Good-bye Broiler bird, hello Roasted Chickens

Warning:  This post will include photos and descriptions of the process of turning a living being into a dinner ingredient.

Reid's pheasant lesson

It was a rather solemn morning, gathering at the gazebo.  This was a good sign, according to Reid and to Josh, our coaches in this process.  Taking a life is done with respect.  More philosophizing later.  Reid had shot a pheasant in the morning, so while we were waiting for the scalding water to heat up, he skinned his beautiful catch.






Sophia, our resident jewelry maker, saved some of the feathers and I hope she can teach me how to make earrings out of them.  They are incredibly beautiful. Back to the birds: After Reid showed us the basics, especially the care needed to remove the internal organs without damaging the gall bladder, the water was hot enough to begin.  First we brought down 10 chickens to where the killing cones were set up.  The old saying of "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" refers to the chicken's movements once it is decapitated.  The cones hold the bird in place, upside down, so it is easy to make a clean, quick cut and helps to let the blood drain.

Killing cones with chickens in orange cage.  

Here are the steps. First the bird is inverted in the cone.  Then, one can either remove the head completely, or cut both arteries and then pierce the brain.  Both methods (and others, perhaps) kill the chicken quickly and help the blood to drain from the corpse. The corpse will kick for a while and then, when it is still, dunk it in 160 degree water for about 20 seconds or until a wing feather can be pulled out easily. Then one can  pluck by hand or put the body in the plucking machine which arrived at the farm just moments before we began our slaughter.

Here's the mechanical plucker

Once the feathers are off, one removes the feet and carefully slices open the skin to remove the entrails, saving the heart, the liver and the gizzard.  The gizzard was amazing because it was stuffed with grain bits and straw and all sorts of things.  Wash the bird and then ice it.  Here are photos of Betsy going through the process:

Choosing a chicken

Waiting for blood

Plucking by hand

A well-plucked bird

Feet off

Removing organs

Here is Nora washing out a chicken cavity with the plucker in the background.   We took care of our 32 birds, killing, cleaning, and icing each one with focus and respect.  We also killed a rooster and it was amazing how different his free-range lifestyle had shaped his body compared to the  fat, heavy birds that were too big to strut and scratch around the farm..  He was harder to pluck, too. I am sorry I didn't have a chance to photograph him; he was a beauty.  We finished up our 32 broilers and one rooster, as well as clean up before lunch.  

Part Two:  After lunch, we divided into our A and our B groups.  Group A went to harvest with Nate.  Our group, B, started by moving root vegetables to the root cellar.  We then cleaned up the lower barn where the CSA boxes were prepared.  We also cleaned out a couple boxes of rotten squash--some claimed that this was more disgusting than the chicken slaughter.  I'm not sure about that! We then went out to clear the edges of a field--small trees were encroached so we sawed them down into fire-wood sized pieces and split the bigger ones.  

Packin roots into the root cellar

A cub

Clearing the field and talking "bonfire"

Nora splits

Emily splits while Justin conjures a ball of golden light

 So here is the philosophizing part:  I enjoy eating meat, it feels good to my body.  I believe that animals ought to be raised as naturally as possible--which makes a good argument for hunting wild animals, Then another argument pops up---leave the wild animals alone and raise your meat respectfully.  We try to do this on our farm, giving the animals pasture, fresh water, and the most appropriate food for their health and digestion.  I'm awfully tired tonight, I think because I really wanted to cry.  Why?  I'm not sure.  I guess there was an inkling of a fear that if it was too easy to kill an animal, then I might continue to do so unnecessarily.  So back to the bigger societal picture.  We want cheap *cheep* meat yet most people don't know or don't care of the conditions in which the meat is raised, slaughtered or prepared for them.  Now I know that I can (and quite possibly will) raise and process chicken meat for my own and my family's consumption.  That relieves someone else of this duty to kill and process birds for me.  I think this is the best I can do.  This argument is all higgledy-piggledy.  I will leave these random thoughts here and try to refocus them at a later date.  I remember as a child catching and "cleaning" fish at my grandparents' house.  There was a table that was usually covered in fish blood.  That didn't seem difficult for me to do.  I think the difficulty comes in the transition between caretaker and abattoir.  I had too much of a "pet mentality" with these birds--feeding them, bringing them water, cleaning out their coop several times, watching their development.  Maybe the next batch of broilers we raise, I'll have a different mind set.  Still, an unfocused philosophizing.   I think I'm done for tonight.

This evening Emily, Rebekah and I went out to feed the cows in Ida's field.  It took quite a while to fill the water tank so we made up stories and sang songs.  The waxing moon shone down upon us.

Good night to all.