So there are a few ways to slaughter a chicken. You can cut off their heads which allows you to know for sure they're dead but requires quite a bit of force and coordinated effort. Or, you can slit the two veins on their throats, but theres a slight delay between doing the first and the second and there's no way to tell how much pain Mr. Clucks might be in during that.
We were told that when we go to do it, we had to be very sure and very ready because the worst thing you can do (and I do believe this is worse than killing them) is to maim or wound them. You can't hesitate at all once you start. For our first few birds we each did, we had an instructor next to us with their own knife which was reassuring.
I finally stepped up to the plate and chose the throat slitting method (later I moved to the decapitation after I had practiced on a dead chicken and knew I could do it well). I think the worst part of the whole process was lifting the chicken into the cone. It was flapping and trying to get away as I held it by the feet. Once inside, it calmed down, except for judging me with its beady little chicken eye.
I took a few deep breaths and then picked up the knife and slit. The moment was a lot calmer than I had anticipated, followed by the chicken body flapping and kicking.
We didn't know if a sad or happy picture was appropriate so you can just look at whichever one you choose.
I cut off its head once it was done bleeding out.
The next step was scalding them. The trick was to leave them in the hot water long enough their feathers loosened but not too long they started to cook.
Next, we strung them up and plucked their feathers into trashcans. The chickens we raised were meat birds (the gross kind that can't walk since they grow so fast- next time we've asked for more normal birds) so they were bred to have easy to remove feathers. We slaughtered a rooster as well and he was much harder to pluck.
After plucking, we cut their feet off and and their necks. We scooped their organs out of their body cavities, keeping the hearts and livers. That was the only part I didn't do since I don't do so well with body innards.
As we moved through the morning, we accumulated a number of heads, guts and feet which we then took to the woods and dumped.
And, finally, we were done. Two days later, we had chicken pad thai. Delicious.
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