One of the flaws in poultry husbandry is the necessity of killing roosters.  It must be done, like weeding a flower garden.  To their credit, the roosters make it easy, as they so often become vituperative creatures, full of hate and sound.  Yet they can be strikingly beautiful, and I do regret their deaths.  On our property, a healthy percentage appears to be one rooster for every ten hens.  That usually means five birds from my house, and another five from Margaret, ten proud cockerels. 

If I were a sensible chicken keeper the hens who have ceased to lay consistently would join those ten.  Most poultry businesses do not provide a retirement community for non-laying hens.  A hen may live ten to fourteen years, and if only two to four of those years are egg-laying years, well, that is a lot of grain.  Truth is, I love my hens, their chuckling cluck, their color, their vehement defense of the nest.  I love the roosters as well, and some become pets, come when called, and are my helpmates in keeping the flock safe.  Yet a certain number must go, and on that day, preferably a cool, windless day, Margaret and I get together to slaughter.

         Once the blood has been drained from their bodies they become pale shadows of their prior magnificence.  Moments earlier they were strutting and calling; tossing their iridescent hackles in challenge.  Just catching them is a fight.  They puff up and hurl themselves at the wire, masculinity in a nutshell.

         Seized by the catching hook, all defiance bleeds away and they squawk horribly, protesting their fate.  This is where the terror comes in.  It is my job, as the killer, to make sure that their terror is brief, and does not proceed into agony.  I hang them upside down and stroke their beautiful feathers.  There is an element of science in this; carotid massage, or rubbing the carotid artery produces a sense of calm.  Once they have stopped struggling I call them by name and tell them what I know about their personality.  This one was a good forager, that one was a little too rough with the hens.  I call upon their spirit to accept death with clarity and to seek rebirth in a better setting.  Just for good measure I whisper several names of the Buddha into their ears.  If you believe in reincarnation, then roosters need all the help they can get.  While they are listening I swiftly insert the point of my knife into the carotid artery.

         Done correctly the bird bleeds out in several heartbeats.  There is some residual brain activity that causes dramatic flapping, but it is a gentler death than removing the head entirely.  Sometimes the knife fails to hit the sweet spot and I have to go back in.  These deaths are less than calm; often the rooster will actually pick his head up and look right at me as if to say, “this is terrible, why are you letting me suffer like this?”  In those moments of a bad death, terror becomes agony for the rooster, which in turn becomes more terror.  Even a being a simple as a rooster has the capacity for these primal emotions. 

         The real question of how to best ameliorate agony and terror may seem simple.  Don’t kill any roosters.  Unfortunately in almost all kinds of livestock rearing, male animals are less than fortunate.  I could make excuses about how it is cruel to keep too many roosters in one pen.  Or how it is cruel to the hens, this is true, as overcrowded roosters will injure the hens in their frenzy to mate. 

I could order female chicks from the catalog, but truth is if you buy 25 pullets, the hatchery always throws in a few cockerels.  Sometimes it is a mistake by the chick sexer, but most of the time, the extra cockerels are there purposefully, as live heating packs.  Five extra chicks per twenty-five may help to keep the entire group warm.  Consider that most chick orders are sent out while the weather is still quite cold.  I rarely order chicks, preferring to order eggs and incubate them, or allow my own good stock to replenish itself naturally.  As a result, there will be roosters.  During the school year several classes incubate eggs.  Over the years I have noted an unusually high ratio of roosters hatched in the school environment, for which I have no good explanation.  The good news is that these ‘school’ roosters are very tame and often make my best team players.

What it comes down to is that I hate being attacked when I enter the chicken yard.  And there is that small matter of the incessant crowing.  On the side of the roosters, my closest neighbor has told me that the roosters have saved him several times when he overslept.  The neighbor used to leave at six a.m., and the roosters crowed in sufficient time for him to eat and get dressed, even if his alarm clock failed.  What is fascinating is that this same neighbor has changed shifts, and now leaves at 330 a.m., right on cue at least two roosters have begun to crow at 3 a.m.

         For some time the chief rooster and I had it all worked out.  He would attack me and I would strike him with whatever I happen to be holding.  The extent of both of our injuries depended on how well I was dressed and or armed.  Flip-flops and shorts are not good rooster clothing.  I tolerated this rooster for a long time because he was very good to his hens.  For the untutored, a ‘good’ rooster does not pick out too many of the hen’s feathers in the throes of passion, he clucks attentively, locates new food sources, and keeps watch for hours.  When the chickens are loose, a watchful rooster prevents predation by hawks, in their house; he may give his life in the act of defending the ladies from a midnight intruder. 

For their part, the hens largely ignore the roosters, unless they make the sound that means, “Come here for I have found something tasty.”  Then they all rush over and he stands up tall and from my imaginative eye, looks indulgent, like a parent allowing a child to have a giant hot fudge sundae- and not even asking for a taste.

         Margaret had a wonderful chief rooster that was just a marshmallow.  He did not attack her, and was pleasant to the hens.  “Buffaroo” was a large golden affair, all poofy buff feathers and crimson trim.  My rooster, on the other hand, was hideous.  He was a Turken, which is a variety developed somewhere in the Russian steppe country.  This variety has no feathers on their neck, under their wings, or over their hips.  I have several of these birds, as they are hard-core layers of dark eggs.

A Turken resembles a turkey on steroids, other days- particularly when it is raining- a vulture.  Either way this rooster was black and grey with this awful red neck that just cries out for the knife.  My research suggests that this unusual feather pattern was bred for specifically to ease slaughtering and plucking of the carcass.  Even as chicks they are particularly bizarre.  

         Periodically the roosters grow too numerous to bear and the aforementioned events take place.  Roosters are the source of the best brown soup stock.  Their meat is a bit tough; fryers and roasters at the supermarket are capons, or castrated roosters.  Caponizing is done young, and without anesthesia, the roosters make it easy by carrying their testicles in their chest.  Two small incisions, a little finger action, and the testicles pop out like grapes.  Our birds are not caponized as they are not meat birds, but not to let anything go to waste, what doesn’t make stock can be made into dog food.  (It is also worth noting that an adult rooster has testicles that are as large as those of a big dog.)

This weekend was a killing time.  The weather was cooperative, (you laugh, but imagine plucking a bird in a high wind.) there were only five birds, and it all should have gone smoothly.  In fact, four birds died swiftly.  The fifth was another story entirely.  That bird simply would not die.  He brought to mind all the stories about chickens devoid of their heads, running around terrifying the neighbors. 

         I cannot tell you what went wrong with this killing, only that it was unnecessarily terrifying for both the bird and me.  As the knife went in I could tell there would be a problem.  Just as I developed a skill for finding veins for inserting an intravenous line, so I have a knack for finding an artery in order to kill.  Veins and arteries have a different feel.  The vein is full of valves, feels meaty.  The artery is pulsating yet vibrant.  It wiggles away from the offending point as if aware of its’ fate.

         The calmed bird, hanging, waiting, the sound of my voice calming its spirit, takes the knife.  The artery, on the other hand, does its level best to get away.  Something inside the bird knows it is about to die, and like all living things, clings to life.  In this case the artery won.  I hit a vein, and then worse yet, punctured the trachea.  As the bird struggled to breath, hideous sounds emanated from the punctured windpipe.  Bloody froth accumulated and spit at me.

         Knife at the ready I struck a second time, this time hitting the artery.  For reasons not easily explained, this did not end the bird’s struggle.  Now the bird was flapping and striking me with its wings.  Blood and foam were everywhere.  It was a moment that called for an axe, but none was handy, so I retreated.

         Back in the barn I regarded the rooster that had peacefully died only a moment earlier.  Margaret returned from checking on her father.  One look at me, covered in blood- I never get covered in blood- was enough to prompt an “Oh dear.”  From Margaret this is a multi purpose statement that covers everything from a woman covered in blood to dropping a newspaper in a puddle.  I love it the way she makes the phrase carry so many different meanings.

         “Oh dear” is usually accompanied by a slight shaking of the head.  Margaret is quite tall and elegant, and this movement further defines the “oh dear”.  She shook her head once, but enough to shake loose a lock of hair.  We stood together in silence and watched the bird.  When it was still she approached.  “Don’t touch it,” I said, but too late.   At the touch of her hand it immediately sprang to life and began to flap and shake.  She ran back to me, now we matched, spattered in blood.  It took too many minutes for that animal to die, and driving home with my chilled carcasses, I critiqued the event.

Returning home, I sought some solace in visiting my animals.  One of my favorite things to do is tend all my creatures and flowers.  This behavior is healing following a slaughtering; it is both a chore and a daily gift.  I waddle around handing out treats, food and water.  Each day there is something new, a giant dahlia flower nodding in the early frost, new fluffy coats on the rabbits preparing for winter, a fresh egg. 

         Today death had visited my house.   The rabbit hutch was strangely still at my approach.  Not a good sign.  Usually the occupants would be squeaking and leaping at my approach, as guinea pigs and rabbits are always starving.  Opening the top I beheld that another creature with a knack for finding arteries had been hard at work.  An unknown intruder had visited and bled out two adult rabbits and two guinea pigs.  All these animals were scheduled to return to their usual school setting that very week.  All four were classroom pets, well known and loved by many.  It was carnage.  One of the guinea pigs was still alive, I was not sure if that was better or worse than her being dead. 

         Shawanda, a guinea pig colored just like a squirrel, lay on her side, rasping quietly.  Both eye globes were punctured and loosing fluid.  She had one wound on her throat through which I could hear the raspy sounds of misplaced air.  These were wounds she could not survive; yet I had no killing left in me for that day.  The kind thing would have been to kill her myself, but I chose to be selfish.

         I made her as comfortable as possible in an indoor cage.  She lingered in a deep coma for another 12 hours.  Every few hours I would check on her and struggle to kill her.  Each time I would end up adding another little blanket and walking away.  Her fate was not to die at my hands, for I had done too much killing that day.  Perhaps if that last rooster had not died so badly then I would have had the courage to kill my pet.  Without a doubt I was shaken, and worried that I could possibly cause Shawanda more agony if I did not get it right.

         Lost that day were an Eastern Cottontail rabbit, Cocoa, a ‘lawnmower’ baby, saved from that fate nine years prior, a year old Rex rabbit that the kids had not yet named, an elderly tri-color guinea pig, Chocolate Chip, and of course, Shawanda.  None had been eaten, simply drained of their blood.  It was the beginning of the “Summer of the Fisher,” but I did not yet possess that knowledge.  The entire structure of the chicken flock would be altered, including the loss of the hideous Turken rooster.  But that is another tale for another day, the saga of “Frankenfisher.”

Comments

[Aaron Doucett]

your insights into chicken execution yielded enough detail to make even some iron stomach squeamish. But it 's very true that most people don't need to be in such a situation. Suburban life usually doesn't pertain slaughtering, so when the subject gets brought up (especially when described carefully) there's bound to be a few people uncomfortable with the idea. But back 150-200 years, rural life would have been a lot more common place. Without supermarkets, where's dinner? Maybe out in the backyard.

[Ellen]

I would happily consider you a relative, and it is true, when you get right down to it, how many of us are related- would you like to be a guest author? Just let me know :)

[Aaron Doucett]

I would love to be a guest author. Maybe I could talk about the Connecticut river or something, I see there is somewhat of a theme to the posts as far as topics, so I'll try to follow as best I can... Thanks for the offer!