Cosmopolitan Hen: Rusty’s Last Stand
Friday night we butchered Rusty. It was very difficult for me. I cried and shook while holding the axe in my hand. I never really knew just how hard it would be, and it left me with a lot of emotional conflict.
Ultimately, this experience was necessary for me, for us as a family, perhaps even for our neighborhood. I don’t have any regrets, but I do have a lot of respect. Raising meat birds is a goal I’ve had in mind for a while now, and Rusty gave me the chance to see if I could really follow through. I don’t know the answer to that question just yet, but at least I have a very clear picture of what slaughtering looks and feels like now.
Here are a few of the highlights from our Rusty weekend celebration:
- Plucking feathers is long, tiring work.
- When the books all say to deprive your meat chickens of food for 12 to 24 hours, they really mean 30 hours. Ew.
- A sharp knife would have been a godsend compared to that axe.
- Chickens don’t bleed near as much as I thought.
- Rusty had some iridescent bluish green feathers. The base of them, in his skin, had this funny bluish dye.
- Entrails brought out the science geek in both of us.
- Dogs drool over gizzards, hearts, and livers.
- Heritage breeds have awesome legs. Really. Wow, Rusty. His little manly breasts weren’t shabby either.
- The flavor of Rusty’s meat tasted like…. well… grass from the backyard. It was sweet and tender, and it took the herbed butter well. The barbecue wasn’t bad either.
- We haven’t been woken by a ruck-a-roo in three days.
About the author: Robin Taylor is always looking for a piece of dirt to grow things in. She lives, works, and plays in the Puget Sound region with her partner, their three dogs, and varying numbers of farm animals. Her most recent adventures in raising city chickens, growing food in her front yard, and finding local sources of meat and produce can be found on her blog, A City Chicken Farm. Contact her attaylorgirl6@gmail.com.
Related posts:
- Cosmopolitan Hen: I am a Hen. I Swear.
- Cosmopolitan Hen: Hot, Dirty Chickens
- Cosmopolitan Hen: The Chicken Hierarchy
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I recently butchered a rooster, also in the city, and found it tough. What age was your rooster when you slaughtered it? What recipe did you use?
Hello Joshua! Our little Rusty was about 15 weeks old when we did him in. We wanted to wait long enough for him to put on some weight, but we were very conscious of the noise he was making for our neighbors’ sake. We did a taste test for dinner on the 4th of July (a friend who loves chicken was over to help out). We bought a plain whole chicken from the grocery store, then split both that one and our roo in half. Both chickens were marinated in saltwater for about 12 hours, then one half of each was treated to an herbed butter rub under the skin. The other halves were skinned and smothered in barbecue sauce. Both treatments were excellent, but we realized that store-bought chickens really are pumped full of liquids to make them seem fatter and juicier. Our Rusty was much tastier, and the leftover bones and pieces made an awesome batch of soup.