Day of reckoning for the roosters

Let me preface this post by saying that we opted to process three roosters over the weekend because too many of our hens look like this:

The roosters dig their long, sharp talons into the hens’ backs and pull feathers from their heads during mating. It’s quite unpleasant. I’m not sure if all breeds of roosters behave like this, but ours are particularly aggressive when it comes to getting their freak on. I was afraid one of our hens might die because of it.  So we made the tough decision to cull the flock.

Here’s a tutorial in how to process chickens. Don’t worry, I didn’t include any blood and gut shots!

First, the necessary equipment:

This is the Scalder, which is basically a giant tub filled with water and heated to 140 degrees. The slaughtered birds are plunged in the Scalder a few times to loosen their feathers. Once the feathers are adequately loosened (i.e. the wing feathers can be pulled with little to no resistance) the bird is ready for the Featherman.

This is the Featherman. The Featherman is like a top loading washing machine equipped with hard rubber fingers that spin around really fast that pluck feathers from the bird.

This is an oversized kill cone.  Jake temporarily installed it underneath the bird house. How nice. In the driveway. Even nicer.  The kill cone is what immobilizes the bird right before the throat is slit.

This is Adolph.  Close readers may recall my travails with this agent of Satan.  After being viciously attacked one too many times, we offloaded him onto our neighbors Sam and Sandra.  Sam and Sandra had every intention of processing him themselves…..but for whatever reason, they never got around to it and Adolph ended up spending the remainder of his days in confinement. As much as I dislike this bird, I couldn’t stand the thought of him caged up in close quarters so we offered to butcher him ourselves, if only to put Adolph out of his misery.

Jake transported Plumpy and Heimlich from the coop to the “kill zone” — our driveway!! (???) — in this yellow cage. Don’t worry, they were only in the cage for 15 minutes or so.

First order of business: Grabbing hold of a rooster.  It’s not fun and games.  Especially with a bird like Adolph.  But Jake’s clutches proved to be too swift and powerful.

Holding a chicken upside down hypnotizes them. They go limp and don’t try to resist or fight.  This is the recommended carrying method right before slaughter.

Adolph is placed head first into the kill cone.

Jake makes sure Adolph’s throat is all the way exposed in order to make a swift, clean cut. Adolph, meanwhile, remains completely still; he’s in the chicken trance.

The cut is made using one of Jake’s army issue “kill knifes.”  Adolph’s body twitches violently as the blood drips into a bucket placed underneath the kill cone.

This is the part of the process where I had to turn away.  I became very emotional.  I suppose it’s because it was the first or second time I’ve actually witnessed an animal dying so I could eat him.  I wonder if it gets easier with time.  And SHOULD it get easier with time?  It takes a special kind of person to do it dispassionately.  I have a lot of respect for people who do it.

Anyway.  The body is then dipped in the Scalder to loosen the feathers.

Once the feathers are sufficiently loosened — we did  a “pull test” on the wings — the body is placed in the Featherman.

The centrifugal force of the Featherman pushes the just plucked feathers out an opening into a waiting bucket.

It literally takes less than a minute for up to four bird to be completely plucked in the Featherman….compared to at LEAST 20-30 minutes plucking ONE bird by hand.   Which leads me to conclude that if you’re going to get in the business of processing chickens, a Featherman is a must.

Jake pulls a few remaining feathers from the bird.  The reason for the feathers, we realized, is that we didn’t scald the bird quite long enough in the Scalder. The birds require a thorough dunking to ensure the feathers easily come off.

Starting to look more like grocery store fare, right?  Except for those gnarly feet.

I took the liberty of sparing you, gentle reader, the evisceration process.  Here’s what the bird looks like post-evisceration and the legs have been removed, and the body thoroughly rinsed.  It looks pretty much like any Safeway broiler.

The chicken is then bagged in plastic and immediately frozen.  It’s recommended to freeze birds before eating them in order to destroy any lingering microbes.  I guess it’s similar to flash-freezing fish before it’s turned into sushi; another line of defense against contamination.

We then did the same thing to Heimlich and Plumpy. It was particularly difficult to watch Plumpy go because he was such a distinct member of the flock.  For the longest time, we thought he was a she….a Rosie O’Donnell butch hen who rode roughshod over the other hens.  Until the constant crowing and obsessive mounting indicated otherwise (or did it?).

All in all, processing three birds took about two hours, from capturing and caging them to bagging and freezing them.

I wouldn’t say it was a particularly enjoyable experience…it was quite emotional, as a matter of fact….but I’m glad I partook. It gives me a little more appreciation and respect for the animals whose lives are sacrificed so that I may eat meat.

And now I can finally look forward to eating some decent chicken.

Tagged as: roosters