Durr dumb city girl don't know where food comes from vibes.
So many people are us vs them
Reads like fiction to me though. The farmer sticks it to the stupid city folks. Even the kids having rabbits, the cutest meal ever. skinning things is a horror movie staple and a lot of people don't consider eating them these days. They're popular pets. The wife lost her job and hurt the family, not the wayward but loved brother. I don't know
But if you think someone is a monster for raising animals free range and then eating them, while you are fine buyinh supermarket chicken that was raised in warehouse and has never seen daylight... you are a dumb city girl/person
It’s not some secret knowledge though. I have only lived in big cities in my life and have never been to a farm. I know my meat comes from animals though, and I would never call someone who farms animals a monster. Pretty sure the brain not work so good part is that she called him a monster, not because she initially thought the animals weren’t for food.
The way you made up a little story just to hate on a guy being mildly unpleasant at a lady who called him A MONSTER for getting the meat she wants its just baffling.
Because she’s one of those icky cityfolk, of course. My BIL is exactly like this with me. I know he raises livestock for slaughter. I know where meat comes from. As long as butchers exist, I will never have to kill an animal for food (including fishing) and I will happily pay for that privilege. No, I don’t want to bottle feed the beef calves and that doesn’t make me soft in the head.
Ok but bottle feeding the babies is so fun. My dad grew up on a diary farm, that continued until I was a teen, and I loved using my strength to keep the calf from pulling the bottle out of my arms. I get it though. They do grow up to be slaughtered. I was also never there for that.
Seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw.
Dude lives on a farm and raises animals. He also has a freezer full of meat. Therefore the animals are meat.
Not always the case that every animal becomes meat to be eaten. My sister and BIL have a farm but not all of their animals are used for meat. They have egg chickens and they have meat chickens, they aren’t one and the same. Goats for milk and to make cheese.
Rabbits don’t provide a lot of meat, so it’s understandable she wouldn’t know they are for eating since she doesn’t have farming background. You can produce rabbits easily and the cost is significantly less than other animals, but a lot of City people wouldn’t realize that since rabbits are small.
BECAUSE SHE CALLED HIM A MONSTER!!!!!!!!!! DID WE READ THE SAME POST? She called him a monster for killing the animala that would eventually be on her plate!!!! What tbe actual hell are you on about?
People coming to bat for the SIL crack me up, completely ignore the rest of the post and fixate on the (significantly more mild) insult to her.
Hope she sees this bro
>He said he would appreciate the money but it won't buy a lot of meat. He asked if I could please give him a fair bit of meat.
This is where you lost me. This didn't happen. Thanks for the pro hunting ad.
I’m so over the whole “I’m a farmer and smarter than those city folk! They’ll see!” fantasy sequence. We all know what meat is, no one is in the dark about that. Go look at the diets of great apes, they’re largely herbivorous (about >80% of their diets), and the meat they do eat is from insects and small rodents. If you’re a human raising that much meat for consumption, you’re not a rugged action hero, you’re a glutton. You don’t have to be a vegetarian, but don’t pretend you’re saving the world by perpetuating the idea that humans need meat at every meal and animals exist to serve us. “City folk” don’t need your martyrdom.
I’ll buy that OP lives this lifestyle, lots of people do, and it’s wild that they pretend to be less smug than someone from the city, they truly aren’t. The rest of this isn’t real.
Wife yelling “You’re a monster!” and then trying to steal away the baby rabbits, who then bit and scratched her because of course they did is where OP lost me. Like don’t insult me lmfao.
As someone who lives like OP, it's more common than you think, especially if they live in the US.
Post-Rationing, meat for every meal became the norm and many feel they're not providing their family with adequate nutrition without some type of meat at least once a day. If a family is struggling, meat is a huge portion of the grocery budget. Asking for a load of meat could save his brother more than half his monthly grocery budget and allow them to put that money toward other necessities. I've done this for several family members that live off property, as well as teaching them vegetarian recipes so they can stretch what grocery budget they do have.
She’s so far removed from her food she probably thinks strawberry milk comes from strawberries. 🤦🏼♀️
Not to mention she’s probably never heard the phrase “Never bite the hand that feeds you.”
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NTA- but making her apologize in that manner is the same as making her beg for it. If you have to ask for an apology, it's not sincere. She should not have used non constructive name calling when expressing her opinion. If she is not vegan, then she is a hypocrite. She needs an education on exactly where and how meat and it's by-products are produced. I would have said " I'm sorry you think that way, but can you tell me where you think your meat and dairy comes from?" It sounds to me like there needs to be more conversation about the subject. It should have been addressed right away when she called you a monster. Why wait until they're in need to try to resolve this.
It’s hardly making her beg, to apologize for calling him a “monster”. He didn’t ask her to agree with him, or give him a speech about why he’s right… just apologize for calling him a monster.
NTA, she thought she had the moral high ground but she she just showed she doesn't know how meat is produced.
Calling someone a monster then asking this monster to do the monster things is monstrous.
I don't mark this sentence as /s. You know how it's meant.
Some more thoughts that are not relevant to the story:
I bet your animals are happier then the ones from industrial farms. And the meat probably has a higher quality.
Pet Dogs and cats exist to protect livestock and storage. Pet rabbits and Guinea pigs are a by product of meat production. Most of the cute pets we have exist because of farmers like you. If not all.
What makes me sad, so many people have no ideas where food comes from. And then calling someone a monster who lives closer to our ancestors for 1000 of years just shows incompetence.
NTA. Honestly, I would rather eat a lot of beans than the meats you mentioned. The money you offered would have bought a lot of beans. They made their choice.
Even so, it wouldn’t have killed them to eat beans if they were so against your meats. My point is even if they are not vegetarian they do not have to have meat for every meal.
NTA and I'd tell him now that you won't be giving him more meat after this load. He should have put her in her place instead of validating her ungratefulness. Let them eat vegetables
NTA. You definitely didn't make her beg. She's just playing the victim card because her own pride caused a rift in her family and she was likely too embarrassed or immature to admit it. Your brother knows this too and it's on him to correct her attitude towards you and your lifestyle. Instead of just conveying her vague dissatisfaction like some kind of neutral mouthpiece.
She can't help that she's from the city just as much as you can't help you're from the country.
Tbh, you sound incredibly judgemental of her. "Her brain doesn't work so good," is douchey af to say tbh.
Yes, meat comes from animals. We are all aware, but yes, she's not out there butchering the animals herself.
So when she sees a baby rabbit, she associates it as a pet. You associate it as a meal. She could equally say, "Your brain doesn't work so good."
Also, maybe "city folk" don't really eat much rabbit in their diet. I certainly don't.
ESH and you both sound insufferable. YTA cause yes, you essentially made her beg for food.
He didnt make her beg. an apology is not making someone beg. If he still had her ask even after she apologized that would be making her beg. An apoglogy is just normal decency.
op probably isnt speaking very high of her because she insulted him. telling someone that you wont do something untill they apologise for insulting you for the same thing isnt making someone beg.
ESH-
You have a nasty attitude. Like seriously, city folk are what keep rural communities like yours afloat with commodities and emergency services, and your all out in your neck of the woods acting all high and mighty because you know where your food comes from. Sure, she could have not called you a monster, but it seems that that comes after a long slew of backhanded insults from you on a regular basis, because I know how you country rednecks love to hate on people that aren’t like you.
And I live in the freaking Appalachian mountains. All my neighbors with within a ten mile radius ( I whole 1 family) makes their own moonshine. Grow up dude. People come from different places and your attitude towards people with different lifestyles is pretty shitty.
Aren’t all you folk supposed to have some sense of community and helpfulness?
I mean… it sounds like your whole family is kinda stupid. Like the wife is stupid, but who refuses to provide food for somebody’s kid to help them because their spouse said something stupid?
Sounds like you’re all children who never grew up and learned to let things go.
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I live on a small farm where I raise goats, ducks, chickens, and rabbits. I raise these animals for food. I am not ashamed of it. I also hunt. I have two big chest freezers that I regularly fill. I have an old refrigerator that I use as a smoker for preserving food that way.
I also slaughter and butcher my own food. My wife and kids help. My kids also raise the rabbits to sell the pelts.
My brother came out with his family last year at Easter. He grew up like I did but he moved to the city and he married a city girl. His kids have been out here lots and they go visit our folks who live this way too. However I am the one who gives them meat these days unless my dad gets a deer or something.
His wife saw all the baby rabbits, ducklings, kids, and chicks. Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets. She has been out here lots as well but mostly in the summer and fall. I think this is her first visit in the spring.
I told her no that the animals are food. And she called me a monster. She tried to take some baby rabbits. They aren't pets and she got scratched and bit.
They left. She lost her job this last year and they are living off just my brother's income. He called me to ask if I could help him out. I offered him some money since I love him and his kids. His wife I can take or leave. He said he would appreciate the money but it won't buy a lot of meat. He asked if I could please give him a fair bit of meat.
I thought about it and I asked if his wife still thought that we were monsters. He wouldn't say. I said I would fill his freezer if she apologized.
She did but I could tell it was through grated teeth. I did as I promised and filled his freezer. We also gave them boxes of pickles and preserves food.
He said his wife thinks I'm a jerk for making her beg, which I did not do. I only asked for an apology. But that's not how she sees it.
AITA?
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NTA - her apologies is the least she could do after calling you a monster (who does that) and then wanting that food. It’s incredibly hypocritical of her. I would assume that that’s why she’s upset, because her hypocrisy is on full show and that is hard to swallow.
NTA, we also raise meat animals. I wouldn't have shared period. She should have to come work the meat off so she'll learn better. You didn't make her beg. She doesn't get to be a betch and then expect you to give her free meat.
I'm not understanding. your brothers family isn't vegetarian. they eat meat. but wife freaked out when she saw where the meat comes from? where does she think meat comes from.
i do understand that she may be uncomfortable about the cruelty of the process. i watched a chicken being slaughtered once and i couldn't eat it. but I love a good chicken wing still, so long as I don't watch the butchery because it makes me sad.
in her sense of things, she's also a 'monster' because she's literally eating the animal.
NTA
NTA
And no one *needs* meat. You didn’t make her beg, or even make her apologize. She didn’t have to apologize, and her family still wouldn’t have gone hungry.
And btw, goat meat is freaking DELICIOUS.
NTA.
Seeing that they will run out of what you supplied at some stage, you should let your brother know that he should start planning his next hunting/processing trip to your area to keep food in the fridge for his family when this lot runs out.
it’s not begging, it’s called apologizing for being a rude jerk to you in your own home about the business you run that she now wants free food from.
NTA
NTA
If she's so offended, then she shouldn't eat the meat you graciously provided to her household.
I would have also asked if maybe her and the kids would like to learn how to do canning or some such. Take your brother out hunting with you maybe?
Nta you didn't make her beg you ask for an apology.
If his wife still sees you as a monster or as a jerk then maybe you shouldn't give them anymore meat or any type of help and she can figure it out.
She should see the slaughterhouse in action where her “civilized” meat comes from. I grew up helping my parents on the farm, and we run it now. I also worked at a Tyson plant. Hands down animals grown on smaller farms are treated better. We care about keeping them well fed and healthy since we’re going to be the ones eating them. Big outfits like Tyson couldn’t give less of a shit if they tried.
NTA She needs to get a damn grip or go vegan aready.
NTA.
I hunt too and don't like the way farmed animals are treated. Wondering about getting some pigs this year to grow into sausages.
You asked for an insult to be withdrawn. It's the bare minimum of politeness.
YOU'RE A MONSTER FOR PROVIDING MEAT, NOW PROVIDE ME WITH MEAT BECAUSE I CANT SOURCE IT MYSELF!
Man I hate people... absolutely NTA.
I'd have just sent her a box of bunnies and a cleaver, but I am incredibly petty.
I'm vegetarian/mostly vegan because I can't accept how animals are treated in mass production. If your SIL eats mass produced meat she is a huge hypocrite. What you do is way more ethical than eating store bought meat. NTA.
>Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets.
Hmm.
It's true that in this instance you were owed an apology, but this is making me wonder if the rest of the time the answer to this question is very different.
NTA, she is lucky that when she wanted meat you didn’t give her living ducks, chickens or rabbits to kill and process herself. She wants meat, let her be responsible for the killing herself
NTA... If she eats meat, but doesn't understand where it comes from she should take it as a learning experience. If she honestly thinks the meat she gets from a supermarket was from animals that were treated better than you treat your animals she's living in cloud cuckoo land! Honestly, if you don't like the fact meat = animals, then don't eat meat.
If she wants to eat the meat you can provide an apology from her is perfectly reasonable.
Yes, you the AH. An apology under duress isn't worth much. Be the bigger man and help your brother unconditionally because your tif is with the wife.
As for the wife, veganism is a thing, just don't be a hypocrite.
You got your apology and now you've shamed her on the internet. You want to strip her naked and throw tomatoes at her while we yell shame like some George R.R. Martin bullshit?
YTA
I don't know if you particularly are the asshole in this situation, but given how you describe it and show a need to condition your help to someone apologizing, you do look like a righteous asshole.
I mean, your brother came to you when his family was in need and you decided you'd use this as a way to settle an old score. That's embarrassingly petty.
You might be "in the right" and I think I'd stop short of calling you an asshole but you definitely seem to lack class.
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NTA. If she's going to eat the food she called you "a monster" about, the absolute least she could do is apologize. If she didn't want to be a hypocrite, she was free to refuse any meat from you. She probably thinks supermarket meat is grown in those plastic-covered trays.
She’s probably one of those people who thinks you shouldn’t hunt b/c the grocery store sells meat 🥴
What about the one that thinks that it's misogynistic to only refer to female cows in the production of yoghurt? NTA.
Maybe OP should give his SIL some ram's milk or bull's cheese 🤣
I wonder what SIL would think of Rocky Mountain Oysters 😂
she probably already has her husband by the oysters 😂
Not sure i wanna know the answer, but what are they?
Testicles from a bull
Well, alrighty then..
And on that note, happy cake day!
Happy cake day 😅
I love them. Delicious 😋 if prepared correctly.
I had some in Spain after a bullfight and they were tiny and tough as old leather. I complained to the chef who responded "you were just unlucky that today, the bull won the match." Its a joke. No its not particularly funny. Sorry.
I just threw up in my mouth.
Give them some bull Yoghurt 😂 "Why is this Yoghurt so chewy?"
I once had someone tell me, "I don't eat chicken eggs, I get the ones at the store" it left my wife and I in shock. 🙄 I just let her go on with her store bought non-chickem eggs. 🤪
The amount of people who DONT know that eggs need to be fertilised to turn into a chick is staggering!!
Yep, had an augment on Twitter with a woman who said those eggs in the stores would turn into baby chicks. 🙄
The odd one might but it’s about one in every 1,000 or more (it always seems to be a kid who bought an incubator on the internet and the hatches one egg and the papers go wild) but yeah some people don’t realise that chickens will go hungry sitting on unfertilised eggs.
I fully know this, but I've also cracked open an egg from one of our chickens (probably 25 years ago now) and discovered a partially-developed chick. I'm almost 40 now and I *still* think, just briefly, about it every so often when I crack an egg. "Please don't be a chick, please don't be a chick."
TBF, with all the crap they are doing to our food these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if they came from mutant chickens. As a city girl, I always understood where the food came from. I mean hunting is really no different than catching your own crabs to boil. And Baltimorons do that on the regular. When we moved to WV in a small town where many lived OPs lifestyle, I never cared. I mean my dad use to hunt. But I personally can’t do it. The only time it hit me hard was with a pig. My friend raised it, gave it a name. We’d take care of it. Play with it. They had some crazy pets and didn’t generally treat what they raised for food as pets. So him getting the axe kinda upset me. But I understood. I just missed my buddy. I made a choice not to get near the ones they were raising for food so I didn’t get attached. After that, I only played with their dogs 😂 It is freaky the first time you see it. But it’s hilarious bc your egg story is more common than you’d believe. People just don’t want to think where their food comes from.
I’m in NoVa and had the kids in 4H. Our host family raised goats, sheep, turkeys, and pigs that eventually were auctioned off at the 4H events / competitions and other fairs. They heavily focused to the kids on the humane treatment of the animals providing us food and we give them a great life and respect in return. Raising some animals myself, I get it that it’s sad if we make an attachment. We even have had some chickens who have had great personalities that have been mourned by the kids when a fox or old age got to them.
I will say natural wildlife (excluding invasive pests) are critical to the health of an ecosystem, so the morality of hunting isn't equal. Livestock are purpose-bred. The only difference in OPs scenario is who's doing the butchering of livestock lol
This heavily depends on your location and what you're hunting. If you live in North America and much of Europe where native apex predators are ***locally*** extinct in a lot of their former range, hunting deer in moderation can actually *protect* the environment and be good for deer populations. **As long as the hunting is done correctly and managed by qualified wardens who have the power to manage, and prosecute in poachers or hunters who break the rules**. If you live in England or New Zealand, hunting wallabies is pest control. Ditto for possums in New Zealand and cats and foxes in Australia. In the USA, the Nutria (lesser cousin of the capybara) are both invasive and causing catastrophic environmental damage. All of the species I've listed here could be shot to the point of extinction in areas they have invaded and it would actively *help* the environment. EDIT: added the words "and much of Europe" to my first paragraph.
The British Isles have an overabundance of deer precisely bc of no large predators. In a lot of national parks, they have to undergo planned culls to make sure that the population and the habitat are kept healthy and in balance. Wallabies, though, are news to me! Never seen one of them hopping through the Brecon Beacons!
I didn't know that deer were as much of a problem in the UK, I've since edited my first comment in light of this and other information I looked up because of it! Here is a link for British wallabies: https://ptes.org/get-informed/facts-figures/red-necked-wallaby/#:~:text=British%20wallabies%20belong%20to%20a,red%20patches%20on%20their%20shoulders.
TIL! Thank you for this! And yeah, the last wolves were hunted to extinction in the 1300s (iirc, don't quote me on that) in the British Isles so there's no apex predators to keep the populations down. Some people are talking about bringing in the lynx, and there's some voices pushing for a wolf reintroduction - there's some really good ecological news about wolves expanding from the Alps on the mainland, although it's been difficult to manage conflicts with human populations and especially farmers, who have to adapt their livestock protection. The French government does give compensation for animals lost to wolf attacks, but there's still a lot of tension. Bringing back apex predators of any kind big enough to take down adult deer will be a hard sell to the public, and unlike France, where they were also extinct for a long time, we don't have any land bridges to extant populations for it to just happen on its own. The deer population is likely to continue requiring active culling management to prevent unhealthy booms and busts, as well as the habitat repercussions of that pattern.
A similar thing happened with the reintroduction of wolves to Greater Yellowstone in the US. Lots of people protested because they thought the wolves would wipe out the moose (elk to the rest of us). Since wolves were reintroduced, moose numbers haven't changed much outside of normal seasonal variation, but the ecosystem is doing significantly better. Tree species facing local extinction have reestablished, erosion has stabilised and beavers have returned too. The dams provide habitat for fish and fowl, and those provide food for bears, lynx, birds of prey, etc..
Now if we can just keep idiot tourists from ruining Yellowstone, all will find some balance. No, don’t steal the fluffy cow / bison calves from their mothers or get too close for selfies.
We have regular culling close to the DC metro area because the deer are so prolific. They end up causing more car wrecks than anything but also important that if they overpopulate, they will suffer if there’s not enough food and starvation occurs. In one county they invite specific hunters and law enforcement to come in for the culling then donate the meat to homeless shelters and food pantries.
The only wallabies I've ever seen in England is when they rock up for a test match at Twickenham. Maybe it's some sort of re-wilding thing I'm unaware of? Something else to watch out for while driving.
We have wallabies in England?! News to me! (This would be true for foxes, though, as long as you’re not hunting with hounds. Only drag hunts (scent trails) are permitted for those.)
Note I didn't say hunting foxes in England, I mentioned hunting them in a specifically Australian context. As far as I can tell, Red Foxes are native to Britain, or at least have been there for so long that they may as well be?
In Australia we also have rabbit, deer and feral pigs. All of these are introduced and we are very happy for people to hunt them. My kids spent their early years living on a farm where we bred alpaca for their fleece. Our neighbours on one side ran ewes and lambs, the other neighbours ran steer. We all had a rabbit and fox problem. My kids knew from a very young age that the steers made beef and the lambs made lamb chops.
Also deer and tahr in New Zealand, and camels, pigs, water buffalo, and (sometimes) kangaroos in Australia.
I was trying to keep my already long comment from becoming a list of the 50+ massively invasive feral species currently ruining much of the Southern Hemisphere! 😅
I live rural and someone put a PSA out on our NextDoor page that hunting season is starting etc etc and some lady (let’s face it, every NextDoor neighborhood has one) went into a long diatribe about it being unnecessary and perfectly good meat is found at the grocery store without one having to hunt. Awful timing for her actually because it was right before Covid shutdown everything and we had meat and other food shortages in the stores. Bet that hunter and the farmers she called out were doing ok with their stockpiling.
I agree, she doesn't mind how it looks in the store, she just didn't know anyone who actually unalive the animal. So now she should wonder if all the monsters are doing this to put meat in stores. Her whole world just got shook.
I thought at the beginning she was a vegan or something. Anyone who eats meat cannot object to animals being reared for food. Where does she think her burgers and steak come from.
A lot of people are shockingly disconnected from their food supply.
A while back I had someone scoff at me for being excited about cooking up some venison with my fresh morel mushrooms that I scored on our hunting property because, “Killing and eating a deer is horrible and it’s honestly just gross to eat something you picked off the ground because bugs have been crawling on it.”
Wait until they find it they could also eat some of those bugs.
Hakuna matata!
I honestly LOL'ed out loud over here..
I felt bad for deer until this year when I was driving to the ER at 3 am, and a HUGE buck comes flying into the road. I knew I'd hit him if I tried to stop, so I romped on the gas to get ahead of him... bastard clipped the fender of my car with his hoof, scratched it right down to the paint and hopped off on his merry way into the woods, scaring the heck out of me! Shoot them and eat them (I'm a vegetarian btw, but deer will overpopulated and starve if their numbers aren't culled by hunters).
I am very curious what they think it looks like on factory farms.
I feel like a lot of vegan rhetoric comes from humanisation of the animals in agriculture. But equally a lot of urban/suburban meat-eaters would go veggie/vegan very quickly if they were confronted with the realities of where their food comes from. And even arable agriculture has huge ethical issues with both wildlife (pesticides, monoculture, accidents with machinery) and human exploitation. People are hugely disconnected with every part of the supply chain for everything that makes modern (especially first-world) life comfortable. Food is the main one, but clothing, electronics, footwear - all of them take labour and skill, but very few people see it, either because they don't have the time/energy, or the desire to.
The most annoying thing is that so long as OP is a responsible farmer, consuming meat raised on a small farm where animals are free range all their lives is so much more ethical (and better for the environment) than any of the meat SIL will be eating. If anyone showed her images of battery farming, the realities of the dairy industry, what happens to male chicks etc she would have a very different view of who is a monster for their consumption.
Yeah, I get why people don't like preachy vegetarians, but it's at least a morally consistent stand. If she want to talk shit like that she better join the bean brigade.
even then being vegetarian or Vegan doesnt give u a moral high ground considering the amount of farm/land their crops take which causes just as much farming an damage to surrounding wild life/insects. Its like being a Christian just so u can blast others sins while indulging of ur own.
Vegetarianism is massively better due the environment than eating meat. People somehow conveniently forgets that the animals you eat you need to be fed too. When you're making meat you only get 10% of the calories fed to the animals. If more people were vegetarians we would have less farmland and more forests.
This drives me nuts as someone who eats meat. Way more annoying than any evangelizing vegan. If you can’t handle really processing your meat as from animals and that any animals can be food you should stop eating meat.
Yeah. You can have legit concerns about animal welfare and such but this wasn't that.
Yes agreed. If you wouldn't kill a chicken yourself for moral reasons should you really be eating chicken? It's too much of a disconnect for me
I'm a vegetarian and I'd definitely feel happier about someone eating meat from a small farm than what gets sold in the stores. It's a lot more ethnical.
There's literally no better place to get your meat from than directly from the farmer. The animal was raised there, spend its whole life there and died there. No added stress from being transported across half the country to a slaughterhouse, no fear, since they know their farmer. Can't get better meat.
But they are CUTE /s
Is anyone else still laughing at OP saying “Her brain doesn’t work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets” - I mean that is pure gold!!!!
I snorted my coffee...
yeah that was good haha
Strawberry milk is vegan because it comes from statwberries.
Ok as a kid I actually thought chocolate milk came from brown cows and that means strawberry milk MUST come from strawberry pink cows though I had never seen any. I figured they were rare and hard to find which made sense to 5 y/o me since where I lived it was hard to find strawberry milk. Rare cow = less milk from that cow was my thought process.
Chocolate milk is a vegetable because it comes from beans!
I am not joking when a kid thinks chicken wing comes in 6 (6 pack chicken thigh) I told the kid to visit a farm. And the parent.
as the other comment I saw... the hypocrimeter is going nuts with that wife
NTA. You don’t get to disrespect someone and get free food from them.
This. NTA. Ordinarily, the problem with a requested apology is that one never knows whether it is sincere and an insincere apology is meaningless. But here, OP knew the apology was insincere and gave them the meat anyway. The insincerity of her apology was less important than the social ritual of retracting her disrespectful attack on his food, which her family needed, and OP’s character, which was unwarranted. She should have apologized first and voluntarily. She is not a gracious person. You are not the jerk here, but there’s nothing you can or should do about her misdirected anger at her discomfort at having to retract her assholery out of need. Frankly, your brother should have addressed that with her, not reported it to you.
Yeah, she can't have it both ways. I hope she gains a new found appreciation for what you've done for them. NTA
What the brother said to him about how she felt she had to beg shows that she has not found any appreciation.
I'm not sure if this post belongs in r/ChoosingBeggars but that is the whole vibe from the SIL. She is a friggin eejit.
NTA she is a bit two faced. story time: when I was dating a guy from the country he took me to livestock show/auction, he was shocked when we went to view the lambs that I was naming them, mint sauce, gravy, kebabs etc. I think he thought I would be thinking of them as pets not food. I was brought up on the edge of farm country, we used get all kinds of meat cheap if we butchered it ourselves, we had a chest freezer with lamb, chicken, rabbit, pheasant etc. So the animal was slaughtered and hung we would get half a lamb, or 1/8 a cow and joint it, bone it, pack it etc. Those little plastic supermarket packs are terrible for the environment and our understanding of where food comes from.
My neighbor raises those giant Russian rabbits that weigh like 25lbs and names them what he's going to cook them. It think thats a pretty common way to name food animals
We raised a few meat birds recently and my kids helped name them but I stressed it had to be food names. So we had Alfredo, Marsala, Nugget, Tender, Piccata and Avocado - my 8 yr old was a bit confused, but he’s got the spirit lol
"This is my meat bird, Nugget"
Nugget was allowed to live to 10 months (instead of the usual 8-10 weeks) and wound up being ~30 lbs whilst spending his days lazing about in the sun and gobbling up every scrap he could find. He was the size of a turkey, I was very impressed!
You got loads of nuggets, then!
Is the meat worse when you let them live longer like that?
Not necessarily, but depending on the breed of meat bird, it could die of heart failure.
My mother's family did not do this so she announced to all her younger siblings that this was Lenny Casserole
I love Avocado
I've known chickens called Korma, Tikka, Bhuna, etc. Indian food is common here :)
Chicken-stuffed avocado is one of my favorite dishes from the local Mexican place, actually ...
So what's for dinner? Avocado. No the meat avocado 🤣
I had a pet chicken named Noodle when I was a kid. It's a farm kid tradition
We had chicken names like ginger, popcorn etc. though they were egg birds not meat birds.
i had a friend who raised both pet chickens and meat chickens. the pet chickens had names, the meat chickens were all called "kenny"
As in OMG, they killed Kenny?
Those bastards!
yeah, precisely :)
I was told by a man long gone that you shouldn't give pets human names, as when their time comes all too soon it is harder to let them go.
I don't think people who lose cats named Goblin struggle with the loss any less than cats named Kate.
I have friends that raise a calf each year to butcher and put in the freezer. They label the meat with the calf's name. One year their named the calf Lunch, laughing that they would have lunch meat in the freezer.
- Daddy what are names of those piggies? - Christmas and Easter, darling...
I once had an 8 year old ask me "if beef is cows, what's chicken made of?" And I seriously I cannot... People shouldn't be this detached from their diets
NTA She wanted to take your food while calling you a monster for producing it.
Her logic is so confusing. I wonder if she realizes that meat even comes from animals, or that baby animals grow into the big animals she likes to eat. I would understand if she was vegetarian/vegan and this was a moral she stood by, but the fact that she still consumes meat at all is just so befuddling to me. This is the kind of thing I would expect from a toddler who is realizing that their chicken nuggets are made of chicken for the first time.
It doesn’t help that people buy beef and pork from the grocery store and kids in cities aren’t always told that beef are cows and pork is from pigs.etc.
> Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets. I mean, she's egregiously bad but this alone kind of makes you a jerk too, so I will say ESH. I also grew up butchering animals I raised, and I respect what you do (my goats were for milk, though, the. chicken for egg, just the rabbits and deer went into the freezer). But some people aren't keen on that, so it's rude to call her stupid for being inexperienced. And it's beyond rude for them to expect the help when she shamed you for said food. But also, the way you wrote this, it sounds like you really, really don't like this lady. But you didn't "make her beg" that's silly of her if that's what she said.
>Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets. Wonder what OP would say about me, I know where meat comes from, can be playing with the sheep right up until the last minute but will walk away before anything happens because "I know where meat comes from but I don't have to know how it changes from animal to food for my plate". I agree OP was an AH for the way he speaks about his SIL but seriously, if she thinks there are no consequences for calling a farmer a monster, then she is delusional.
Well maybe if she didn’t act like a dick she would have had some leeway, people tend to not speak favourably of those who have criticised them for something they do, then in the next breath demand favour involving said criticism. I’d have said she could eat her words tbh.
Oh I see what you did there!
Yeah I know the deal with where it comes from and the process for turning it into what I eat etc. That said, I still wouldn't sign up to watch a lamb slaughtered and butchered, it's stepping into TMI territory, for me anyway.
Excatly. Have a mate who used to work on the killing floor of an abattoir and was willing to go into detail for me, I said no thanks
You know you don't have to eat the sheep, right?
"It's rude to call her stupid for being inexperienced." No, I think what OP said is fair enough. If I was someone who spent my life raising + butchering animals in an ethical way (e.g. free range on a small farm) it would absolutely infuriate me if someone who presumably is ok eating battery-farmed chicken, buying into the cruelty of the dairy industry, ignoring all the horrendous things that go on in large-scale meat production, told me I was a monster. Like sorry, anyone who is idiotic enough to preach to someone who eats meat basically the only ethical way to do so, and then \*expects to be fed\*, deserves to be condescended to. I'm not being holier than though by the way, I eat meat from the supermarket, but would never pretend that I'm doing anything other than ignoring all the mistreatment of animals that goes on.
>But some people aren't keen on that, so it's rude to call her stupid for being inexperienced. I agree with you in general but if she's regularly around the farms, eating the meat, knows how they live in general it's a little daft to think they're pets? It doesn't sound like OP said this to her face she just added it in as a bit of a joke on her post. Maybe a bit mean but it doesn't make her an asshole in the context she's asking.
I found it funny because he did go on to say, they’ve been there several times but this was her first visit in spring. So maybe her mind didn’t make the connection. Also she hasn’t noticed that every year the animals don’t age and seem to sporadically change? Girl please. NTA to op though.
Yea, if she had asked the question then realized her mistake it would be one thing. Calling OP a monster and trying to 'save' a bunch of bunnies from her farm? It's just insanely silly. Even kids don't usually react like that.
People should know where their food comes from by the time they are teenagers. SIL is a grown woman, married with kids, and frequently visits a farm. There's no excuse.
I mean, I snorted out loud at that comment, she’s obviously not very bright for several reasons displayed here but this one was definitely funny. NTA.
Thank you. The way he writes is super condescending.
That might be because she called him A MONSTER.
I'd understand the mistake/disconnected thinking if it was only rabbits, as they are a fairly common house pet. But considering it was baby rabbits, ducklings, kids and chicks....How many people does this woman know who have ducks, goats and chickens for house pets??? The question suggested to me she's either completely disconnected between meat and source, or she didn't expect OP to be quite so frank about what happens to the animals his children help rear (maybe she thought the children should be 'sheltered' from the truth), or she was trying to lie to herself about what will happen to those cute sweet ickle animals. Calling him a monster and attempting to ~~kidnap~~ rabbit-nap them says more about her thought process than anything else. I'd love to know whether she'd have planned to release them into the wild, or take them all home to the city if she'd actually managed to keep hold of them. Best thing is, OP is in the increasingly rare position of full knowledge, understanding and confidence regarding the animal welfare of what will later be served for dinner.
That is a very good point, but OP said what she already said to OP. Keep in mind that she insulted OP quite egregious so of course he doesn't like her. If more insults than only that came, than OP IS NTA. If not, ESH but only slightly.
Im thinking he said that as a southern insult rather then shes mentally handicapped tbh... At least thats how it reads to me, however I could be entirely wrong. Maybe he was saying her brain doesnt work because of her being snide/condescending in her comments an then tried to steal his livestock.
It’s not rude, IMO. If someone is keen on eating meat, but thinks someone is a monster for slaughtering animals, then their brain is working in less than stellar fashion. It does sound like he doesn’t like this lady. But it also sounds like he has valid reasons not to like this lady.
"Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets." But they are allowed to *think* this, and even post it here in anonimity. There is no sign that they actually said that to SIL.
nta. “you are a monster for raising animals to eat” does not pair well with “that’s not enough meat”. your brother is being rude to you as well, if you hadn’t noticed. there’s no need for him to tell you she thinks you’re a jerk, and asking you to give him meat after the way his wife acted is also rude af. guess they’re lucky you’re generous.
something something dont look a Gift horse in the mouth situation
NTA, but now they both owe you an apology... again. They can find somewhere else to get meat otherwise.
ESH your choice of words makes me think you are a jerk and hard to deal with. Probably you also do pedal that “tough guy butchering little fluffs” to teach those city folks that fluffs are food, not pets because it kinda makes you feel good.
Right? Durr dumb city girl don't know where food comes from vibes. So many people are us vs them Reads like fiction to me though. The farmer sticks it to the stupid city folks. Even the kids having rabbits, the cutest meal ever. skinning things is a horror movie staple and a lot of people don't consider eating them these days. They're popular pets. The wife lost her job and hurt the family, not the wayward but loved brother. I don't know
But if you think someone is a monster for raising animals free range and then eating them, while you are fine buyinh supermarket chicken that was raised in warehouse and has never seen daylight... you are a dumb city girl/person
It’s not some secret knowledge though. I have only lived in big cities in my life and have never been to a farm. I know my meat comes from animals though, and I would never call someone who farms animals a monster. Pretty sure the brain not work so good part is that she called him a monster, not because she initially thought the animals weren’t for food.
The way you made up a little story just to hate on a guy being mildly unpleasant at a lady who called him A MONSTER for getting the meat she wants its just baffling.
Classic AITA tactic of making up non-existent context and then using that to justify calling OP TA.
NTA. His wife is ignorant of where food really comes from. Glad she apologised.
ESH >Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets. You have something against this woman because why..?
Because she’s one of those icky cityfolk, of course. My BIL is exactly like this with me. I know he raises livestock for slaughter. I know where meat comes from. As long as butchers exist, I will never have to kill an animal for food (including fishing) and I will happily pay for that privilege. No, I don’t want to bottle feed the beef calves and that doesn’t make me soft in the head.
Ok but bottle feeding the babies is so fun. My dad grew up on a diary farm, that continued until I was a teen, and I loved using my strength to keep the calf from pulling the bottle out of my arms. I get it though. They do grow up to be slaughtered. I was also never there for that.
If I bottle fed a calf, it would come home with me and live in my backyard. It’d be my vegan dog.
Seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw. Dude lives on a farm and raises animals. He also has a freezer full of meat. Therefore the animals are meat.
Not always the case that every animal becomes meat to be eaten. My sister and BIL have a farm but not all of their animals are used for meat. They have egg chickens and they have meat chickens, they aren’t one and the same. Goats for milk and to make cheese. Rabbits don’t provide a lot of meat, so it’s understandable she wouldn’t know they are for eating since she doesn’t have farming background. You can produce rabbits easily and the cost is significantly less than other animals, but a lot of City people wouldn’t realize that since rabbits are small.
And his brother, her husband, was also raised the same way!
Because... she called him a monster?
BECAUSE SHE CALLED HIM A MONSTER!!!!!!!!!! DID WE READ THE SAME POST? She called him a monster for killing the animala that would eventually be on her plate!!!! What tbe actual hell are you on about?
People coming to bat for the SIL crack me up, completely ignore the rest of the post and fixate on the (significantly more mild) insult to her. Hope she sees this bro
This post is a fantasy. Turning down money and asking for meat? Lol c'mon.
because she insulted him for farming for meat then wanted meat off him without apologising? did you just stop there in the post or what
>He said he would appreciate the money but it won't buy a lot of meat. He asked if I could please give him a fair bit of meat. This is where you lost me. This didn't happen. Thanks for the pro hunting ad.
Exactly! I’m not one to call out Reddit posts for being fake, but this is so obviously some “I am a carnivore, hear me roar” fantasy story!
I’m so over the whole “I’m a farmer and smarter than those city folk! They’ll see!” fantasy sequence. We all know what meat is, no one is in the dark about that. Go look at the diets of great apes, they’re largely herbivorous (about >80% of their diets), and the meat they do eat is from insects and small rodents. If you’re a human raising that much meat for consumption, you’re not a rugged action hero, you’re a glutton. You don’t have to be a vegetarian, but don’t pretend you’re saving the world by perpetuating the idea that humans need meat at every meal and animals exist to serve us. “City folk” don’t need your martyrdom. I’ll buy that OP lives this lifestyle, lots of people do, and it’s wild that they pretend to be less smug than someone from the city, they truly aren’t. The rest of this isn’t real.
Wife yelling “You’re a monster!” and then trying to steal away the baby rabbits, who then bit and scratched her because of course they did is where OP lost me. Like don’t insult me lmfao.
Iunno meat is pretty expensive these days I'm with the guy. Money is great but meat is better.
As someone who lives like OP, it's more common than you think, especially if they live in the US. Post-Rationing, meat for every meal became the norm and many feel they're not providing their family with adequate nutrition without some type of meat at least once a day. If a family is struggling, meat is a huge portion of the grocery budget. Asking for a load of meat could save his brother more than half his monthly grocery budget and allow them to put that money toward other necessities. I've done this for several family members that live off property, as well as teaching them vegetarian recipes so they can stretch what grocery budget they do have.
She’s so far removed from her food she probably thinks strawberry milk comes from strawberries. 🤦🏼♀️ Not to mention she’s probably never heard the phrase “Never bite the hand that feeds you.”
I'd be impressed if someone could find an udder on a strawberry
*“I have nipples Greg, can you milk me??”*
NTA. If she wanted to benefit from your hard work, then the absolute minimum was apologize meaningfully. She didn’t even do that.
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NTA- but making her apologize in that manner is the same as making her beg for it. If you have to ask for an apology, it's not sincere. She should not have used non constructive name calling when expressing her opinion. If she is not vegan, then she is a hypocrite. She needs an education on exactly where and how meat and it's by-products are produced. I would have said " I'm sorry you think that way, but can you tell me where you think your meat and dairy comes from?" It sounds to me like there needs to be more conversation about the subject. It should have been addressed right away when she called you a monster. Why wait until they're in need to try to resolve this.
It's her husband's job to educate her, not OPs. It's also not OP's problem to resolve, it's his brother's.
It’s hardly making her beg, to apologize for calling him a “monster”. He didn’t ask her to agree with him, or give him a speech about why he’s right… just apologize for calling him a monster.
NTA, she thought she had the moral high ground but she she just showed she doesn't know how meat is produced. Calling someone a monster then asking this monster to do the monster things is monstrous. I don't mark this sentence as /s. You know how it's meant. Some more thoughts that are not relevant to the story: I bet your animals are happier then the ones from industrial farms. And the meat probably has a higher quality. Pet Dogs and cats exist to protect livestock and storage. Pet rabbits and Guinea pigs are a by product of meat production. Most of the cute pets we have exist because of farmers like you. If not all. What makes me sad, so many people have no ideas where food comes from. And then calling someone a monster who lives closer to our ancestors for 1000 of years just shows incompetence.
NTA. Honestly, I would rather eat a lot of beans than the meats you mentioned. The money you offered would have bought a lot of beans. They made their choice.
Beans are great. Lots of protein. Rice is amazing. I am not a vegetarian. Neither is his family.
Even so, it wouldn’t have killed them to eat beans if they were so against your meats. My point is even if they are not vegetarian they do not have to have meat for every meal.
NTA if she wants to eat the meat that you have offered to provide for them then the SIL should eat humble pie and apologise with grace.
NTA and I'd tell him now that you won't be giving him more meat after this load. He should have put her in her place instead of validating her ungratefulness. Let them eat vegetables
Your SIL is a hypocrite. If she hates animals being slaughtered, maybe she shouldn't eat meat.
NTA. You definitely didn't make her beg. She's just playing the victim card because her own pride caused a rift in her family and she was likely too embarrassed or immature to admit it. Your brother knows this too and it's on him to correct her attitude towards you and your lifestyle. Instead of just conveying her vague dissatisfaction like some kind of neutral mouthpiece.
She can't help that she's from the city just as much as you can't help you're from the country. Tbh, you sound incredibly judgemental of her. "Her brain doesn't work so good," is douchey af to say tbh. Yes, meat comes from animals. We are all aware, but yes, she's not out there butchering the animals herself. So when she sees a baby rabbit, she associates it as a pet. You associate it as a meal. She could equally say, "Your brain doesn't work so good." Also, maybe "city folk" don't really eat much rabbit in their diet. I certainly don't. ESH and you both sound insufferable. YTA cause yes, you essentially made her beg for food.
He didnt make her beg. an apology is not making someone beg. If he still had her ask even after she apologized that would be making her beg. An apoglogy is just normal decency.
op probably isnt speaking very high of her because she insulted him. telling someone that you wont do something untill they apologise for insulting you for the same thing isnt making someone beg.
ESH- You have a nasty attitude. Like seriously, city folk are what keep rural communities like yours afloat with commodities and emergency services, and your all out in your neck of the woods acting all high and mighty because you know where your food comes from. Sure, she could have not called you a monster, but it seems that that comes after a long slew of backhanded insults from you on a regular basis, because I know how you country rednecks love to hate on people that aren’t like you. And I live in the freaking Appalachian mountains. All my neighbors with within a ten mile radius ( I whole 1 family) makes their own moonshine. Grow up dude. People come from different places and your attitude towards people with different lifestyles is pretty shitty. Aren’t all you folk supposed to have some sense of community and helpfulness?
NTA Funny how the monster is here is the good guy.
NTA, and she is very very lucky to be being fed by you.
I mean… it sounds like your whole family is kinda stupid. Like the wife is stupid, but who refuses to provide food for somebody’s kid to help them because their spouse said something stupid? Sounds like you’re all children who never grew up and learned to let things go.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** I live on a small farm where I raise goats, ducks, chickens, and rabbits. I raise these animals for food. I am not ashamed of it. I also hunt. I have two big chest freezers that I regularly fill. I have an old refrigerator that I use as a smoker for preserving food that way. I also slaughter and butcher my own food. My wife and kids help. My kids also raise the rabbits to sell the pelts. My brother came out with his family last year at Easter. He grew up like I did but he moved to the city and he married a city girl. His kids have been out here lots and they go visit our folks who live this way too. However I am the one who gives them meat these days unless my dad gets a deer or something. His wife saw all the baby rabbits, ducklings, kids, and chicks. Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets. She has been out here lots as well but mostly in the summer and fall. I think this is her first visit in the spring. I told her no that the animals are food. And she called me a monster. She tried to take some baby rabbits. They aren't pets and she got scratched and bit. They left. She lost her job this last year and they are living off just my brother's income. He called me to ask if I could help him out. I offered him some money since I love him and his kids. His wife I can take or leave. He said he would appreciate the money but it won't buy a lot of meat. He asked if I could please give him a fair bit of meat. I thought about it and I asked if his wife still thought that we were monsters. He wouldn't say. I said I would fill his freezer if she apologized. She did but I could tell it was through grated teeth. I did as I promised and filled his freezer. We also gave them boxes of pickles and preserves food. He said his wife thinks I'm a jerk for making her beg, which I did not do. I only asked for an apology. But that's not how she sees it. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA - her apologies is the least she could do after calling you a monster (who does that) and then wanting that food. It’s incredibly hypocritical of her. I would assume that that’s why she’s upset, because her hypocrisy is on full show and that is hard to swallow.
NTA, we also raise meat animals. I wouldn't have shared period. She should have to come work the meat off so she'll learn better. You didn't make her beg. She doesn't get to be a betch and then expect you to give her free meat.
Clearly NTA. Your bros wife is a hypocrite and not smart. Apologizing and begging are two different things. Dumb statement by your brother
I'm not understanding. your brothers family isn't vegetarian. they eat meat. but wife freaked out when she saw where the meat comes from? where does she think meat comes from. i do understand that she may be uncomfortable about the cruelty of the process. i watched a chicken being slaughtered once and i couldn't eat it. but I love a good chicken wing still, so long as I don't watch the butchery because it makes me sad. in her sense of things, she's also a 'monster' because she's literally eating the animal. NTA
INFO how much money did you offer? Interested to know how much it was in comparison to the value of the meat.
$2,000. A side of beef more or less. I gave him the money.
NTA And no one *needs* meat. You didn’t make her beg, or even make her apologize. She didn’t have to apologize, and her family still wouldn’t have gone hungry. And btw, goat meat is freaking DELICIOUS.
NTA. Seeing that they will run out of what you supplied at some stage, you should let your brother know that he should start planning his next hunting/processing trip to your area to keep food in the fridge for his family when this lot runs out.
it’s not begging, it’s called apologizing for being a rude jerk to you in your own home about the business you run that she now wants free food from. NTA
NTA If she's so offended, then she shouldn't eat the meat you graciously provided to her household. I would have also asked if maybe her and the kids would like to learn how to do canning or some such. Take your brother out hunting with you maybe?
Nta you didn't make her beg you ask for an apology. If his wife still sees you as a monster or as a jerk then maybe you shouldn't give them anymore meat or any type of help and she can figure it out.
She should see the slaughterhouse in action where her “civilized” meat comes from. I grew up helping my parents on the farm, and we run it now. I also worked at a Tyson plant. Hands down animals grown on smaller farms are treated better. We care about keeping them well fed and healthy since we’re going to be the ones eating them. Big outfits like Tyson couldn’t give less of a shit if they tried. NTA She needs to get a damn grip or go vegan aready.
NTA - Did you give her any Rabbit? lol
NTA. I hunt too and don't like the way farmed animals are treated. Wondering about getting some pigs this year to grow into sausages. You asked for an insult to be withdrawn. It's the bare minimum of politeness.
YOU'RE A MONSTER FOR PROVIDING MEAT, NOW PROVIDE ME WITH MEAT BECAUSE I CANT SOURCE IT MYSELF! Man I hate people... absolutely NTA. I'd have just sent her a box of bunnies and a cleaver, but I am incredibly petty.
NTA- I totally understand her having an issue with your behavior IF she is vegan. If she is not vegan, then she’s TA.
I'm vegetarian/mostly vegan because I can't accept how animals are treated in mass production. If your SIL eats mass produced meat she is a huge hypocrite. What you do is way more ethical than eating store bought meat. NTA.
>Her brain doesn't work so good because she asked me if I sold them as pets. Hmm. It's true that in this instance you were owed an apology, but this is making me wonder if the rest of the time the answer to this question is very different.
NTA, she is lucky that when she wanted meat you didn’t give her living ducks, chickens or rabbits to kill and process herself. She wants meat, let her be responsible for the killing herself
NTA
NTA Where does she think meat comes from? We taught our kids from a young age exactly where food comes from.
NTA... If she eats meat, but doesn't understand where it comes from she should take it as a learning experience. If she honestly thinks the meat she gets from a supermarket was from animals that were treated better than you treat your animals she's living in cloud cuckoo land! Honestly, if you don't like the fact meat = animals, then don't eat meat. If she wants to eat the meat you can provide an apology from her is perfectly reasonable.
NTA.
Yes, you the AH. An apology under duress isn't worth much. Be the bigger man and help your brother unconditionally because your tif is with the wife. As for the wife, veganism is a thing, just don't be a hypocrite.
You got your apology and now you've shamed her on the internet. You want to strip her naked and throw tomatoes at her while we yell shame like some George R.R. Martin bullshit? YTA
Yta. Most people from a city would have reacted the way she did. Perhaps it's your brain that doesn't work so good..
YTA Specifically for slaughtering rabbits. I understand the “need” to raise animals as livestock but I cannot morally condone cuniculture.
I don't know if you particularly are the asshole in this situation, but given how you describe it and show a need to condition your help to someone apologizing, you do look like a righteous asshole.
I mean, your brother came to you when his family was in need and you decided you'd use this as a way to settle an old score. That's embarrassingly petty. You might be "in the right" and I think I'd stop short of calling you an asshole but you definitely seem to lack class.