Let me share my Saturday: Part One

Or at least the highlight. Or the lowlight. WARNING: Graphic experience descriptions - not for the faint of heart. Or me actually. But hey- here we go! And since so few of you seem to be there... I'll do this for myself. To remember my first experience personally killing a chicken.

Background. We've had these chickens. Then Gabe's co-worker gave us four more. Who eat eggs. So we've been feeding these chickens for months with maybe 1 or 2 eggs the whole time. One by one, they get out and disappear (neighbor dogs/coyotes)(yes, I've seen with my own eyes, coyotes). So we're down to three of our hens, one of our roosters, and a rooster/hen combo that came from someone else.

I'm tired of no eggs. We eat a LOT of eggs, so that was supposed to be a supplement to our diet- fresh eggs :-) YUM! We keep talking about killing the second rooster and then maybe that hen to see if it produces any results. But it just hasn't happened. Yesterday, I thought- "Hey, I don't have any plans other than needing to buy chicken food, so let's just do it."

We'd also talked about what a good experience it would be for the girls- to see where food came from. (Believe me, I had NO IDEA what a "GOOD" experience it would be...) We thought they didn't need to see the actual killing part, since the flopping is so disturbing.

One note: In all of my planning, the whole point was that Gabe was at work, and wouldn't he be proud of his little wifey killing a chicken for dinner. (I didn't anticipate the laughter... ;-)

So I got the chicken. Such a pretty chicken. And not mean at all. But he eats MY eggs. So he had to go. And I need to be tough. I took a knife out with me, since I didn't know where the axe was. I'd tried to do a little research, asking those with experience, remembering what others had told me, and watching a few YouTube videos :-) I remember with FFA, they poked their little brains and then let them bleed out... So I thought I'd knife it under the beak. Nope. I couldn't push hard enough to make it quick.

(Insert Melia comment: It's ok mommy, you don't have to be scared. Just poke it with the knife!")

Then I tried my gardening book method- breaking the neck with my hands. Of all the stupid ideas! It's like trying to break a rope! So then I tried to go the other way! Same thing. I knew I was wholly unable to whip the chicken around and break his neck.... So I got desperate. I was commited at this point. I asked Melia to run and get me the loppers. I pinned it's neck down on the ground, stepped on his feet, and asked the girls to run in the front yard for a minute. My thoughts at this point: "Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out..." Not even kidding. Then 1-2-3! Chop! The flopping is SO disturbing. I was afraid I didn't actually kill it, until I saw the head. Yep, it was dead.

Insert Melia comment- from the front yard when she could hear one of the other chickens sounding the alarm: "Mommy! What?! What is that noise? Is the chicken dead?" (she thought the dead chicken was making the noise :-)

to be continued....