We slaughtered the chickens yesterday. Chicken harvest, as folks call it, a term that’s always bothered me. Sure, it’s a harvest, but there’s a difference between harvesting kale and killing a bird. Killing a living creature with blood and lungs and a windpipe is significantly more complicated than snapping off a leaf of chard or picking a basket of peas. So let’s call things by their names.
The first time I killed a chicken it felt like a really big deal. It was back at the Farm School, and the day had a somber, important feeling about it. For many of us, it was the first time we’d purposely killed a creature we’d raised, with our own two hands. I was nervous about it, and the actual throat-slitting felt alien and difficult. Rightly so.
This time it felt entirely different. My good friend Monica, who has killed chickens many times in many different settings, came over to help out. It was the perfect day for it – not so cold that our fingers froze as we gutted and plucked, not so hot that it was gross and sticky. I’ve been giving away birds, so we only had seven left, which took us about three hours. A good morning’s work.
This is how we do it: We invert the chicken in a killing cone, attached to a tree, with her head hanging down toward the ground. We grasp her head firmly and make two clean slits on either side of the throat, letting the blood rush out. The quicker and sharper and deeper the stroke the better, as the aim is to kill as quickly and cleanly as possible. Sharp knives are essential.
I don’t enjoy killing chickens, and I’m certainly no expert. It’s not the kind of thing you pick up perfectly on the first try; the only way to get better is to keep practicing. It’s not fun, and it’s not pretty. It’s not romantic, the way planting and harvesting can be. There’s no easy way to spin it. Blood gushes onto your hands and gets on your pants. But it also isn’t a monumental thing. On small-scale diversified farms, killing is just as fundamental as putting seeds in the ground. A hard and practical part of life. In the scheme of things, killing chickens you’ve raised yourself, in the best way you know how, with some reverence for their small lives and some acknowledgment of exactly what you’re doing – well, it strikes me as a good idea.
There are a lot of important, complex, philosophical and ethical questions around the domestication and killing of animals. I’m not trying to belittle those, or ignore them. But here’s what I know: killing the chickens yesterday wasn’t that big of a deal. Those chickens have given us delicious eggs and plenty of entertainment for two years. But they’re not producing well anymore, or adding to the health and productivity of the farm. This is the part of the deal; this is what I signed up for.
For me, there is no emotional ambiguity, no guilt. There are six stew hens in the freezer, and they’ll make wonderful soup and stock. All the chicken innards we pulled out – lungs, hearts, intestines – are in the compost now, and eventually they’ll make new rich dirt, grow something. I don’t love slaughtering day the way I love pulling carrots and mulching beds with golden straw. That’s good; that’s the way it should be.
But there’s a satisfaction that comes from a job well done, a careful and thoughtful execution of a necessary task. It’s the same well-earned exhaustion, the same pride in good work, whether it’s after planting a quarter acre of tomatoes or slaughtering and gutting seven stew hens. Those chickens will feed me and my community for many months, and I can eat them knowing they were killed in the most humane way I know how, that they were plucked and gutted and cleaned with care and intention. Farming is dirty work, and there is nothing straightforward or simple about it. I’m glad it was me and Monica killing those birds behind the house yesterday morning, talking and laughing and trading stories, taking care, giving thanks, working hard under the grey March sky, sleeves rolled up in the raw early spring air.
Laura
Well written. Thanks for sharing your experience and insights. I’m no farmer (urbanite is a better description), but I love the growing things and I have, and am developing greater, respect for the processes we’ve created to be fed by/in this world, as well as respect all that is feeding us.
Thanks for this thoughtful account.
First visit to your site. First thing I read. Very beautifully written. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Sorta makes me want to kill a chicken, then eat it, just to get over it all.
I began helping my friend on his farm last month. Having been born and raised in Chicago and finding my home in the rural outskirts of the city 18 years ago hardly qualified me as a farm hand but that is what I’ve come to think of myself now. In a few short weeks, I’ve learned to milk cows, gather eggs, move hogs and cattle and as of yesterday, process chickens.
We had 90 broilers that were ready for harvesting and as you so aptly wrote, it was hardly they type of harvesting I was acostmed to. There were 6 of us working, each with his or her own task. Since I wanted to learn everything there was about sustainable farming and since I had helped to raise the chickens, I vollunteerd to be the one on the killing cone station.
Before yesterday, I had never killed anything other than some fish I had caught. Making the first cut into the first bird was nerve racking. I wanted to do the job right and spare the animal as much suffering as I possibly could. But the cut wasn’t deep enough and I freaked out when it’s legs started kicking around in the cone. I didn’t want to finish.
I had brought my son with me and he was watching everything I did. I had tought him to drive the tractor a few weeks before and he thought it was fun. As a 13 year old boy, I felt he was ready to see that life on the farm can be fun but there are cycles of reaping and sowing. I collected my nerves and finished the job.
By the end of the day (some 7 hours later) I had killed 90 chickens. My method was refined and the birds died much quicker than my first had. My son was working along side of me and I felt a sense of pride as he did a good job at his task of dunking the birds in the hot water to loosen their feathers.
We have 90 more broilers that will be ready in another month or so. They will enjoy the green pastures, foraging for bugs and running around in their pens. They will know the warmth of the June sun, the cool spring rains and open sky unlikeke the millions of commercially raised chickens that will have been fed pharmaceuticals in a warehouse.
Some of my family and close friends can’t understand how I, a person who lives animals, could have done this. It is true I have changed but not in a negative way. I have a deeper appreciation for my food and respect for life. I hope they will understand that one day.