We came home from Clearwater last weekend to hear one of the chickens crowing. As I suspected, it was the one we’ve been calling “Dinner” for the past month or so.
Hilltop is in unincorporated King County, and there is livestock all over the place, so having a rooster is not a problem per se, but I am not at all interested in hearing the crowing all day (he was going pretty steadily at 3x a minute or so).
So, Dinner got slaughtered today. I read up on the process, and gathered my supplies. This is something that gets done all over the world and has been for thousands of years. I have to say, though, that killing and cleaning a chicken is a little different than killing and cleaning a fish.
Things went pretty well; Kristi did the capture and kept Dinner upside down by the feet. I slit the throat and then hung him up over a drain bin. Once he bled out, head came off, into 180º water to loosen up the feathers, and then plucking commenced. Kristi said that the plucking went a lot easier than she was used to; I credit the water temp. Plucking took a bit, then I worked on cleaning. That was more difficult than I was expecting, just figuring out how to get all the stuff out of there without spraying chicken poop everywhere. I got it done, saved the heart and gizzard, and it was done.
Dinner is a Black Australorp, a laying breed, so he’s not very plump like a broiler you get at the store. We will probably end up turning him into stock or pot pie or something, because he’s about the size of a pheasant, maybe half again the size of a Cornish Game Hen.
This was my first time slaughtering a land animal. It was an emotionally charged experience. I did not find it altogether pleasant. But as a lifetime carnivore, I feel it was important for me to do. And I’m still OK with raising chickens for meat. As long as they turn out a little larger. 🙂
I hope that we now have 7 laying hens. I’ve still got my eye on “Brave”, though.