vituperation

If the title of the entry didn’t clue you in, the following entry has pictures of a graphic nature that demonstrate where our food comes from. If you cannot handle the reality of trading a life for meat, you need to go elsewhere.

After I made the decision to turn McLovin into food, I had a terrible time sleeping at night. I’d sleep for a few hours, then wake up for one reason or another, and start thinking about killing McLovin. Usually it would take me an hour or longer to get back to sleep, because all I could think about — and dread — was how I’d be ending his life Saturday morning. Finally, I’d had enough this morning and decided I wanted to go ahead and get it over with today so I might get some good rest tonight.

It’s funny, really. I imagine there are those of you right now thinking if it bothers you so much, why do it? Good question. I don’t know if I have a good answer. Here are my thoughts:

I love meat, and I’m not going to give it up. I don’t particularly mind that an animal has to die, but I care a good deal about how that animal lived. I hate factory farming, and want to do what I can not to contribute to it. I have a way to provide meat for Robyn and I, to raise animals humanely and treat them very well, then dispatch them as quickly and painlessly as possible. So, while I loathe the act of taking an animal’s life — and I hope like hell I never stop loathing it — I take comfort in knowing the animal was well-treated and as “happy” (for lack of a better word) as possible.

So there you have it.

Below is the contraption I built to help me with chicken processing. The basic form is that of a sawhorse. I added pieces of 2×4 across the top so that it would hold four safety cones to allow me to bleed out up to four chickens at a time. I built the original version on Monday. By Wednesday, I realized it was kind of dumb for me to try and process four chickens at a time by myself (Robyn would help if I asked, but I can tell she’s reticent so I don’t), so I added a couple of modifications I thought would help: boards to make a flat surface for the cutting board and a T on the end to hang chickens for plucking.

The new design would let me theoretically do two chicks at the same time, even though I don’t have a million dollars.

(props to anyone who gets that)

I set up the setup out by the pigs, because they’d be getting the offals and there’s water out there, then Robyn and I caught McLovin. Catching him was far easier than we thought it would be, because he ran behind a gate and got trapped there. We felt kind of bad because he was alarmed — he wasn’t a people rooster — but as soon as I got him upside down he was perfectly calm.

My understanding is that holding them this way makes all the blood run to their head and makes them very sleepy.

I lowered McLovin into one of the cones and pulled his head through the bottom. He stayed calm the entire time. I pulled his head to the right because the jugular is on the left, and the cut needs to be made there, just beneath the head.

One quick slice, and the open jugular did the rest of the work. McLovin didn’t squawk, or really flail. He kicked once, and that was it. It took less than a minute for him to completely bleed out.

From the cone, he went into hot water, somewhere between 140-150 degrees. I swirled him around for maybe 45 seconds, and when I pulled him out and hung him on the hook with a bungie, some of the feathers had already come out.

Plucking him was far harder than plucking Flappy. He had WAY more pinfeathers (and I didn’t think to get a picture of one to show you), and it took me a good 20 minutes to get him clean.

Finally, though, he was clean enough for the next steps. The pigs were very interested in the smells the wind blew toward them.

First, a cut through the neck skin, to loosen the crop. The crop is the bulbous white thing to the bottom right of the gash. That’s where all the food they eat goes first. I loosened the crop so that it would go on through when I pulled the rest of the entrails out the back.

Next, a horizontal cut across the gut right above his cloaca. You have to be really careful with this cut, so that you don’t cut the intestines and release poop into the body cavity.

Once the cut was made, I pulled him open and used my hand to go up along his ribs and then down. You have to work your hand around in there, gently but firmly, to loosen everything so you can pull it out.

Below are the entrails. At this point, the intestine is still connected to the cloaca, and you have to cut the cloaca out so everything comes out in a big clump. I managed to not get a picture of the cloaca cutting. I also cut off the oil gland, which is in the little stump at the base of the tail. Once again, I managed to forget to take a picture.

The two white things below are what made McLovin the randy little bastard he was. The red thing is a lung.

I removed the neck –

– and then the wing-tips.

To remove the feet, you get a firm grip—

and bend it backwards. A knife severs the tendons holding it all together.

A good rinsing and double-check for pinfeathers, and he’s ready for the fridge, where he needs to rest for a couple of days before getting cooked.

So there you have it, the processing of a chicken from beginning to end. It may be a little gruesome, but I know how he was treated while he lived, and I know he didn’t die in a bad way.