Chicken Slaughter part 1

Chicken slaughter was quite the day. We went down to the tool shed where killing cones, buckets, a pot with hot water for scalding and a long table for evisceration were all set up. It was a bit strange to see our barnyard transformed during breakfast. I had also just given the broilers (called that to distinguish chickens between layers for eggs and those that we raise for meat) breakfast and water before heading down to slaughter them.

We started by talking about a bit about what it meant to kill an animal for food. We were all pretty nervous (and pretty nauseous, at least in my case) and it was nice to take a moment before we started. Betsy, our resident rabbi, spoke a little about the cycle and rhythm of life and death and after that we were all a bit calmer and felt better.

We sharpened our knives while the water continued to heat (it had to be 160 F to properly scald the chickens so the feathers were easy to pull off). Reid, who was showing us knife sharpening, had just shot a pheasant that morning so he pulled it out of his truck and showed us, pheasant style, what we were about to do.

Below is pheasant sans innards:

Once we were properly trained and grossed out, we went to get the first few broilers. We put them in this nifty chicken box and they happily sat there clucking while we took out our first victim...