I came to farm Saturday morning knowing this is what I would be doing and really I didn’t have any qualms with any of it. I’ve never killed an animal before save for the thousands of misquotes, flies, other bugs, and a few random animals whose lives I took with the wheels of a car. It was interesting to puncture the neck and feel the life literally draining out of the chicken. Sometimes they twitched and flailed about. Sometimes they flopped out of the cones and I had to put them back in before they stumbled away. Sometimes they crowed or squawked while I opened up they necks. Mostly they just stared wide eyed at nothing in particular until their lids close and their body went limp.Flipping the chickens upside down causes their blood to flow into their heads and it kind of stuns them making the blood letting one of the best ways to harvest.
I didn’t have any problems or reservations on being the one who did most of the killing. This was a choice I made and really it wasn’t that hard of one. Chickens are pretty dumb animals. They’re instincts are pretty simple. Eat, peck, and run away from anything bigger than themselves is about all they can manage. Yes they should have good food, plenty of room to run around and starch about. They should be warm in the winter and cool in the summer and when harvest day comes; their deaths should be relatively quick. It is important to have a deft hand and a sharp knife. Other than that, there isn’t much to consider. Our chickens lives contained all of these elements and there for I am proud and excited to eat them.
Processing
a chicken from oblivious bird to what you would find at the supermarket is
pretty easy. They are hung upside down in a cone and their neck arteries are
cut. After the blood is drained they are dead. The next step is to dunk them in
160° water for about 30 seconds or so. This makes removing their feather much
easier. Even still sometimes their wing feathers can be a pain in the ass to
pull out. Plucking is tedious and two people per chicken makes the whole things
go much faster. Then comes the evisceration. Many cuts are made and I really
didn’t catch the whole process cause I was mainly killing and plucking. After
the guts come out, you can clean the gizzard if you want. I haven’t eaten one
but I heard they’re crunchy. I’ll stick with using them in stocks and gravy.
I named
one of the chickens; which I know isn’t good. It can cause attachment. While cutting open his arteries he kicked me in the face causing my
glasses to fly off. He caught me on my left eye and I was worried that he’d cut
me. It didn’t leave anything but a scratch but it did hurt. I wanted to feel malice but he was only trying to stay alive. I didn’t want him to suffer during
the dying process but I had clearly hit a nerve. In the end I named him Soup and he is
currently in my fridge waiting to be roasted and turned into stock.
Speaking
of stock; I now have several pounds of chicken feet as well. I’m going to turn them into a rich, buttery
broth. The idea of chicken feet stock might sound icky and gross but the process involves removing the skin of the feet, cleaning/scrubbing them thoroughly, and cutting way any scabby and rough parts. It makes me happy that I can use most everything from the chicken.
I’m not
going to go into all the vegetarian/vegan/carnivore/omnivore debate talk here.
I just don’t have time nor the energy for that it. Call me a killer if you
want. It’s true. I harvested some chickens. I will raise and harvest more. I want to raise my
own goats and hopefully a pig or two as well. I will kill/harvest them as
well. This way I can live more sustainably and still eat meat, which I consider
vital to my own survival. I want to have a relationship with the food I eat, wither that's the onions and chard or the chickens and pig. For you it might be different and that’s okay. I’m
not here to yuck your yum. If you want come visit me on harvest day; that would
be great. It takes a while and many hands are needed. The more the merrier.
Pictures coming soon.
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