Our first two chickens.
Yesterday, Katie and I went over to my friend Nathan’s house and with his help, humanely slaughtered our chickens and processed them.
This was the first time I have ever killed a chicken, and I was anxious about it because I didn’t know how exactly to do it in such a way that the chicken would feel the least pain. I read in Joel Salatin’s book, Pastured Poultry Profits, that I should cut the arterial vein in the neck, being careful to avoid the windpipe so the chicken wouldn’t go into shock, and then chicken’s nervous system would pump out the blood and the chicken would quickly expire.
So that is what I did, while Katie and Nathan held the chicken upside down, and then we skinned the chicken so we didn’t have to scald and pluck the feathers off. Katie did splendidly and was so helpful, and without Nathan’s experience, we would have been befuddled certainly.
It was somewhat hard for me to kill our chickens because they are living creatures that God has made, and they had provided us with many eggs, many hours of entertainment (and toil and frustration), and if we kept letting them live could have survived for many more years potentially.
But as Katie pointed out, our Lord made these creatures for our benefit, and we honor them even in death by letting them serve us as food with their bodies.
I’ve eaten hundreds if not thousands of chickens in my life, yet I have had no idea how those chickens lived nor how they were slaughtered–if I cannot slaughter a chicken then how do I justify eating them all the time? My friend Nathan pointed out the same reasoning to me when he first slaughtered one of his chickens.
We would have let these old chickens live longer, but unfortunately they never accepted the new chickens into their flock, and when we put them all in the coop together to try to let them work things out, the older chickens would mercilessly peck the younger ones, and the younger ones would be panicked and bloody themselves on the chicken wire of the coop as they tried to escape the attacks. With foster children hopefully coming soon, we couldn’t have the younger chickens running loose in the backyard all day, leaving droppings everywhere, and so we decided that we needed to slaughter the older chickens.
If God calls Katie and I to start a farm one day, we will be raising animals and slaughtering them regularly to provide good food for ourselves and for other families. This was a good opportunity to have a trial-run and see whether we have the fortitude to be farmers–I think that we just might!
It is very solemn work to slaughter animals you have raised. It is a great kindness to the animal I think that they be slaughtered gently, at the hands of someone who has loved them. It provides the full respect that is due to their life. I’ve always felt strange about it too… I hate starting. I have always felt strongly that if I could not participate in that part of food production that I had no right to eat meat. However, once you get into a rhythm of it (if you process several in the same day), it seems to get easier.
In the past I’ve found it best to tie poultry up by the feet, they get very calm and then no one has to hold them while they are fluttering about after you make the cut… I’ve heard of cones for-sale that serve the same purpose.
Great call on skinning instead of plucking… there is nothing worse than the smell after you dunk the poultry in hot water. The smell stays with you for life! =)
Ah, chickens. i have memories of slaughter, both as a child and at madonna house. I actually really enjoyed the activity; does that say something bad about me? or maybe it was the company and conversation! good times………..and i actually found plucking to be fun as well.
As much as I dream of living the farm life one day, I am afraid of dead things. There is no rationally explanation, I just am. So whenever I cringe at the thought of ending the lives of our chickens one day, Chris ever-so-kindly retorts, “and you want to live on a farm!?”
So I have begun a list of people we could farm with that would do the killing for me. Okay, so one family a list makes not, but now that I have added you, I am up to two! And two a list does in deed make.
Enjoy your chicken!
Great post, Devin. I was, also, a little apprehensive about butchering Gertrude and Lobelia, but we were very respectful and thanked them for their service to us, as well as thanking God for their lives. Once the initial arterial cut was made, however, my nerves calmed and I became all business. I was surprised that my squeamishness with the guts vanished, and I was comfortable cleaning the carcasses out.
It was satisfying work and has given me a new appreciation for food. I wager that we will eat less chicken because we have more respect for it now and won’t take it so for granted. The chicken carcasses are quite skinny because these were laying hens, not meat birds, so I will probably just use them to make chicken soup.