As the water warmed up, we picked our roosters. For business purposes, we have little use for roosters. They are pretty to look at and the hens seem to enjoy their attention, but really, they are a waste of very expensive chicken feed. We'll keep a few roosters for fertilized eggs, but we certainly don't need five of them, so a few had to go.
Next came the slaughter. We wanted to do it as humanely as possible. Our chickens live good lives and there is no reason for them to meet an ugly demise. We are very grateful to these animals and we have a lot of respect for the delicious gifts they provide. We fashioned a kill cone out of an old plastic milk jug and with my brand new knife we slashed the main artery without cutting the windpipe. Then we sat holding the bird as it bled out into the bucket.
While our day was full of smiles, this is probably a more accurate picture of how I felt about bleeding a chicken:
After we slaughtered the chickens we hung them up on the fence to continue to bleed out while we waited for our water to heat up. This would be a good time to tell you how proud I was of our dogs. They were awesome. Though they showed a lot of interest in participating in the day's activities, they (for the most part) kept their noses out of our business.
Once our water warmed up to a nice 150 degrees, we dipped our chickens in their hot baths to loosen the feathers. On a side note, my birthday is coming up and though this is pretty short notice, I would love a chicken plucker!
Eric volunteered to cut off the chickens' feet. Thank you, Eric.
Next came the tedious and disgusting job of disemboweling the chicken. First you make a cut at the throat of the chicken to loosen their windpipe and craw. Next you cut off their oil glands and make an incision above the vent without cutting through the intestines. Next, we had to reach into our chickens to pull out all the internal organs as well as the windpipe and craw. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It's not. We watched Joel Salatin's video where he did this in just seconds. We were not so lucky, but we know we'll get better with time.
By 12:30 - our chickens had been processed. Though we were a far cry from munching on delicious fried chicken, the hard work was over. At this point we were bubbling over with pride.
After we finished posing with the dead chickens, we gave them a good cold soak that lasted for approximately one hour. Eric agreed to cut up the chicken if he didn't have to go to the store and I was more than ready to give myself some distance from the chickens.
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for dinner and doing chores. I picked up some frozen peaches from Eric's mother for a peach pie. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe, substituting honey for sugar and it was divine. There would be a picture of the pie if I hadn't dropped it. It wasn't completely destroyed - we were each able to enjoy a small piece.
At around 6 we drove the very long quarter of a mile to his parent's house, where Betty would help us in our final step. This fried chicken recipe is a family favorite and we wanted to learn from the master.
After a few glasses of wine and lots of splattering grease, we finally had our beautiful platter of fried chicken and it was all worth it! We were tired, but happy and very hungry.
Dinner was excellent!. The fried chicken was accompanied by roasted potatoes, cheesy veggies over cold spinach and a dropped peach pie. Though the chicken was a little tough (still trying to figure that one out), it was absolutely delicious.
