Pye Wacket
In the Brooder
- Nov 13, 2020
- 44
- 85
- 40
It occurs to me that IF I can find a town where I can actually have a coop (I have another thread on the subject of a town that passed backyard chicken ordinances that seem to make it impossible to keep chickens given the size in fact of the majority of lots in town) - I am not going to be able to slaughter my spent hens anymore.
The truth is I've ALWAYS been a bit squeamish - I quit eating dark meat at the age of 5 after I bit into a drumstick (which up to that point I LOVED) and found myself staring at a great big ol' dark stringy vein. And yeah, I knew EXACTLY what I was looking at. I do eat chicken thighs now but lets face it, modern factory chicken "dark meat" is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from white meat because they virtually never move their entire 6 to 8 week life. 57 years later and I STILL can't even think about eating a drumstick, even wings gross me out more often than not so I've stopped eating buffalo wings also.
Nevertheless, while my chicken-jointing-and-filleting skills never matched those of Martin Yan, I could disassemble a chicken carcass handily and without much distress in just a few minutes. I've plucked a fair number in my childhood, and when I kept my own, I've skinned a few (easier and less smelly than plucking).
But recently I bought some whole chickens which I'd gotten out of the habit of because (a) I haven't seen a stewing hen in decades (in a grocery), (b) I never cared for roast chicken so haven't bought a roaster in the same number of decades, and (c) for many of those decades I would only eat chicken breasts anyway. Not only did I make a hash of the the disassembly, I got SERIOUSLY grossed out. And now that I am thinking of keeping a few hens (for the first time in a couple decades) I find contemplating slaughtering the spent hens is ... well ... not to be contemplated.
I'm starting to understand that perhaps the work involved in keeping them was not the ONLY reason my grandmother stopped keeping chickens.
Has anybody else out there struggled with this, becoming LESS able with time to do the deed?
Keep in mind, it isn't eating my spent hens that is at issue. If someone ELSE were to do the slaughtering, I'd be good with the eating. Hopefully on the meat forum I'm not upsetting people who keep hens as pets.
But there is no way I'm going to be able to handle doing the deed myself anymore and I'm not really sure why. Anybody else had to struggle with this?
The truth is I've ALWAYS been a bit squeamish - I quit eating dark meat at the age of 5 after I bit into a drumstick (which up to that point I LOVED) and found myself staring at a great big ol' dark stringy vein. And yeah, I knew EXACTLY what I was looking at. I do eat chicken thighs now but lets face it, modern factory chicken "dark meat" is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from white meat because they virtually never move their entire 6 to 8 week life. 57 years later and I STILL can't even think about eating a drumstick, even wings gross me out more often than not so I've stopped eating buffalo wings also.
Nevertheless, while my chicken-jointing-and-filleting skills never matched those of Martin Yan, I could disassemble a chicken carcass handily and without much distress in just a few minutes. I've plucked a fair number in my childhood, and when I kept my own, I've skinned a few (easier and less smelly than plucking).
But recently I bought some whole chickens which I'd gotten out of the habit of because (a) I haven't seen a stewing hen in decades (in a grocery), (b) I never cared for roast chicken so haven't bought a roaster in the same number of decades, and (c) for many of those decades I would only eat chicken breasts anyway. Not only did I make a hash of the the disassembly, I got SERIOUSLY grossed out. And now that I am thinking of keeping a few hens (for the first time in a couple decades) I find contemplating slaughtering the spent hens is ... well ... not to be contemplated.
I'm starting to understand that perhaps the work involved in keeping them was not the ONLY reason my grandmother stopped keeping chickens.
Has anybody else out there struggled with this, becoming LESS able with time to do the deed?
Keep in mind, it isn't eating my spent hens that is at issue. If someone ELSE were to do the slaughtering, I'd be good with the eating. Hopefully on the meat forum I'm not upsetting people who keep hens as pets.
But there is no way I'm going to be able to handle doing the deed myself anymore and I'm not really sure why. Anybody else had to struggle with this?