Eating My Chickens

As I helped unload my chickens at the slaughterhouse on the early December morning, I experienced a mixture of emotions.  I felt relief that my two hour trip with 17 chickens in my SUV was over, and I felt satisfied that I had finished the job I
began 6 weeks ago.  My husband and I arose during the night, when the chickens were still in their chicken-coma of sleep, and put them, inside pet carriers, in the plastic-lined back of my SUV.  I rolled down the windows and blasted the heat the entire trip, and it was not as bad as I had imagined.  Although we have a truck, I did not want to expose the chickens to a 2-hour ride in the open air in December.  After a thorough airing, vacuuming, and cleaning, my SUV’s smell returned to normal.

 I felt pride that my birds had redder combs, brighter eyes, and more darkly pigmented skin on their feet than some other birds awaiting slaughter that had not, perhaps, seen as much of  the sunshine and the green grass as mine had enjoyed.  I also felt sad that their lives were ending so that I could eat.  I said a prayer of thanksgiving to God, and I thanked the birds for their lives.

The chickens had no idea what was about to happen.  Poultry do not worry about tomorrow.  When they arrived at the slaughterhouse, a little after sunrise, they were barely awake. They sat calmly in the crate, and then the workers took them inside the facility, put them in a carbon-dioxide chamber, where they went to sleep and
died.  No drama of a chicken running about with her head cut off for these birds.

A few days later, I returned to pick up my meat.  The box of chicks, weighing a couple of pounds, which I opened on October 20, had turned into nearly 75 pounds of meat by December 3.

This is what I picked up a few days later

Was this a cost-effective undertaking?  As long as I do not pay myself an hourly wage for my labors, it was.  Considering the cost of the chicks, feed, and processing, I paid about $3.50 a pound for free-range meat (and mine got more free-range and green grass than many chickens labeled free-range).  The $3.50 a pound
applies to all cuts of meat—so I got boneless skinless chicken breast for the
same price I got chicken necks.   I did not include the cost of fuel to
transport the chicks and meat or the cost of electricity for the heat lamps in
this calculation.They were not organic because organic chicken feed is not available for sale in my area to anyone(unless you want to pay to have it shipped from another state, which is cost-prohibitive), but they did have green grass and some insects and worms, which is more than many chickens raised certified organic from the grocery store receive.  I did not medicate or vaccinate them.  Compared to other free-range meat I
have purchased—free-range boneless skinless chicken breast can be nearly $10 a
pound–this was a bargain. To reduce the costs, I could have slaughtered them myself, but I was not and am not able or ready to do that.  Maybe someday.  I could have also purchased them in August when the heating bills would have been much lower.  I will definitely do this project in a warmer month next time.

We have had several chicken dinners.  The meat is delicious, fresh and tender.  The fat is a deep yellow thanks to the birds’ exposure to sun and green grass, instead of the pale beige fat found on store-bought birds.  I know that these birds had a good life.