Thanksgiving

In honor of Thanksgiving, I'm going to write about our recent turkey and chicken slaughters.  These have been pretty intense experiences for one who has never killed an animal before.  Although I'm not a big meat eater, I do eat poultry, and I was determined to participate.  After all, if I'm going to continue to eat meat, I want to be connected to the path that the animal follows to get to my dinner table.

If you get queasy about this stuff, now is the time to stop reading. Sorry.

The turkey slaughter happened several weeks ago, on the day of the huge October snowstorm.  The birds were enormous and numbered about twenty.  People were set up at a series of stations to perform the tasks that needed to be accomplished. First, the turkey is taken out of the pen by the feet and placed upside down in a metal cone with its head sticking out the bottom.  With a very sharp knife, the head is severed with one swipe and the blood drained into a bucket. Although now officially dead, the bird convulses for about thirty seconds. It is then placed in scalding water to loosen the feathers and transferred to a mechanical feather remover, which essentially looks like a giant salad spinner. Then the bird is placed on a table for butchering, which includes removal of the feet, neck, intestines, and internal organs.  Last stop is the kitchen, where it's submerged in ice water, cleaned more thoroughly, and frozen.

I was amazed at how quickly it happened.  Before I knew it, the birds looked like something you'd get in the grocery store.  I spent time performing each task that I described, with the exception of the actual killing.  I didn't think I was quite prepared to do it swiftly and competently, and I was content to watch and learn from others.

Fast-forward two weeks to the culling of the laying hens.  I should note that I really like the chickens. Their clucking, scratching, funny behaviors, and ceaseless laying of delicious eggs has endeared me to them.  Nonetheless, I knew that I needed to fully take part in processing this time around.  Very few of us in the group had ever done this before and there was a lot of nervous energy.

I did what I never thought I would do: slaughter a chicken.  I focused on ensuring that my cuts were clean and swift, making it as humane as possible.  As a group, we were all business, doing what needed to be done even though it was difficult.  That day we made twenty gallons of organic chicken stock.

I did this together with thoughtful, respectful people, faculty and student farmers alike.  And, unlike with the pigs and cows, which have to be sent to the slaughterhouse, we were able to see these animals through to the end right on the farm.  I found a lot of comfort in the notion that we had control over the manner and humaneness of their deaths.  Will I do it again?  I don't know, but if I plan to keep chickens for eggs, I need to know how to "dispatch" an old or sick animal.  Now I do.