Great subject.

I have a daughter the same age. She will be 4 in Feb. She has seen dead deer since she was 1. But I wouldn't not let her she me clean the animal at that age because she didn't understand death yet. Now she understands what death is and that once an animal dies it is not coming back to life. I talk to her about how God put animals on earth for us to eat and everything that lives must die. It also allows us to talk about how animals are different than people and we get into some religous issues along the way. The first deer I killed this year was much like what you said. She was saying "poor deer" "you hurt it" and stuff like that. We had a talk about what I stated above and she seemed to be okay with it. She told me just not to shoot "baby deer". I killed another deer this weekend and she was very excited about it and had no remorsefull word about it. She said, "You got a daddy deer!" and wanted to touch the antlers. I think just talking about death and trying to explain it to them is better than ignoring it. At the age of three my daughter amazes me about how much she understands and observes when I think there is no way she can at that age.

I will say one thing. If more kids grew up seeing and respecting hunting and the finality of death on game animals and birds we would probably see a lot less violence like kids shooting other kids in the inner city.

Good point. My daughter understands more about death and what weapons do than many kids older than her. She knows that a gun kills and that what ever it kills is gone and not coming back.

I have two daughters, and talked to them both at a very early age, explaining how cruel nature could be, that God charged us with the responsibility of managing the animals, and that if we didn't manage them they would overpopulate and starve, a long slow painful way to go, and that hunting was the best tool we had to mangage with.

No problems since, oldest daughter has no interest in hunting, but the youngest wants to go, just need to convince her mother this won't turn her into a, uhm, "tomboy" They want to see the deer I bring home, and will eat it occaisonally, but they always remember the lesson above.