We always try to buy local meat that's had a good life and we're very lucky to have a source of beef in the 'Cam Cattle' cows that graze Midsummer common in the centre of Cambridge. I cycle past these on my way to work and they always seem blissfully content, taking no notice of my bike rattling past and their mini celebrity status with tourists.
Raising our own chickens seemed like a logical step. We could learn how to kill, pluck and dress the chickens, all important in increasing our awareness of the process from field to plate, while knowing that these particular birds had enjoyed a longer life than would otherwise have been the case.
Recently the chickens, or more specifically dispatching the chickens, has been on both our minds. How do you take the decision that any particular day will be their last? Particularly if the weather forecast for the following day is glorious and you know how much they enjoy their sunbathing. We had become quite attached to our magnificent chaps, with their daily displays of neck ruffling, and were unlikely to wake up one day with a burning desire to put someone in the pot.
Luckily, as it turned out the boys made the decision for us via a strangled attempt at crowing at 5am. This wasn't a full blown 'Cock-A-Doodle-DOO!' more of a trial run, testing out variations on the theme without ever hitting the correct sequence.
I like to think that the other cockerels were gathered around watching and taking notes from the morning's performance:
'COCK-a-COCK- a- DOO!'
Dammit, that's not right.
'A-Doodle-Doodle-DOO!'
No, still not got it.
etc.
Anyway, even a trainee crower is not appreciated in central Cambridge. Still less now as we experience an intermittent summer and of neighbours have their windows open.
As the advice was to deprive the chicken for food for 24 hours prior to killing, so that the crop and digestive system wasn't full of semi-digested grain, we decided to do the birds in pairs and a three. This meant that our 5am singer would have company in his penned-off section of the chicken run, something that we felt was important for his welfare. It was also for welfare reasons that we decided to kill our first chickens at Hempsal's Community farm, because although a drive in the car wasn't necessarily in the chicken welfare handbook it seemed to us that the consequences of trying and failing to kill a chicken, and the associated needless suffering that would entail, tipped the balance firmly in favour of taking them with us.
Over the past weeks as people have learnt that we are raising chickens for meat, we have been on the receiving end of many horror stories. It seems that everyone knows someone whose neighbour's friend's father tried to kill a chicken and ended up chasing it around the garden with an axe, merely giving it a crick in the neck or pulling the head off.
This did not inspire confidence in taking a self-taught 'You-Tube' approach.
At Hempsal's farm we were able to kill the chickens calmly and quickly under the supervision of Ben the head farmer (we used the broom handle technique). He also taught us how to pluck the birds (when warm), hang them so that all the blood gathers in the head, and prepare the carcass for cooking. (Ben then confessed his ulterior motive which was to give us the skills to join the goose plucking and dressing team at Christmas! Which of course we will do.)
What better end for our first bird, than a really slow, considered, recipe carried out over a whole of a day (Moroccan chicken pie from The Guardian, here), which included cabbage grown by us at the farm and was served with home-grown broad beans.
It was a thoughtful meal, but I'm no vegetarian, and I can honestly say I'm happy to know this chicken had a good life.
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