Meet Your Meat

It takes a special kind of person to butcher a chicken. My husband is this special kind of person. I grew up around butchering animals; however, my husband grew up in town and has recently been introduced to the art of butchering. He educated himself to this skill by watching many videos, and applied that skill a couple of weeks ago. The boys were exposed to the chicken processing.

We processed 23 chickens at my in-laws. My husband made a whizbang chicken plucker just for the occasion. My husband and father-in-law dispatched the birds and plucked them. The boys were present during this process, but they were more interested in the swing set. When they asked my husband what he was doing, he simply said that he was getting the chickens ready for us to eat. They accepted that answer and went back to playing. When it came time to clean out the innards, the boys were too busy playing in the swimming pool. It took a few hours to complete the task with only 2 or 3 hiccups.

I'm very glad that the boys weren't too interested in the process. I don't think I was prepared for a deeper explanation than what my husband gave. We have talked about animals being our food and how we treat them, but it's very different to actually see it. I really didn't think that the boys knew what we were doing until my 4-year asked if we were having chicken for lunch. I guess it made sense to eat chicken for lunch. Unfortunately, the adults weren't interested in eating chicken.

Yesterday I was getting a chicken ready to go in the crockpot when my 4-year old came into the kitchen and asked what I was doing. I replied that I was going to cook a chicken for supper. He informed me that he doesn't like chicken that comes from baby chicks. I was stunned and before I could reply that all chicken comes from baby chicks he trotted off to continue playing. At supper he had bites of the chicken, but said that he didn't like white chickens. It took me awhile to figure out that he was talking about the white feathered chickens that we had butchered. I think this will be an ongoing learning process for both of us.