Todays Friday story is a pretty short one.  It's about killing chickens,

The Great Chicken Slaughter

Ed Van Rhenterghem operated a large chicken ranch about a half mile down the road from Uncle Bob and Aunty Mit's little ranch in Salinas.  He had several hundred chickens and sold eggs and chickens to stores and restaurants in town.

Aunty Mit had a part-time job at his ranch candling eggs and plucking chickens.

Whenever Lee and I went to Salinas for a week or more, Mr. Van Rhenterghem would hire us to feed chickens, gather eggs,  and do odd jobs around the place.  We would usually feed the chickens about mid morning and then again late in the afternoon.  If there were no odd jobs to do, we would play in the pasture or explore the woods.

One Friday afternoon Mr. Van Rhenterghem asked us if we wanted to help him slaughter some chickens.  We did , and then began to help him set up the processing operation in front of his barn.

Aunty Mit put a large pot of water on the old wood stove that was standing there and started the fire.  She kept adding wood to the stove until the fire was blazing.  Steam started rising from the water.

Mr. Van Rhenterghem put a large screened cage into the back of his pickup truck and told Lee and I to get in the front seat.  We drove to the furthest chicken coop and got out.  We followed him into the coop and he started selecting chickens.  He would point to one and Lee or I would chase it down, usually to a corner of the coop, carry it to the pickup truck and put it in the cage.  We repeated the process in all five coops.

There were about twenty chickens in that cage.  Mr. Van Rhenterghem drove back to the barn where Aunty Mit was boiling the water.  She had a table set up there now, and a large garbage can.

I was shown how to kill a chicken.  Holding it between my legs, I would grasp it's head, stretch is neck out, and with a sharp knife pierce it's neck and cut it's throat.
I would let the chicken go. It was Lee's job to chase it down and toss it into the hot water.

Then Aunty Mit would take it out of the water and pluck out the feathers.  The feathers went into the garbage can, and the chicken went to Mr. Van Rhenterghem.  He would cut out the entrails and dress it for market.

I slaughtered about twenty chickens that afternoon.  Lee and I were covered with chicken blood.  But we were doing man's work, so we didn't care.
I felt a little queasy about the first chicken I killed.  I had killed quail for the dinner table with Uncle Bob's shotgun before, but it hadn't bothered me. When I got my first .22 rifle, I shot rabbits and birds, and that didn't bother me either.  This, however, was close up; face to face so to speak..
By the time I got to the last one, the queasy feeling had passed.  I was a city boy turning into a country boy.  I was helping to harvest food for the table.
Mr. Van Rhenterghem gave Aunty Mit one of the chickens.  It was a chicken I had killed.  I was simply the hunter home from the hill, and supper that night we ate my kill.

Noel

 

 

 

While living in Gainesville, Florida many decades ago, my brother and I rented a house outside the city in Waldo, FL. The house was on a fenced thirty acres of mostly cleared land. My brother had the "bright idea" of raising chickens. We had an old refrigerator in the carport to store the eggs we collected, so that neighbors could buy them and leave the money in a small bucket kept in the refrigerator.

Eventually we had to kill some of the older chickens who'd quit laying eggs. After all, why feed the lazy non-productive creatures?

Neither of us knew how to go about the task. This was long before YouTube, so we had no ready reference. I had however watched a fair bit on Daniel Boone movies, as well as others of that vintage and seemed to remember using a hatchet and a tree stump. So having sharpened my hatchet to a fine edge (good enough to shave with!) I proceeded to accomplish the messy task.

What I didn't know is just how difficult it is to get a chicken to cooperate by stretching its neck out across the tree stump! It was only after the first chicken was successfully killed that I actually learned that the expression "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" wasn't just a charming saying!

Several young boys from the neighborhood were in attendance to the great chicken kill, and they and I ran around frantically trying to re-capture the headless chicken. After consultation between the boys and my brother I determined that we should probably tie the chicken's feet together before removing its head.

Yeah, that worked out just fine and I proceeded to slaughter the remaining nine chickens. It was several months before I managed to actually eat any of them though. In fact, even now nearly fifty years later I'm beginning to feel a bit queasy just re-living the incident... 🤯

Since 'The Great Chicken Slaughter' I have killed ducks, geese, pheasant, quail, prairie chickens, a couple of deer, and a few rabbits.  I've never felt queasy about game I've killed for the table.  I once shot a possum for dinner.  I'll tell you about that next Friday Fr. Bill.

Noel

Noel, sounds like you were chokin' dem chickens!  Didn't wring their necks or lop 'em off with a hatchet?🐔

5 hours ago, birdguy said:

Holding it between my legs, I would grasp it's head, stretch is neck out, and with a sharp knife pierce it's neck and cut it's throat.

Charlie. you didn't read it clearly.  I slit their throats.

Noel

15 hours ago, birdguy said:

Charlie. you didn't read it clearly.  I slit their throats.

Noel

OUCH! 🍗