nobody calls me 'chicken'

[rone]

My brother-in-law has been raising chickens for about a year now (starting with some neighborhood strays, if i recall correctly), and my mother-in-law had wondered for some time how we'd end up having the ones who weren't laying eggs turned into food.  So i volunteered to learn how to process chickens, because i've felt for some time that, as a meat-eater, i should be able to look at my prey in the eye and lick my lips.  Or something.

The result was that my MiL signed me up for a slaughtering class at TLC Ranch last Sunday, and 2wanda was able to join me at the last minute due to a cancellation.  There were about 10 of us there, ready to get with the cuttin' and the guttin'.  It's a fairly straightforward procedure: catch the chicken; put it upside down into a metal cone with no point, so that its head sticks out; grab the head, and sever the jugular below the jawline; let it bleed out; throw the body into the scalder; when it's ready, throw the body into the plucker; pull the body out and clean it.

Of course, there's nothing straightforward about any of those individual steps, but that's where the actual learning comes in: grab the chickens low by the legs; keep it upside down for a while so it doesn't thrash while you put it in the cone; sometimes the head refuses to be within fingers' reach, so you have to raise and lower it again; you want to make the cut just right to avoid various complications; the chickens will sometimes manage to climb themselves right side up in the slick metal cone, somehow, so you have to grab them and turn them over; don't scald them too long or too hot, or the plucker will break the skin; do not cut into the intestines or you will get chicken crap everywhere and nobody wants that.

One guy couldn't handle giving a good swift cut so he instead ended up slicing the chicken's neck like he was trying to get it to confess to a crime, and one woman insisted on naming her chickens.  She also had one of her chickens killed by having its head severed (by boltcutters) so that its body, well, ran around like a chicken with its head cut off.  It was weird to see how accurate the cliché is, but i don't think i want to see that particularly barbaric act again (besides, the chicken might break its wings while thrashing about).

Then we came home and Kim made coq au vin and it was delicious the end.

Comments

[deirdremoon.livejournal.com]

This might be a stupid question, but: why not put the chicken into the metal cone and THEN sever the head entirely with boltcutters? Seems like it would be over quicker for the chicken, and faster to bleed out-- win-win for cruelty-free and practicality. Or does that not work?

[devonapple.livejournal.com]

Maybe the chicken thrashes around less when it still has a head, decreasing chance of injury to the person as well as to the chicken's meat/bone/etc.?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

What Devon said... a good nick to the jugular leads to less thrashing. Severing the head is guaranteed to yield lots of thrashing, and it won't bleed any faster. Also, another factor is avoiding severing the windpipe to preclude blood aspiration (which will make the chicken panic).

all nerd up ins

[palecur.livejournal.com]

"We hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die." -- Eddard Stark

Re: all nerd up ins

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Now I wonder if grrm a.) eats meat, and b.) ever killed an animal he later had for food.

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

When I was four years old, I saw my grandfather— a small farmer his whole life— slaughter a chicken that the family was to eat for supper that night. He didn't have the cone contraption. He just did it by hand, and when he cut the chicken's head off, I got to see the headless body run around the yard before it fell over.

I think the crazy old bastard was trying to make sure I got to see the whole show. It made for a vivid memory.

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Kudos for putting your money where your mouth is! (As long as we're using cliches...)

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

When I was about 11 or 12, whilst visiting relatives in Czechia, the great-aunt there asked me if I wanted chicken for dinner. I said yes, and got handed an ax-like large knife, sharp. Getting across to the great-aunt that I had no idea on how to proceed from there failed at the language barrier (I only knew a couple words of czech, and she didn't know any german at all).
So I went outside, grabbed a chicken, hauled it to the chopping block and .. made a probably very painful (for the chicken) mess of it by hitting it squarely on the breast as it was trashing around in a panic. Much to the delight of the watching kids a couple years older than myself, the chicken than ran off across the yard, bleeding profusely, and I had a hell of a time catching it again and finishing the job (by not-quite severing the head from behind, and breaking its neck in the process).
I got scalded for a.) making it painful for the chicken, b.) making much of the chicken useless (dirt, urine and shit all over the inside), c.) making a mess of the chopping block (which was intended to chop wood only) and, last not least, d.) getting blood all over my clothes.

But at least I know that I can kill what I intend to eat.

(The great-uncle later showed me how to do it - grab the chicken with one hand from behind and sever the jugular with one swift stroke of the knife, then letting it bleed out a little over the stream behind the house by grabbing it by the legs with the second hand and holding it until the blood doesn't come in gushes anymore (eg. the heart finally stopped pumping). Having rather extra-large hands and the amount of sheer strength that comes with being a farmer probably helps much with such jobs.)

[omnot.livejournal.com]

On my family farm we tie the chickens legs together, chop their head off with an axe or heavy cleaver and hang the carcass from a fence until it stops moving. Then we scald them in a copper of simmering water and pluck them by hand, then gut them.

The kids help with the plucking and gutting. I want them to be competent to prepare game and livestock, but they need to be stronger before I'd trust them to cleanly decapitate a fowl.

This is how I still occasionally slaughter and prepare poultry. I've never seen a cone or plucking machine in use, but then I've never killed more than a few poultry at a time.

Of course, being raised on a farm I've also prepared rabbits, hares, sheep and cattle. Also a wide range of fish and other edible aquatic species.

One feature of some camping events I attend is the demonstration of slaughtering small livestock. IMO, it is a skill that should be understood, if not regularly practiced, by people even if they do not keep livestock for the table.

[dnereverri.livejournal.com]

There are... *classes* for that?

Somehow, I always assumed that animal slaughtering was only passed down through, er, "on-the-job training", as it were.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Jim at TLC said that their business really picked up after Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" came out.

[pvaneynd]

Somehow I was expecting to see 'and then you stun the chicken with an electric bolt'.

Slaughtering a non-sedated animal is illegal in Belgium, much to the concern of our Muslims. Halal meat cannot come from sedated animals, this is in addition to the 'in the direction of Mecca' problems...

[loosestrife.livejournal.com]

Interesting. scrump signed up for their pig class. I didn't. I think I'd better go do it eventually if I intend to keep eating them, but I couldn't face it this month.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

We want to do the pig class sometime soon, too. Nothin' like fresh pork...

[peglegpete.livejournal.com]

I think this was an excellent way to approach it, and now I want to do the same.

[bungo.livejournal.com]

slaughtering class: Wow, the things there are in the world.

Reminds me of a second-hand account of eating turtle in Tonga. First, catch the turtle. Second, flip her on her back and leave her in the sun on the beach all day. Third, cook and eat. Easy as pie.

Don't ask me how you pluck a turtle though.

[(Anonymous)]

I voluteered once to view an abortion of a unborn child, the abortionist, watching the ultrasound, proceeded to dismember the children piece by piece, arms, then legs, then crushed the scull.

I now hate stinking liberals and Democrats, they are the scum of the earth for supporting this barbarity.

..and I became a republican too.

cheers.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You're not a Republican, dear, you're just a racist idiot from Boston.

why do psuedoCons smear the Republicans like that?

[drieuxster.livejournal.com]

<http://www.farleftside.com/2006/10-12-06.html>It was at that moment, as Brigadier General
Fenderman stepped into the spotlight at the
front of the stage, when everyone realized
they were in for a long evening. - a far left side cartoon...

Maybe the whiner was trying to share the common experience, and that the experience has also helped sort out what he likes to eat...

once upon a time...

[drieuxster.livejournal.com]

When I was living in Dilaraam, the discussion was on about ethical eating. So it was interesting the night that they harvested the rabbits - since so many of the folks from industrial nations had not been out there harvesting before. So they knew nothing of the experience - and many of them were eating vegetarian the next day.

As an awareness skill, what can I say, good idea. But I always worry when there is a sniff of 'back to the land' - since we are not really in a safe place to abandon the division of labor that put butchering in the space where we can have kosher, halal, and well....