Day Two OR Why chicken slaughter may be the most exhausting thing I will ever do

*warning: this post might be hard to handle for some*

It has taking me all day to sit down and begin writing. To be honest, this morning was tough.
To begin, I’ll take a moment to explain what the chicken situation is like here at Leighton. Charlie and Lynn raise the typical double breasted chickens you would find at any supermarket with two exceptions: they are brought up organically and tend to average about eight/nine pounds. As this is a homestead and not a large industrial farm, they only process enough chickens for themselves throughout the year and to sell locally, covering the cost of feed and other expenses.
The chickens are first brought onto the farm as chicks. Some will die due to the sickly nature of the species. As Charlie explained to me yesterday the birds raised for harvest in our country today are a hybrid developed for optimal meat density. They’re weak, not built for survival.
At this point their chests have swelled to such an extreme that some can hardly walk. In other words, it’s time to make some sacrifices.

Charlie and Lynn have found that is much easier and less expensive to process the chickens on site. The more than sixty chickens they’ve raised are processed in small groups. Today we did about half. Thursday morning we will probably finish. Everything is done and set to cool before 11:00 which allows us to work outside.
The first step is of course the killing itself. Charlie handles this part. The chickens are carried one at a time over to a metal cone where they are placed neck down. Their necks are split here and the blood drains down plastic tarp and into buckets below. The chicken dies quickly but is kept in place by the cone as its lower body experiences involuntary muscle spasms (the “death throws”).
The body is then submerged in a hot water bath to liquefy the fat around the feathers before being placed in an upright dryer-like machine which pulls them all away.
At this point the chicken is placed in front of me -armed with pruning shears and knives next to Rebecca, my fellow WWOOFer and Lynn, today’s expert chicken gut-er.
My job quickly became simple to do well while remaining difficult to stomach. Replaying it now, however, I realize it sounds worse than it actually was.
Basically, I made the chicken look less like an animal and more like the plastic-wrapped, neatly trimmed cut of meat sitting next to the turkey and bacon. All it took was for me to clip off the head and legs (collected in the bucket at our feet).
When I became more comfortable with that, Lynn showed me how to begin prying lose the lungs and windpipe. On the final chickens I even got up close and personal with the abdominal organs -wrist deep to where I could tug membrane away from skin. I tried to let my curiosity dominate my other emotions, but overall, I’d have to say I was surprised.
Going into this experience I thought I might be able to go numb after awhile, performing the same task with each bird. But I found that my feelings were quite the opposite. Every chicken I came across was different. I couldn’t depend on them being positioned the same way or having their lungs in the same place. The fact is that as I helped to create a meat-like appearance the mortality of the chicken became more real. I have a better understanding of how and why butchering an animal can be a cultural experience -of how certain communities can be overwhelmed with respect for the animals they depend on for food.
You should know at this point that I have been a vegan for the past year. I broke my diet in anticipation for my stay at the farm. I have to say that having taken part in this process hasn’t necessarily scared me into going back to veganism, nor has it given me any assurance that I should again start eating meat. Rather, this conversion of death into a resource has affirmed much of what vegetarianism has taught me about diet, nourishment and the way I can choose to live my life.
Lynn and Charlie both explained that they first began raising livestock because they wanted the control and knowledge that comes with seeing their food mature from start to finish.
As we killed the chickens, it didn’t smell like blood, like a hospital or a morgue. It smelled like homemade chicken broth. And as my hosts keep telling me, the more you do this the more chicken smells like corn. I have only been here two days and already I have a heightened awareness of what I put into my body and where it comes from.
I couldn’t write this without thanking Charlie and Lynn for being so attentive to our feelings about todays chores. We were always given an out if our emotions or stomachs got the best of us. Interestingly enough, the physical and emotional toll wasn’t the highest. While everyone spent the day visibly exhausted and hardly talkative, it would be inaccurate to say we were merely drained. There was something more occupying our minds.
I think Lynn put it best as we gathered for lunch. It’s hard work and emotionally difficult at times, but the worst part isn’t that. It’s the “responsibility that comes with it -the responsibility to do it right.”