1. Mentally steel oneself for the chicken 'processing' by reading many websites, watching lots of River Cottage and YouTube videos.
2. Select bird that has been crowing from the flock and capture it quickly and calmly for a minimum of stress.
3. Talk gently to bird as it is swiftly and cleanly dispatched by husband.
4. Place bird in old pillowcase and pluck feathers by hand, capturing all feathers in pillowcase. This takes a fair while but keep going.
5. Clean bird according to instructions found on the internet. Decide can't cope with feet, liver etc at this point and bury together with head and entrails in back yard.
6. Agree that husband should barbecue bird right away to get it all over with. Be unable to eat it just right now.
7. Tie end of pillowcase in double knot and throw in washing machine with intent to perhaps eventually stuff a cushion with feathers.
8. When washing cycle has finished, discover pillowcase has come undone.
9. Spend next week plucking rooster feathers from washing machine drum, filter and subsequent loads of washing. Pluck, pluck, pluck.
10. Summon nerve to taste rooster next evening. Discover it is almost inedibly tough because we did not 'rest' the meat for a couple of days.
11. Decide that is enough 'connecting' with chicken meat raising and the earth and universe and all that and resolve to take the rest of the roosters in a batch to be professionally 'processed'.
- Jane x
OMG! Hilarious!!! (and so so scary...) :-)
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed... we were both kind of wiped out by the whole thing. Andy and I were very committed to needing to be able to go through with this. We had to decide that before we got the eggs to hatch. But ah... can we be excused now? I suppose we'd get better and quicker with practice. But....
DeleteYou made my day with this post! ahhh, the memories of the pork roast.
ReplyDeleteNow you can't gently stick that upside-down in a traffic cone and deal it a quick slice with a sharpened kitchen knife, I'm sure. Ooh-er. I have more respect for meat now. A lot more.
DeleteOoh, I have disturbing memories of decapitated chickens running around the yard as a child, funny how they can still do that.
ReplyDeleteLeaving the bird for a couple of days not only gives the meat a chance to relax but makes it less like the rooster you saw running around a few days earlier. Plucking is a complete pain and the vision of you retrieving feathers from your washing machine all week made me smile.
ReplyDeleteYes, I can now most definitely see the dual benefits of leaving the bird to 'rest' a while! And glad to hear it was not just my inexpert plucking, thanks :)
DeleteOh no! Very funny to read but I'm not surprised it's put you off future home kills. Being brought up on a farm we often had chickens/pheasants etc to pluck (and kill in the case of the chickens), in fact I once remember my Dad deciding to butcher his own lamb (we are sheep farmers and my brother still is) and all it got very messy. Oddly both my brother (the farmer) and sister wont eat lamb these days, I always think it's connected with memories of my Dad cutting one up on the kitchen table. Bethx (the linen cat)
ReplyDeleteOh no, butchering on the kitchen table! Yes these things can certainly leave some strong impressions.
DeleteJane, you are a much tougher woman than me! I'm pretty sure that I would have run away screaming! (but then again, I'm wussy like that).
ReplyDeleteAnd I might have run away screaming when I opened the washer too to find feathers everywhere...what a nightmare!
So glad I had just finished my dinner before I read this. It was chicken.
ReplyDeleteSorreeeee!!
DeleteThe part where you're plucking feathers out of your washing machine drum ... ah! *Wipes away tears of laughter.* Way to take the River Cottage romance out of growing your own meat, Jane. I love it.
ReplyDeleteHa ha haa!!!!! Well done! We (or should I say my husband and a friend's dad) butchered 3 of our birds last year and it is a lot of work for not much meat. (At least that was the case with our breed). Too bad about the feathers in the washing machine! It was a good idea "in theory".
ReplyDeleteHi Jane, just letting you know I've nominated you for a Leibster Blog Award :). Love seeing your photos and projects.
ReplyDelete