‘I want to eat that one, Daddy!” These may not be the words every father dreams of hearing from his 2-year-old daughter as she points to a live animal – but on the eve of Thanksgiving, they were definitely a step in the right direction.

See, it’s not so easy raising a carnivore. There are all those anti-meat messages out there – read “Fast Food Nation,” and you’ll never eat a burger again.

And with a closet full of cute little animal plush toys, I worried my daughter would never develop her father’s taste for blood (and sinew, muscle, fat and chestnut stuffing).

So I didn’t know what to expect when I brought her to Hemlock Hill Farm in upstate Cortlandt Manor to pick out a live turkey for our holiday meal.

“Remember, sweetie,” I told her, “we’re going to make friends with a turkey and then we’re going to eat it.”

Perhaps child psychology experts would object at my approach to teaching my daughter about the meat-eating world.

But the reason we drove to the farm – besides the mouth-watering treat of a fresh-killed turkey – was to show her that not every animal is a cuddly pet.

Teaching her that we eat turkeys didn’t turn out to be that difficult. Not to sound specie-ist, but turkeys are ugly, with their pale pink necks, horn-like knobs between their eyes, ostrich-like heads and pre-historic gait.

And they all look alike, so it’s difficult, even for a 2-year-old, to get attached to any one bird.

“So, sweetheart, which one should we eat?” I asked her. She looked over the flock before pointing to a particularly aggressive bird that stared her down meanly: “I want to eat that one!”

For the record, I didn’t bring my daughter into the slaughterhouse, where our bird was electrocuted, killed, relieved of its blood, tossed into scalding hot water, spun in a de-feathering machine, gutted and cleaned.

But I did let her help carry the dead bird out to the car and assist me when I cooked it later.

And she didn’t need any prompting after she finished her plate: “I want more turkey!”

I was so proud I didn’t even make her say the magic word.