The tools we gathered.

In April we bought 16 Chantecler chickens fro Oakesmuir Farm just outside of Guelph. Since then we have raised, fed, and watched over them.Watching them grow has been fascinating. Chickens behave in interesting ways and there was many a day when I would stand for a while just watching the delightful birds go about their business. The first time I saw one pick up a caterpillar and waddle off with it at a surprising speed only to have three more chase it and rip apart the poor insect I was amazed. In many ways they reminded me of two and three year olds, only wanting what the other had.

Cockerel upside down.

When we brought out white feather bundles home we knew that one day, one day we would have to truly become carnivores. We had no idea how many cockerels we would end up having out of those 16 chicks It took a long time to tell the difference between the males and females. They are all white and all large and the males didn’t show a large comb which made sexing more difficult. Not to mention neither of us had done this before.

Out of those 16 we were lucky enough to end up with only four males, giving us 12 laying hens. One became extremely vociferous very early. He was the biggest and definitely a beauty. He was named Big Red. Due to his early morning song he had to go. One more had to go as well so a Medium Red was chosen.

The birds bleeding out.

On Friday night we withheld food to the chooks. This was supposed to make evisceration less messy if they had empty intestines. We caught the cockerels in their coop and didn’t let the others out until the deed had been done. After the killing we hung the birds up to bleed for a few minutes. We had a “dunk tank” prepared as we had found out hot water of a particular temperature breaks down the proteins holding the feathers in. Whether this is true or not I don’t know but the feathers were very easy to pluck. I do wish they hadn’t been so dirty and wet though. Next time we won’t use the dunk tank but do the traditional plucking method. I had wanted to use those feathers and Big Red had had some beauties.

Birds, messy but cleaned and ready to go.

Next Tim took off the heads. I could not do this for whatever reason. I did kill them but I couldn’t cut off their heads. the hatchet didn’t take the head completely off so it was still there. I them took off the feet and would proceed to start the evisceration. This was challenging and I was somewhat frightened to do it. Once again it was a matter of just doing it so I started. It was really just following the videos we watched. I started with the hole at the neck to deal with the esophagus and crop. I then made a slit above the vent. I had to go in fairly deep and cut some connecting tissue at the side of the abdomen. Somehow I got my hand in, slowly an carefully I pulled the innards out. the lungs were still attached after everything else had come out so I cut them out. It was an interesting process. the first one took approximately twenty minutes. the second half of that. It is something that, once you’ve gotten over the gross factor is quite simple. Now the birds didn’t look pretty but they were clean.

Delicious home grown dinner.

Finally we had our meal on Sunday. It was all from our garden. I have never prepared a meal for so many months! Frankly the bird was stringy. but being a rooster and walking around an awful lot that was expected. The meat was flavourful. Roasting was not the best way of cooking it either. Putting it in a slow cooker would have been a better method. But we wanted it roasted so that’s what we did. We even got dressed up for the occasion.