If we could avoid it, we probably would but dispatching a chicken is something every chicken breeder really needs to know as an unavoidable part of their repertoire.
If you’re building a homesteader lifestyle, working towards sustainability or even if you’re keeping just a few chickens in your backyard it’s an indispensable skill.
It can be tricky though to know how to get started.
For permaculture educator Joel Meadows, who’s been keeping chickens for 30 years, it was about taking responsibility for both where his food comes from, and for the birds in his care.
This is an honest and practical discussion that spans the gamut from the ethical underpinnings to the detail of three specific methods for dispatching a chicken.
Truly there is noone better to have this conversation with than Joel — respect for the bird is at the heart of his approach.
We discuss:
— Where chickens fit in permaculture systems from small, productive backyards to orchards and larger properties
— Joel’s own first experience dispatching a chicken
— Why he began offering workshops teaching others how to dispatch a chicken, how much demand there’s been and the range of people who’ve attended
— The ethic and grounding in traditional cultures that underpins Joel’s perspective
— The unavoidable truth that behind every laying hen there is a rooster that’s been killed
— Benefits of knowing how to kill your own chickens versus eating chickens that have been factory-farmed and abattoir-slaughtered
— The way in which chicken keepers are both carers and peak predators
— The complicated calculation behind a decision to dispatch a chook
— How the ability to dispatch your own chickens allows you to take control of where your food comes from, and extricate yourself from industrialised meat production
— Grappling with the tension between loving your chickens and dispatching them
— What might constitute “a good death” for a chicken
— Why Joel asks participants in his workshops whether they’ve ever killed anything before
— A description of 3 different methods for dispatching a chicken: 1. Axe 2. Neck break 3. Cone
— Which method Joel prefers, which he thinks is fastest and best for the chicken and which is easiest for a beginner to successfully carry out
— Downsides of each method
— A fourth method using a broom handle for the neck break
— What to expect including flapping, blood and convulsions and what is going on, to the best of our knowledge, when this happens
— The cause of death associated with each method
— Equipment needed for preparing a chicken for human consumption
— How to pluck and eviscerate the carcass including water temperature and duration for dunking
— How pasture-raised, heritage chicken meat compares to what you may be used to buying at the store e.g. red leg meat, yellow fat, flavour
— Resting, brining and cooking heritage chicken meat
— How to utilise all parts of the chicken’s body from blood to bones
— Joel’s idea for a canvas/velcro device to hold a chicken, so a single person could swing the axe without needing a second pair of hands to hold the bird
— Fasting chickens before dispatch
— Skinning versus plucking
— The value of dual-purpose breeds to provide both meat and eggs
— Using chicken bones in compost
— The insight dispatching your own birds provides into the health of your flock, what normal anatomy looks like and the influence of green pick and nutrition on body condition
— The permaculture “oversell” of chickens vs the reality of keeping chickens in gardens as pest control
— How Joel feeds and manages his birds including his feeding routine, rotation and the use of tree guards
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