“Mom, do you think this is Ruby or Pumpkin? Or maybe Daisy?” Olivia was waving a drum bone in the air. I didn’t have an answer. The chickens all looked the same at this point, sizzling on the grill. This day just got weirder and weirder. I was surprised at the complete aplomb with which my children were munching on chickens, which only yesterday had been scratching in the coop out back and they had cooed over.
Earlier in the spring 32 fuzzy chicks arrived at our home. My husband created a brooder box that housed the chicks for 6 weeks in our basement, as spring warmed up. This gave my husband and children the chance to complete the chickens’ permanent home, a coop located out toward the middle of our property, in an old log cabin that was originally built to stable horses. During this time I purchased and read the book: Barnyard in Your Backyard and studied up on how to raise chickens. Olivia also become knowledgeable about poultry as she worked her way through the 4-H Poultry Project.
As the chicks grew into young chickens, we knew we wouldn’t keep them all. There were 4 roosters among them and one would do. We also wanted a smaller flock as the coop and chicken run were overflowing. We’d have healthier chickens if we thinned the flock. For a fleeting moment Keith and I considered slaughtering and butchering some of the chickens ourselves. A little bit of research and I knew that was not a task for me. I found a Mennonite farmer several towns away who had a poultry slaughterhouse.
This morning had been designated as chicken slaughtering day; no one had helped gather the 15 birds bound for the farm. I hadn’t really wanted to gather them either, but they had a date with destiny, so to speak. As I drove down Route 15 South, toward Mifflenburg, with 15 wildly clucking chickens closed in cardboard boxes in the back of my old Ford station wagon, I felt sorry for all of us. How on earth had me and the chickens ended up here?
There was little time for reflection. As I pulled into the farm and up to the back of the slaughterhouse, the lightening efficiency with which the farmer and his two daughters handled the birds was breathtaking and completely lacking in sentimentality. (I will spare the reader the details.) The facility was clean and pragmatic; the chickens did not suffer. Within 20 minutes I was back in my station wagon, pulling onto Route 15 North with 15 chickens, now in parts, on ice in the back of my car. It was a very quiet ride home.
Note: My children grew up as country kids. When I pulled into the driveway with the chickens, now on ice, in coolers, the kids were curious to see them. We’d had conversations throughout the beginning of this poultry adventure about how we wouldn’t be able to keep all of the chickens and that some would be slaughtered and we would eat them. I was amazed at my kids’ very practical attitudes. We had grilled chicken for supper that night.
