We've been lucky to have many visitors recently which sparked us to work on the house. Matt took down a wall between the kitchen and the living room, we painted scraped popcorn stuff off the ceilings, and painted ceilings and walls. Matt's parents gave us a new (to us) refrigerator, which has been wonderful. We had a half sized one which made freezer space a challenge.
When my parents visited, we decided it was a good time to cull the flock of one hen. Butchering a hen was something that I intended to do at some point, but it seemed that the hen chose the time. We had one hen who has been very aggressive. I emailed Harvey Ussery, a contributing writer to Mother Earth News about poultry/homesteading matters. He said this chicken was displaying "deeply deviant behavior...and you should make her your first butchering learning project." I could not have agreed more, so my Dad showed us how it was done. And we ate our first chicken that night.
We skinned the bird (Mr. Ussery, I did not follow your directions explicitly -sorry!), instead of plucking, which I'm told is much easier. Next time I'd like to try plucking so that I can prepare it differently.
I'm no novice at raising animals for meat, so this occurrence didn't shock me or upset me. I am a bit unnerved by the fact that I was happy to see this chicken meet its maker (the big clucker in the sky I presume). There was just something about this chicken that pissed me off. Maybe its the way that it clawed and pecked at me every chance it got, while the rest of the hens found no trouble in enjoying their Taj Ma Henhouse.
I have raised hogs and cattle for meat and never felt this way. When the steer tried to drag me, kick me, or run away with my hands attached to the rope that was attached to its head...I simply said, 'well, that's what a steer does I guess.' When I try to get away with feeding the hogs in my school clothes and one of them would inevitably nose me with their stinking poo covered snout, I could kind of laugh it off. But this chicken just angered me. Something so small (pitifully small without feathers, then i really felt bad) did more damage to me than other 'market' animals I'd raised on the farm.
When I lead others to their fate I felt bad for them and happy that I had gotten a chance to raise them and provide a enjoyable life, however brief; knowing that many animals are raised in poor conditions without fresh air, water, and good nutrition. However, when I walked into the pen the morning of to await the hen's beak and talons....I was actually hoping that she would try to scratch me so that I could still be mad enough to justify her demise.
