Chicken Update - The Slaughter

The chickens have been fun for the kids. We have gathered 3 eggs from the white chickens and also one of the native chickens has started to produce as well for an additional 4 eggs. We hope that once they get into full production in the next few weeks the kids will be gathering 3 - 4 eggs a day.

Ashton is the man when it comes to chickens. They wait by the back door each morning for their Sheppard, Ashton. Ashton cleans up their poop - which is a lot - feeds them and also changes their water each day.

Glessie, our house help brought us a chicken from here island which brings up our chicken total to 6 chickens. Because 6 chickens is 2 more then we wanted, we decided to have a new experience in chicken raising - slaughtering chickens.

After getting permission from Savanna to kill and eat the "Cinderella" chickens we began our search on how to do the deed properly. I searched youtube (you can find almost everything on youtube) to learn a humane way to prepare our chickens (there a lot of inhumane ways to kill a chicken on youtube so be careful in your searching). We chose to kill the white chickens because we believe that they are "old ladies" and are done producing eggs on a daily basis. We have had them for over 4 weeks and we only have gathered 3 eggs. Plus they eat a lot which costs us money and they bully the other chickens.

Here are a few "before" pictures of the white chickens.



Before they get the ax, we held the chickens upside down for 2 - 3 minutes to get the blood to run to their head.

Jill bought me a nice cleaver to cut their heads off. Ashton wanted to participate throughout the entire process. He helped hold down the chickens feet when I through a special method, which I will refrain from sharing here, took the life of the chickens. The only animals that I have ever killed in my life are fish. So this was a new experience for me as well. I was actually quite scared, but also touched with a very deepening feeling of gratitude. I believe our society today has lost touch with the order of this earth that God has given us. Our food is so processed and dressed to look nice and taste good that we take no thought in how it was made, grown, or raised. This experience was a good opportunity to talk to the kids about what some of Gods creatures give so we can live. In this case, these chickens gave their lives so we could eat dinner. I also learned through the experience why some people choose not to eat meat.

Here is Ashton holding the dead chickens ready to be taken in to the kitchen to be boiled for 60 seconds so we can pull out the feathers. The kids all expressed some interest in pulling out the feathers, but most stopped after pulling out a couple because they were so hot from being in the boiling water. It took me about 20 minutes for each bird to pull out the feathers. During the feather pulling, I kept thinking to myself, "We paid 100 pesos a piece for these chickens, they have each eaten about 40 pesos worth of food. I can buy a chicken already slaughtered, cooked, and ready to eat for 160 pesos. Why am I doing this?" When it comes to economics, it doesn't make any sense. When it comes to learning self reliance, it makes all the sense in the world.

The worst part of the process was the gutting of the chickens. I would rather slaughter 10 chickens then gut 2. It was very unpleasant. I learned that you should not allow your chickens to eat before slaughter time. Their stomachs were huge, full of chicken feed. It was not pleasant.
Below is a picture of the final product of our work.


So how did it taste? Okay. The meat was a bit tough with a weird taste to it that I think came from some paint thinner that the chickens got on their skin when they were hiding in the shed earlier during the week. We decided not to eat it that night, but rather went out for dinner instead. We did eat the meat over the next couple of days in sandwiches and quesedillas. Ashton asked Sunday afternoon, "Why didn't we eat the chickens?" I responded, "You are are eating them right now." He thought that was really cool.

It was a great experience!