I grew up in the country and we bought 150 baby chicks every year, raised them to poulet size and slaughtered about half for the freezer for fried chicken. We kept most of the hens for laying and a couple of yard roosters; they too eventually got eaten, and made a great pot of soup, but not until months later and lots of fresh eggs. Also had setting hens that would always add to the flock throughout the year. It was a chore when it was killing time, but we never went hungry and we were never sick growing up from all the processing/additives. We raised our own beef/pork as well, made our own sausage, had fresh eggs and milked 2 cows for milk morning and night, had plenty of fresh butter/cream. It was a lot of work, especially slaughtering a calf and hog & cutting it all up/packaging for the freezer, but looking back now, I wouldn't change a thing. Many have no idea how much work that was. I agree with someone that said, if we suddenly had no available grocery stores, many would not make it...