Killing Chickens

I've become a killer, officially. Yesterday I cut the heads off two chickens, using a hatchet and stump as a chopping block. This was under the instruction and example of my aunt Pam, who cut the first chicken's head off and then laid the body in the wet forest undergrowth to flail away its final energy. There were blood spots on the grass and leaves from the headless neck.

I've wanted to kill food for a long time now, and besides fish, I've never done it. In Africa I helped prepare a freshly killed chicken, but did not do the execution.

Pam's method takes some skill and guts, since she completely severs the head in one stroke. I was not so talented, and I hope the bird didn't suffer. Pam tells me I had gotten through the bone and nerves, so it was fine, but the head was definately still attached and flailing. We muscled the hatchet back and forth, as I looked down at the open beak and chicken eye lidded with a white film. This is why people don't like killing their food, and hire migrant labor to work the slaughter houses. Let a machine, or an unfeeling assembly line take care of it!

We dipped the carcasses in scalding water to loosen the feathers, then plucked the birds. Then we took them inside and gutted them, froze one and cooked two. We had chicken soup for supper. These birds were actually rejects, one supposedly not laying eggs (though we were wrong), and the other two sickly. The sickly ones are for the dogs, and of course practice for me on the killing floor, and the saving of chicken feed.

After the whole process I felt the need to wash my hands over and over again, and even though I soaked them in the dishwater cleaning up, I still washed them a fourth time. The skin on my fingers was pale and wrinkled by the time I was finished. I could smell the strong odor on my hands for the rest of the day. I understand the recent need to be vegetarian in our developed nation's counter culture. Don't plan to myself, but I can understand the moral and stomach influences on such a decision.

My American existence has not been as clean as, say, a city resident. I've been around gardens, animals, mountains, compost, poop, etc, but never got my hands in fresh guts. Now I have blood on my hands, and that is a relief, in a sense. I want there to be dirt, sweat, blood, muck, grit, and grime in my life.