First Kill: An Unlikely Rooster

My first kill is an important milestone in my new-found life in the Rocky Mountains. Now, you might be wondering whether my first kill was a deer, an elk, or maybe the Texas hogs that I so desperately wanted to shoot. No, my first kill was a domestic animal, owned by a friend.

Here is how it went down: Years ago, our friend Sarah offered to give us goats. My husband responded that we would gladly accept the goats so long as we could eat them. Sarah retracted her offer.

​Fast forward a few years, and Sarah found herself with problematic roosters. Specifically, the roosters were attacking her when she went to collect eggs. Initially, she tried to find a sweet, loving home for her roosters; in the end, she agreed to allow us to kill and eat them.

We drove to Sarah’s ranch in the middle of the day when she was not home. Luckily, Sarah had sent us two photos of the problematic roosters so we could identify them in the pen. There was no way I would have known which bird to kill without a photo lineup. My husband and I maneuvered our way through numerous gates and found the chicken coop. Soon enough, the targets were identified.

We decided that my husband would go first and capture the larger rooster. Sarah assured us that the smaller rooster was calmer. When he went to pick up the bigger bird, the smaller, so called “tamer” naughty rooster attacked him. The little one came out of no where like a spider monkey. 

We had to re-group. I decided to use a stick and play defense to keep the mean little one away so that my husband could take the bigger one. He removed the bigger one and did the deed.
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Now, it was my turn. I was really nervous. I carefully cornered the little feisty one and picked it up by its feet. I carried it out of the chicken coop and slit the rooster’s throat. 

I expected to feel remorse or sadness; but in reality, I felt relieved that the chicken was dead and it had not attacked me. The kill was very instinctual. I know that the rooster would not have seriously hurt me, but it felt like a battle nonetheless.

We collected our newly-dead roosters in a box and drove home to process our birds. 

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Processing birds was new to us.  Step one: pluck the feathers. 

We put the bird into 140 degree water in order to get the feathers to release. We used my huge  pressure canner and filled it with water. Once the water was 140 degrees, we put the canner outside on the patio and dunked the bird into it. We dunked the bird up and down in the scalding water. We checked the feathers to see if they were still firmly attached. Once the feathers were easily removed, we removed the bird from the canner.

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Once we were done with the scalding water, we hung the bird on the patio. We used a ladder to hang the bird and placed trash bags under the bird to collect feathers. 

Some of the feathers were much easier to remove than others. As I clutched handfuls of wet bird feathers, water was flying in all directions. On more than one occasion, my face was soaked with dead bird water. The smell was difficult to describe: a combination of burnt hair and farm yard. I gagged more than once.
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​So, like any good millennial, I googled how to pluck a bird before we did mine. The internet quite correctly suggested rinsing the bird before scalding it and putting  a few drops of dish soap in the water. Absolutely brilliant. It was not nearly as stinky. 

After the birds were cleaned and plucked, my husband processed the birds. The roosters were clearly different sizes. We did not have a rooster recipe, so my husband made one up. He made a delicious Tandoori rooster dish by cutting up the roosters, adding spices, peppers, and onions and placing it into a Dutch oven. He slow roasted the rooster and served it with rice. It was stunning.

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Sarah's problematic roosters turned into an amazing adventure and a delicious meal.

​And, perhaps more importantly: my first kill.