A Matter of Life and Death

WARNING: This post is about killing a rooster. There are no photos (you're welcome!), but if the idea squicks you out too much, do not read further.

As for the rest of you bloodthirsty hooligans: Read on!

Remember the chickens? Yeah, I haven't been talking about them much. The hens are still laying eggs, and they're all just going about their chicken business, doing chicken things. In case you forgot, we had four chickens left from the six that the MiL brought home last August. After a couple of unfortunate incidents reduced the flock, we were left with two hens and two roosters. We knew this was not going to be a permanent situation. We knew we would have to get rid of one of the roosters.

Roosters are not nice. All they want to do is jump hens and strut around. And when there are two roosters fighting over only two hens, things get ugly. Ugly in the sense that the hens were spending all their time trying to run away from the battling roosters, getting the feathers on their backs ripped out, and becoming wild-eyed and crazed from constant, um, lustful attentions.

Things were out of hand. And I wasn't going to stand for it any longer.

On Friday night I shut the chickens in their coop without any food. On Saturday morning, A. went into the coop, and after a lot of frankly hilarious squawking (from the chickens), cussing (from A.), and a scratch from a rooster spur (on A.), he caught the rooster we had determined needed to go. We had a block of wood set up right outside the coop, so he laid the rooster out with its head on the block, told me to grab its body around the wings, then cut its head off with a cleaver. Then he told me to let go of it. So I did.

You've heard the phrase, "Running around like a chicken with its head cut off," right? Right. They don't so much run as flop. And the beak on the severed head still opens and closes. It's a freak show, all right. It only flopped for a minute, though. Then A. dunked it in hot water to scald it, and then we plucked it. I found the plucking to be more distasteful than the actual beheading.

Then A. whacked off the tail, legs, and wings, and cleaned out the inside. And then, we lit a paper bag on fire and used it to singe off the little tiny feathers that can't be plucked.

Then I went to a wedding shower. I lead a dual life.

While the MiL and I were at the wedding shower, A. roasted the chicken. We ate it for dinner. It was really, really interesting to me how dark the meat was on the legs. Like, really dark. Darker even than the turkeys we used to raise and kill for Thanksgiving. The meat was very flavorful and juicy, though a wee bit tough. The MiL was of the opinion that any chicken over 6 months old should be stewed. But it was still good. It was the first time I had ever eaten a chicken that had never been frozen. Also the first time I had ever assisted in the killing of my own dinner (pulling up vegetables doesn't count).

So did it bother me? Not so much. That rooster was just asking for it, the nasty bugger. I didn't feel the least bit bad. In fact, I dedicated that chicken dinner to Penny and Poppy, the hens. Things are much calmer and happier in the chicken yard now. And I got a chicken dinner out of it, so I say, good deal.

Thus ends the bloodshed. Tomorrow I promise I'll post a puppy or lamb picture. So you have that to look forward to. Have a fabulous day, duckies!