Sam

Sam-note the girls backs

For those of you who may be more sensitive you may wish to skip this weeks post and I will see you again next week. I am going talk about culling a chicken.

To backtrack a bit. If you recall, last year I purchased some chickens who had been very sick and treated as producers not pets. After this  unfortunate experience, I was more careful with my next selection of laying hens. In August I met a wonderful gentleman who was patient enough with me to spend an hour answering my questions and helping me hand select 15 Easter Egger chickens. They were young and he did his best to help guide me to hens. As it turns out however, three of our girls were actually boys. One of these boys became very aggressive and killed one of my ladies. I wrote earlier about having a friend over to cull him and show me how so I could do it next time. 

Well that time had arrived. We still had two boys, Sam and Max. I noticed the girls had a lot of broken back feathers and were exhibiting some signs of stress, but unfortunately I was working so much I did not have enough time to spend observing which rooster was the cause of this stress. Cue COVID-19 and the temporary end of my work days. With all this free time, I had the chance to identify Sam as the aggressor. Max appeared to be protecting the girls from both predators and Sam.

Problem identified. Now to take action. I decided on the day, set up my "zone" with knives, hot water, cardboard and newspaper, and my chosen How To YouTube video on standby. No one can possibly tell me chickens are dumb. That darn rooster knew I was coming for him. After chasing him in circles, hiding behind doors, laying trails of treats, all to no avail (and looking very foolish to anyone who happened to see me) I gave up for the day.
As evening approached and everyone settled in for the night, I snuck back into the coop and easily lifted Sam from the roost and put him in a cage all set for the morning.

I had myself all talked up for this. I was confident, I was prepared, I was farmer, I was woman. I was scared shitless.

I have a building which is largely unused that I had prepared for the deed. So just after lunch (yes it took me to that long to get up the nerve) I carried the caged rooster to this building while trying to keep the rest of the chickens out, assuring them they wanted no part of what was about to happen. It must have taken me 10 minutes to get him out of the cage- I was afraid he would flap out of my grasp- he didn't. I quickly flipped him upside down and put him in a prepared construction cone. Phew. Step two done and successful. Unfortunately this is where I start to stress out. As I grab the knife and reach for his head he pulls away and starts jerking about. Now I am shaking, and crying, and overall not very happy. Skipping to the chase, it took me an entire hour of pacing and swearing until I finally got up the nerve. I pulled its head down and cut its jugular. I knew I was not strong enough to cut the whole head off so part of my panic was that I would not kill it straight out. I did, but there was still so much muscle movement after that I  had to walk away for half an hour until I knew for sure it would have stopped. 

So with the horrible part done, I proceeded to follow my YouTube video and de feathered,

gutted and prepared it for soup.

Moral of the story...I freeking hate this part of farming. But the long, slow simmering soup, was yummy. And that after all, is one of the reasons I came here. To grow and raise my own food.