Hey everyone,
One of my skills to develop for 2013 is to learn how to kill and butcher animals. Keep in mind I grew up in a suburban existence and the closest I've ever come to something like this is opening the shrink wrap off the hamburger meat from the grocery store.
When a friend of mine mentioned that he would be processing over 50 meat chickens right before Christmas, I jumped at the opportunity to come and help. I told him I wanted to learn every step of the process. My immediate family was in full support, and my oldest daughter even helped too. The rest of my family, however, thought I was weird. They couldn't understand why I would want to spend an entire Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas at that) killing and cleaning chickens.
It was a great experience in which I learned a lot about processing meat. I also learned a lot about myself. At the very beginning of the day I was beginning to have my doubts if I could go through it. However, by the end of the day once we got into a groove of doing it, I found I actually enjoyed it. I now am confident that if I had to do it again I would have the know-how to do the same thing. I'm already starting to figure out what it would take to start raising a couple dozen meat chickens for my own family.
Plus as a bonus: There was nothing more satisfying than sitting down at the dinner table on Christmas evening enjoying a roasted chicken that I had killed with my own hands and my daughter had processed.
I plan on posting later in this thread all the gory details (including some photos) for those are interested (and are not too squeamish).
Take care,
ant
