Fresh meat...I mean meal...

This may contain some sensitive material and pictures, so I forwarn you!

Yesterday was slaughter day for a couple of roosters. We have a total of 8, probably only need 1 or 2 for the 6 hens we have. Plus they are mean animals! They are very territorial, the second we walk into a certain part of the chicken yard they are all over you. And by all over I mean right up on your legs attacking, pecking at your feet and legs and chasing you away, literally. My nephew Vincent, who is 5, was chased from the chicken yard all the way up to the house, that rooster was right up on his legs the whole way! They also peck at eachother, I don't like being around them, you just don't know what they are going to do.

So we decided to have some friends over and make a real occasion of it. Chris' sisters family were all there watching and waiting.. we were all so curious how it all would happen. Chris caught the first one pretty quickly, we thought it would take a while, they are fast runners. He tied it's legs together with some rope and carried it back into the field to a log, where IT would happen. As soon as he carried it by the legs, upside down, it passed out.

When we got out into the field Chris laid its neck up on a log, it very calmly cooperated! I was so suprised I thought it would have been trying to get away..I didn't realize at the time that when you turn them upside down like that they pass out. With one chop of the hatchet it's head was pretty much off...but, it was enough to kill it. It didn't suffer! It's nerves were still going wild though..it's wings started flapping and it was spinning all around the place, I'll just say it's a good thing Chris wore old clothes becuase he had blood everywhere! It was rather nasty.

Next we tied it up in a tree to drain the blood, but most of it was out at that point. We walked back to the 'yard' to catch another. I think at this point they knew what was going on cause they didn't want to be caught! 4 of us atleast gathered in somewhat of a circle around them and selected one that would do. Each time we jumped for it though it took off! I finally grabbed one quick enough by its tail feathers, I had to hold it hard though because it was really flapping it's wings trying to get away from me. It was flying, or trying rather, while I was holding its tail. I was telling Chris to take it soon! It was hard to hold.
The second rooster killing went a bit faster. The head trimming was a little cleaner. Keegan (my nephew) did the second one, he did great. Blood didn't splatter with that one. And it was delayed in trying to get away..but it calmed down by the time we got it to the tree.
We had a pot of boiling water ready for the de-feathering stage. We carried them back to the house (outside of course!) and dunked them into the water quickly and the feathers came right out..it took a while to get them all out but, they pulled out easily. One rooster was the exact same color as one of those rubber chickens you can buy. It was really gross looking. The other Chris and our friend Jeremy skinned. It was still pretty gross looking. They seemed to get all the inards out rather easily. It was time consuming but not as hard as you would think. It was neat seeing all it's insides. I've never disected anything so I've never seen a heart, liver, intestings or stomach that up close. It wasn't as gross as you would think. The whole process, from catching -killing-putting in the oven was about 2 hours. About how long we estimated it to take.
I have to tell you though after seeing all that I wasn't too keen on eating it. For one thing it smelled REAL bad. The de-feathering process was nasty it smelled like really bad wet dog. And it still smelled that way when we put it in the oven, with spices and such on it. And you know for all that work there was hardly enough meat for the 6 of us and the meat was real tough. We know now that roosters are much more fit than hens. They are much more active, the hens barely get around because they are so fat! But the roosters are all over the place all the time.

We enjoyed our meal...which was almost completely organic. Fresh free range chicken, freshly picked green beans and potatoes from the garden. I only wish the corn was ready!