A quiet young man at work calls himself a “city boy” by birth, but is becoming more “countrified” every day. He bought a small chicken coop and put it in his backyard several months ago so he could have “fresh eggs”.
He lives slap dab in the middle of town and the four Rhode Island Red chicks he bought turned out to be roosters. Roosters don’t lay eggs, so in quiet frustration, he told me he was starting over this weekend with four pullet chicks from another distributor.
The roosters?
“Well”, sounding more like a tired old farmer than a young city guy learning the basics, “I think I’m gonna have some fresh grilled chicken.”
Have you slaughtered chickens before?
“Well, no. But I went dove hunting once, and it’s probably about the same.”
He hadn’t decided if he was going to chop off their heads or wring their necks. I smiled at his conundrum, and a brain wrinkled memory flashed back.
~~1993. House in city limits. Backyard chicken coop in converted dog kennel. Net on top to keep chickens in, hawks out. Three of four of my straight run Rhode Island Red chickens were roosters. I was in the exact same predicament and had to start over with three more pullets.
Hello baby chicks means goodbye roosters. I was about to understand what it means to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.
I decided to use a machete because it seemed instant. I picked a spot in the backyard behind a storage shed to butcher them so no one driving or walking by could see.
Rooster one didn’t like being carried by his feet, but that’s the way cowboys on TV did it, so I figured that’s the way to go. I tried to lay its head on a tree stump to get a good chop in, but the squawking rooster was less than cooperative. It flapped its wings, twisted and contorted its body and all the while screamed in chicken terror at its grim future.
When I finally swung, I missed. And missed again, and again.
I finally did the dirty deed against a tree and immediately felt guilty. I dropped the chicken to the ground and darted behind the tree because three old women were walking in front of my neighbor’s house.
They kept looking around to see where the chicken noise was coming from, or by that time, chicken silence.
Trying to be discrete, I paid more attention to the old women than the chicken, which was a crucial mistake.
The chicken’s horror reversed to me as the big headless bird got up and took off running toward the backyard fence!
To make matters worse, the chicken Nightmare on Elm Street noise woke up my golden retriever. She was spastically excited, barking wildly, and took off chasing Ichabod Crane across the yard!
The old women were about to be freaked out if I didn’t stop the chicken, so I dove from behind the tree and tackled the headless torso.
Unfortunately, there was no doubt the old ladies saw it. They stopped on the road staring at me stretched out on the ground holding a headless chicken still frantically trying to run.
Simultaneously, I had my own personal trauma. With each chicken step, blood squirted from where its head used to be.
I hoped I wouldn’t have bad dreams, and wake up in cold sweats after nightmares about Big Bird chasing me down a long dark ally seeking revenge.
I had the chicken around both sides of its wings and carefully got up with it. And I’m not really sure why I was so careful picking up the headless chicken moving its legs like it was running a 100 meter dash. It’s not like I could hurt at that point.
Anyway, when I got up, I stood up straight, told the dog to shut up, nodded my head toward the old ladies like nothing was out of the ordinary, and casually walked back out of sight behind the storage shed.
Chicken two and three didn’t go much better. By the time they were in chicken heaven, I was semi-traumatized.
There’s a horrible stench when gutting chickens, but I was kind of proud that I could identify most of the internal organs.
After cleaning three roosters, I had no desire for grilled chicken. In fact, the thought of eating those chickens was as nasty a thought as eating the neighbor’s cat……which reminds me.
A few years ago in our local newspaper, a Chinese restaurant received a number of demerits from the health inspector, including one for a frozen cat in the restaurant freezer. I kid you not! A frozen cat! The newspaper quoted an explanation from the owner why a cat was frozen next to the egg rolls — “We were saving the cat for our personal use”, he said.
I promise to cough up a fur ball if this is not the absolute truth! I never ate there again, and the event had catastrophic (no pun intended) consequences on their business.
Anyhoo, I didn’t want chicken, so I put them in the freezer (and for the record, there’s never been cats in my freezer).
That was the first, but not the last time, I’ve slaughtered chickens. It gets easier over time, except for that horrid smell, but I still can’t just throw ‘em right on the grill.~~
I snapped back to the present. My young co-worker was still talking about he was going to slaughter his chickens Saturday morning and grill them for company that night.
I started to describe it and make sure he understood the big picture, but instead I just nodded and smiled.
He’ll learn, and some little old ladies walking in his neighborhood Saturday morning are going to have a story to tell.
RabBits 
I once wrung the neck of a biddie imitating my grandmother killing a chicken. I was just a child and she kindly explained to me that it was not done.
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Lol!! Glad Grandmother explained to you — you may have become a sociopath!!! 😉
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Dear brother, your words are so real that I found myself praying that this night I will not have borrowed nightmares…God has given you the gift of words… use them more and not less…God bless you and your ministry!
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Ah, dear sister! Thank you for the kindness, but in person I am just as often a bumbling idiot! 🙂 Thank you so much for the encouragement….and no bad dreams for you tonight!!
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Oh my gosh, that is too funny! You are a great story teller, Jeff – and this is a great story! Hahahaha… you hid behind the tree 🙂 Well, you WANTED to hide behind the tree but then crazy dead chicken things happened….hahaha…..I hope your co-worker is honest with you about his experience! Because I can’t imagine it will be any easier for him on his first “cut off rooster head” experience!
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Oh Robyn! I’m not sure I want to really know exactly how it went for him. He and I both may need group therapy if it went bad! But I’d be willing to bet he didn’t bar-b-que those chickens that night!! 🙂
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This reminds me of a story David’s mom told often. Her parents gave her 2 chickens early in their marriage. She wrung their necks and put them in a trash can with the lid on. She waited the length of time for them to be ready to pluck and cook. When she opened the can, both jumped out at her and ran away. So not only was dinner gone, but she never forgot the incident.
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Lol! That will make you swallow your bubble gum! The essence of “fast food”! And if I were David’s mom, I would tell this over and over too!
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There is a reason those things are made to be eaten before they are born. I love eggs; I hate chicken. Sadly, I’m allergic to eggs but not chicken. God and I hare going to have a chat about that when I make it to the other side.
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Well, that’s like loving pickles, but allergic to cucumbers. Or loving apple cider, but hating apples. Or loving raisins, but break out in hives from grape juice! I can see why you’re going to have that little chat! 😉
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😀
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Cats? I would not doubt it. When I travelled in China in 1980 there was a noticeable shortage of dogs. I asked why they don;t have dogs and the reply was because they were food not pets. Fair enough. And for something even more grisly….back in the day when people had their heads cut off at the Tower of London the poor souls had the same reaction sometimes as your chicken. It is said that Anne Boleyn ran headless around he execution area. But that may just be a story….. She walks the ramparts at night now, carrying her head under her arm.
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Whoa! Never heard that grisly part before, Anne! Surely it’s just a legend? That will be a new Google search for me!
And being a dog person, that is sad. It’s the same feeling you would have for people eating their horses, or like in The Godfather movie where the guy wakes up with a horse head in his bed! I’ll probably dream about all this now, Anne!
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So awful. Sounds like my mother’s experience as a child watching her mother attempt to slaughter a chicken. After that, Mom never liked birds. 😣😣 No bird feeders in our garden. Ha! Very entertainingpost, Jeff! You are my favorite story-teller!! Way better than Garrison Keillor! ☺️
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That’s sad she never liked birds after that at all. Truly it did traumatize her! And Lynn, you are always so kind, but better than Garrison Keillor…That is high praise, little sister!! 😀
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OMG! You had me laughing 😂 from the beginning to the end, I love your posts!!!
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Yay! Thank ya kindly, Jessie, for the encouraging words!
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😂🤣😝🤣 Growing up on a farm where my mom routinely hung chickens upside down on a tree before killing them (she sold them ready to be cooked to local customers who also bought fresh milk and cheese from her), your story really made me laugh. Thank you so much, Jeff! Now there is one detail you didn’t mention… Roosters have a tendency to be up and vocal at indecent hours… I wonder how you, or your young colleague, coped with that?
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Yes! That is the first sign! About two hours before daylight, they start to scream that cock-a-doodle do at the top of their lungs! That will make you want to fry them regardless!!
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Oh, my goodness, Jeff, this story makes me laugh and grimace in disgust at the same time! I love your hilarious tales (your son wrestling alligators comes to mind and your camping trip 😉).
If I lived during times when I had to kill the animals I was going to eat, I’d either go hungry or quickly become a vegetarian. I couldn’t do it! Poor chicken! 🐔😖
Oh, and poor Jeff, too 😜
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😁 Thank you my friend! And you know, I bet we would all eat less meat if you had to raise, water and feed supper and then kill, clean and cook it! 😃
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