Goodbye Pecker

WARNING: THIS MAY BE TOO GRAPHIC FOR SOME!

As many of you may know, we got six chickens in March. Well, it turned out that one of them (the one that Kimball happened to name Pecker) was a rooster. We thought he was a rooster when he started growing bigger than the rest, but as soon as his first cock-a-doodle-doo came out, we knew for sure. Talk about one of the most annoying sounds you can hear in the wee hours of the morning. Our poor neighbors weren't too happy with us, although with all the other chickens and goats that surround them, you wouldn't think it was a big deal. Nevertheless, we decided Pecker had to go. We thought about giving him away, but decided we put the time and effort into raising him, we should reap the "blessings of the harvest" so to speak.

After talking with our neighbors, Mindy and Ernie, who offered their assistance, we decided on Saturday afternoon in their yard. For that, I was so grateful. I did not want to do the deed in our yard. Mindy is my visiting teacher and I told her that she could count visiting teaching for the next year for letting us do it in her yard. Mindy had talked to me about the different ways we could kill the chicken and what to do afterwards. We could cut off it's head or wring it's neck. Then we could pluck it (which she said is a nasty job) or skin it. She didn't know how to skin it, so we brought in more assistance from Brother Skinner (what an appropriate name) from our ward. We decided to wring it's neck and skin it.

Clark with Pecker before the slaughter.

When it came down to it, Brother Skinner told Clark to do the deed. (May I just say that this is very foreign for Clark and me. The fact that we even have chickens is still amazing to me.) He showed Clark how to wring it's neck. So, Clark did it. He even heard it pop. Then, for good measuring, Brother Skinner did it again. Poor Pecker hung there limp, and we laid him on the table while Ernie did the same thing to his chicken. In the midst of Ernie wringing his chicken's neck, Pecker began to flail his wings. We thought it might be reflexes, but no, he got up, jumped off the table, ran around the yard a little, then went and hid under the house. It was crazy! The poor thing wasn't even dead. Who knows what kind of pain, if any, the thing was feeling. After a few minutes Clark and Brother Skinner got him out from under the house. They tried to dislocate the neck again, but Pecker was a pretty stubborn chicken. They ended up having to cut his neck. Nasty! They then proceeded to skin the chicken, as you can see in the following photos.

Ours is the red chicken.
The skinning process.

The heart, which is eaten all the time in Brazil. Clark and I have eaten chicken heart. We opted not to eat Pecker's heart.

Thanks to Mindy and Ernie and Brother Skinner for helping us with the deed. We would have NEVER, and I really mean NEVER, been able to do it on our own.

So my friend Mary has told me that the best thing for a cold is homemade chicken broth. Now having a whole chicken to make the broth, I decided to give it a go. We had to wait a couple of days to make it. So two days after Pecker died, I made chicken broth and chicken noodle soup. It took all day to make, but it was worth it. We got 16 cups of broth and enough chicken to make two batches of chicken noodle soup. We made one thing of the soup and froze everything else.

When I told my mom what we were going to be doing, she made me promise not to tell the kids what they were eating. (Apparently, she'll never forget eating their cow Candy.) Well, I couldn't really hide it from the kids. They weren't there when we killed the chicken, but they knew what was going on. So as we sat down to dinner, I casually asked, "So, what do you guys think of the dinner?" They all replied with sayings like, "Great!" or "This is the best meal we've ever had." or "I love it." Kimball even said, "This is great. We should call it Pecker Noodle Soup." I guess my children aren't going to be tramatized for life. In fact, it hardly even phased them. So I now present, Pecker Noodle Soup. It's about as homemade is you can get.

As I look back on the whole experience, I thought it would be a lot weirder than it was. In fact, as we killed Pecker, it seemed very natural. I just kept having the thought that this is why God gave us chickens, so we could benefit from them. I think I had a harder time doing the actual cooking than the killing (of course, I didn't do any killing). It was a pretty memorable experience. One that I am very proud of. The whole time I kept thinking, "How much more pioneer can I get."

I do have video footage that may be posted later. Let me know if you want to see it.