Over the summer i spent some time at my bandmate's farm in Wisconsin. He started raising chickens there and we slaughtered one together, de-feathered it, put it on the grill for a while and then went to town. Rather than feeling guilty about killing it, i felt great that i got to see it alive in an environment where someone who really cares was tending to it and making sure its life was a happy one. Sure, we could have not killed it...We could have released it into the wild but i think its chances of survival would be about the same out there as it would be in my bandmate's coop (which would be zero percent). eating meat is awesome. I eat so much meat that i'm beginning to think maybe it'd be smart to cut back. But if i do, it's because my health is suffering, not for any moral reason. I don't understand why some people are so blindly critical of it. One girl went as far as calling my bandmate a "modern day slave owner" for raising chickens!