R.I.P. Alfonso and Massimo. Could you eat your own chickens?
Comments(27)
Photo: Superb Leghorn bantam cockerels and wife
Since we got the letter from our neighbour we have been dithering about how to deal with our cockerels. As in all small communities, other neighbours have come forward to say that they liked the sound of the cockerels. We considered rehousing them but they would have to stay together as they were such close chums, looking out for each other and chatting in a cockerelish sort of way when they found something tasty to eat.
No rehousing project coud promise this as most peoplewho welcome a cockerel just want the one stud. We tried, but nobody wanted them.
They were the leaders of the flock. Alberto being Prime Minister and the gentler Massimo was Deputy P.M.
Beautiful birds but if someone is losing sleep (as every torturer knows), the culprits need to be silenced.
Danny was also woken regularly at 4.30 and was not over keen on the raucous brothers.
“We have to do something about them quickly. It’s been weeks since we got that letter.”
We eventually decided that killing and eating them was probably the best answer. Finally we would taste meat that we (and Caroline and Kevin) had raised. In our journey to self sufficiency this had to be the answer. But both of us were worried about killing them.
What if they didn’t die immediately?
Would the rest of the flock be upset?
These were just excuses. To be quite honest we just didn’t have the guts to do it. My Aunt Pickles would have ben laughing from heaven. She kept a flock of at least a hundred on a meadow outside her back door. All except for the special named ones were earmarked for possible slaughter in the future. Unfortunately I never saw her kill or prepare a chicken for table. But I did enjoy many a delicious chicken based meal at her house.
Finally S generously offered to kill them on the understanding that we would definitely eat them. I agreed at once.
“Wait until they have settled properly for the night and then put them in a box and bring them up to me. They’ll be sleepy and then it’s easy to catch then.”
And they were. Popped into a hamper within seconds.
They spent the night in the barn and, for the first time ever, I woke at dawn to muffled crows. They were quickly dispatched by S later that morning.
I must admit that I wasn’t looking forward to preparing them for the table. I even gardened in the rain to avoid the task. I was fond of Massimo – how could I eat him? But when I gingerly opened the hamper, the birds, like all creatures that have died, had lost their sparkle. By the time they were gutted and skinned they had switched from being our cockerels to food.
Now I have to take the final step and learn how to kill my chickens in the future.
If push came to shove I would now be happy to raise chickens for meat. Well husbanded chickens must taste better than those that have taken several days to reach the shelves of butcher or supermarket.
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Thank you for your comments. And a bit of silly bath time fun with the Frothing Sea Monster trick!
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Well done – it cant have been easy. We plan to raise some of our chucks for meat but however much I know its the right thing to do, i’m not looking forward to the task ahead – I need to draw inspiration from your Aunt Pickles I think!
Good for you! The plan is to be able to dispatch and eat our laying hens, once they go off. And if we can manage that, then meat rabbits are in the plans as well. However, we’d have to do it on the sly because the local chicken ordinance says for pets only. Hmmm.
We don’t even have them yet- that plan is for next year!
But to answer your question: I’m not sure if I could or not. We decided that naming them is probably not a good idea. Or at minimum, call them Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner. Or Fricasee, or Cacciatore, or Roast…
I had a similar problem – I had 1 Barnvelder & 2 Welsummer cockerels to deal with after raising some chicks – I left them as long as I possibly could mainly because I wanted them to get as large as possible but the crowing was getting ridiculous so when I had a couple of friends coming to visit who had experience of culling their own birds – I asked them to help
I did the deed but it was very re-assuring to know that they were there to help if something went wrong – nothing did & we had 3 of the best tasting meat birds ever – they were awesome
I won’t do it again in my current house – mainly cos I don’t really have the room but if I did I would have no qualms at all about doing it
We did exactly the same thing last year. Got our hens at 11 weeks, one of them, Grace, started looking a little different from the others. She soon became Gary.
The guy that gave us the hens saw that ‘she’ had become a ‘he’ and offered to take him away and replace him. I knew what ‘take him away meant’ no, he was pet by this stage. Until 6 months down the line he turned proper nasty. Again, not keen on the dispatch process we got a well versed friend in,
So anyway following day Gary was served up, and yes there was an odd feeling for a couple of minutes, but he tasted great and there was satisfaction in the knowledge he’d had a happy life.
Oh I’m in the same boat — I’ve been meaning to cull 3 older hens, and now one has come up limpy (she also looks like the others ahve been picking on her). I’ve got calls into some more experienced friends since I don’t know how to do the deed, and don’t think I could the first time without at least some hand-holding. Sigh. I even thought of calling my vet and seeing if he’d teach me how to dispatch her (we’re pretty rural here, I’m sure it’ s in his repertoire)
That’s a huge step you’ve taken, and one I don’t envy, but I do admire:) I don’t even know what cockerel tastes like. At least they lived a wonderful life – better than the commercial male birds who are dispatched on their birth day, and still better than any battery hens.
Can, have, and do.
It wasn’t too hard to do the first few mean roosters. But i’ve gotten more and more comfortable with it. Not to the point that it’s a casual thing. I don’t ever want the taking of life to become casual. But comfortable – to the point that burying an injured hen (as long as she’s not sick with something) instead of butchering her for the table (if she has to be put down, of course) seems disrespectful. It seems like preventing her from fulfilling her destiny.
Waytogo in giving your boys a respectful, beneficial, end.
Yes, with help from my teen-aged son. The first rooster had become aggressive & extra space made his temper even worse. After he tried to attack our toddler he became dinner. About a week later three other roosters became dinner just to give our poor hens a rest.
For us a killing cone is the most humane method. We borrowed a turkey deep fryer (an outdoor deep cooking pot that uses propane for fuel) to heat the water & keep it at the proper temperature. I was very worried about messiness but after the cone there is very little to no blood. Water at the proper temperature & the feathers remove very easy. Innards are not gross or bloody. We found our directions at a blog called “The Deliberate Agrarian” in the sidebar. I printed them off for easier reference. On advice from my dad we did wait 24 hrs for more tender chicken. The biggest surprise is that dark meat is really very dark not just a shade paler than white meat and the taste is so much better. You have learned so many different skills that this will not be a difficult as you fear.
Well we will be raising some chickens next year for meat but we may get ours butchered mainly because we are thinking of raising them to sell as well as for ourselves. The thought of some good chicken of a decent size spurs me on.
Our friend has got rabbits and they will be dispatching theirs much to their daughters displeasure
Well done you. I have hens and sometimes they do need to be dispatched but as mine are layers the meat is no good except for stock/soup as there is little meat on them. Once you have learned how to dispatch them quickly it will become easier…..
Good for you! That was a sensible way to go.
You said “skinned”, so I assume you chose not to pluck them – I’m wondering why?
I’m looking forward to hearing how you’ll cook them.
Celia
Must have been hard, especially as you’d never planned to eat them and had given them names — well done! This is something that I admit has put me off keeping chickens, even though it obviously makes complete sense.
I’ve never had to do the deed myself as we’ve always had POL hens so no cockerels! We did however eat one of our hens who was despatched by a fox. That has to be the coward’s way out!
I have thought that if I had specifically raised chickens with the intention of ultimately eating them and was careful not to get attached to them I could maybe do it. Whether or not I could kill them quickly efficiently would be my major worry. However, as IB is a vegetarian I’m eating almost no meat at all of late, so home-raised chicken is unlikely to be on the menu any time soon.
Well done for having the courage of your convictions!
I found that ‘switch from pet to dinner’ thing happened too as soon as I started gutting them – without their feathers, they looked more like something from the supermarket than from the hen run.
I imagine it’ll be harder to despatch the girls once they’re done laying though – not only because we’ll know them better but also because it’ll feel less purposeful, given they’ve got so little meat on them. We’ll see, I guess
Well done, how brave of you. I know how hard it must have been.
Hugs!
Thanks for updating us on the cockerel situ, I know lots of people gleefully suggested the pot as the solution!
As a child, often the first I knew of an up-coming chicken dish was meeting the dead chicken, hanging quietly by the foot, in the larder! But our chickens never had names, which helped.
For those with ex-layers, I’d like to mention a family recipe called “Fallen Fowl” (named after something from a Lukin & Branwell children’s book)
The idea is to seal the meat (joined of portioned) in a frying pan with a fair bit of cinnamon, then casserole it with lots of sliced onion, some tinned tomatoes, sultanas and some chicken stock. Cook in the oven at a hot enough heat for the juices to caramelise slightly where they splash up the sides of the pot, and cook ’til the meat wants to come off the bone. I use bought thighs, so it doesn’t take long, but the recipe was originally for boiling fowls i.e. ex-layers. Serve with rice and toasted flaked almonds – Yum!
I know how difficult that must have been for you Fiona, But I am glad you are eating your birds. If you are going to try to be self sufficient it is important to be able to do these tasks. I always eat the birds if they have to be dispatched although I admit I have never done the deed myself. My friend always does it for me. But you are quite right. It is amazing how quickly they turn from your creatures into food!!!!!
Having said all that I have two old ladies who will die a natural death, even though I know they should really be culled.
‘Fraid that’s where I draw the line – I just can’t bring myself to cull non-laying girls – they just go into happy retirement – I feel it’s the least I can do for the eggs they’ve given me over the years
However I’m not trying to make my living out of it – it’s a hobby so I don’t have to balance the books
It took us a while to pluck up the courage the first time we killed our own birds for meat. To be honest if it’s a cock which has been crowing loudly, it is somewhat easier because if you are annoyed with the noise, you have the double bonus of meat to eat, and a bit more quiet in the future. The last bird we ate was a particularly noisy quail cock who’s crow was so loud and piercing, it would go straight to the middle of your skull.
My Great Aunt Dag is with your Aunt Pickles, laughing at the likes of us who can’t take killing a chicken in stride. They grew up at a time when the cycle of life hit closer to home, and I think they were better for it. If you’re going to eat an animal, there’s a lot to be said for knowing what it’s like to kill an animal.
Our turkeys will be our first, this November. I’m dreading it, but committed to it.
Here in rural Croatia everyone raises their own meat – to the extent that butchers’ shops are rare, and there is very little meat on sale in the supermarkets compared to in the UK. Within a few hundred yards of our house there are chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, rabbits, goats, sheep and pigs all being raised for the table, plus the odd milk cow here and there. I plan to have guinea fowl (to eat the ticks) and chickens when we move to our own place later this year, and I intend to kill birds for the table – but I have no experience of doing it. I’m sure my neighbours will be happy to show me what to do. I just hope I’m not too squeamish when it comes down to it.
I think I’d struggle with this too but I think you did the right thing.
I was just laughing my socks off at the stinky fish story.
Hope you’re both well.
With love, Amanda x
Well done the pair of you for passing a difficult milestone, and it sounds like you did a good job of it.
I understand your situation and have a lot of respect for the fact that the decision was a hard one to come to – it should have been, and it’s good that you investigated all options.
I’m a vegetarian so gloriously free of such dilemmas. It does make me a little uncomfortable to hear people killing cockerels making ‘annoying’ noises (the cockerels wouldn’t be there if they hadn’t been brought in for human convenience – it seems something of a betrayal to then kill them for trying to act naturally!) but I would far sooner see happy chickens leading happy lives up until the point they’re killed than intensively farmed cheap meat.
When we first started smallholding we made it a rule that if we were not prepared to kill it we would not keep it. It was hard killing the first time, a duck, and it hung in the barn looking like an angel, but it tasted good and had had a good life. We still don’t like dispatching, especially the rabbits,but we rear and kill with respect if that’s not a contradiction in terms.
Following the huge number of ‘pats on your back’ you have received – I hate to be the one that tells you (and all the other people who have drawn attention to the fact they have killed the birds in their care) that all animals, including poultry should be despatched by a qualified and trained ‘individual.
I’m pretty sure that ‘Aunt Pickles’ wasn’t either qualified or trained!
I also feel that at this point I need to point out that in 2006 ‘The Animal Welfare Act’ was passed by parliament. The main points outlined below;-
The act means pet owners are now legally obliged to care for their pet properly – which most owners already do – by providing these five basic needs:
(1) somewhere suitable to live
(2) a proper diet, including fresh water
(3) the ability to express normal behaviour
(4) for any need to be housed with, or apart from, other animals
(5) protection from, and treatment of, illness and injury.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that killing the animals in your care fall outside point number 5 outlined above – and the law doesn’t differentiate between a dog, cat or chicken.
I do hope that the law eventually catches up with you all and that you are prosecuted to full extent of the courts reach.
For the Animals who can’t speak for themselves
Scarlet
Scarlett, I appreciate your concern but I suspect these laws were made to protect big business. There is no doubt in my mind that home reared food is cared for more humanely and live more naturally than anything factory farmed. Until we have a vegan utopia, I think this freedom should be encouraged.