With Much Respect and Gratefulness...But Still Probably Not for the Squemish (or the Vegetarians)

   
     Today we slaughtered our six meat birds.  I said my prayers and thanked them for their giving of their life for us and then...off with their heads.  Weird.  It wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard.  We were ready for them to go and they were ready to go.  It was time.  We heard about someone who processes them for a few bucks a piece, but you have to drive there 1.5 hours away...we couldn't round up the name of the local guy, and well we had done a big chicken slaughter before with friends and Nick grew up hunting/cleaning birds...Sooooo it was way easier to consider doing it ourselves.  We borrowed a knife and I got the word this morning to head out and help hold down the chickens.  I did.  I knew it was coming.  I had been watching them grow for weeks knowing that they were going to die for our table, knowing if it wasn't us it would be someone else doing the killing.  Surprisingly,  nothing really prepares you for holding a chicken's neck while your husband cuts it off.  Nothing really prepares you for feeling the life slip away or the blood spattering up on your arm or your face.  But on the other hand that is just how it goes...right? I mean we are just harvesting our chickens.  I will tell you this, as bizarre and awful as that is, it was not as bad as having to tend to the two dead baby chicks that we had amongst our new brood.  That was a different kind of death altogether.
     As for the overall experience, the kids were around but did not watch the actual kill.  They did come back around quickly after each beheading for the clean up of the bird.  Curious for sure.  Maceo would have watched not really knowing what was going on, we just didn't want him to.  His brother kindly entertained him during the initial parts and they watched the skinning...he was rooting for us, "go mom, go dad"...ignorance is bliss.  Then he looked for himself in the "scrap" bucket (for the lack of a better term) and did an honest face covering with a very clear "that's gross".   There was no doubt in my mind though that I would rather the kids all see and smell this experience and decide to become a vegetarian, than to go to the store and buy their meat from the counter.   It all went pretty well.  We did not do the full process of saving the skin and the organs, as these quick meat bird crosses didn't seem worthy.  I think we solidly came to the conclusion that our meat birds will be part of our layer flock as well (we are raising several dual purpose breeds) and come in to the table as needed rather than an overall slaughter day.  It will be more like, hmmm, let's have chicken for supper and go out to the field rather than the freezer.  It was really that simple overall.  Back to the basics with respect and gratefulness. Chicken on the grill for supper.  We almost had two new vegetarians, but by supper time they came around...

Going in the freezer...

And just a side note:
Of course there are plenty of local farmers here in Maine, and all over that you can get to know that will offer you conscious meat/organic meat for sale, including chicken, pork, lamb and of course beef.  (That is how we still get our beef.  Not quite ready to slaughter a cow)... Gotta love those farmers!  And of course in Maine how could we ever overlook our hunters, that is a whole other ballgame... I think I am ready to take the women's hunting class for sure.  If ignorance is bliss, I'll go with Knowledge is Power on this one...