Like A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off...

I killed three roosters today.  My chicken coop is really only big enough for a few hens anyway, and I was feeling extra brave today and wanted to get the dirty job over with.  I looked up some videos online about how to do it, found a dull axe by the fireplace, and went to work.

I could only catch one of the roosters, so I had Justin shoot two of them in the heads with a 22.  They flopped around quite a bit before I could grab them, and I was worried the meat would be bruised.  The driveway looked like a slaughter house with the blood spraying all around.  The last chicken, I was able to strangle.  I whipped it around by the head 'til it was limp.  It was quite the experience.  I felt like a real pioneer woman, strangling my own bird.

To skin the roosters, I first chopped off their heads (I really should've had a sharper axe), let the blood drain out of them for a few minutes, then stuck a hose into the necks,  and let the skin blow up like a water balloon.  When the balloon popped, the skin was separated from the meat and fairly easy to just peel off.  I stuck the birds in a cooler with ice, and threw them in the crock pot the next day.  Yum!

Now that I've gotten "chicken butchering" checked off my bucket list, I could definitely go the rest of my life without ever doing that again!

When I watched the following video, I literally laughed 'til I cried.  If someone had shown me this five years ago, I would've never believed it.  Wow.