Killin a chicken

This is what we were taught to do in home economics classes in about 1960:

Tie the live chicken by its feet and attach the end of the rope to the rafter or ceiling of some farm building. Its head should be pointed down. Grab the head and run a small, sharp knife into the chicken’s mouth and pierce it’s brain. Let the blood run out (10-15 minutes}. Skald it to make the feathers loose and pick it clean.

I told this story to some Northern sort of family members and they accused me of lying. Stupid people. How do they think chickens were killed on a farm?

Later we had to cut it up and eat it.

My teacher was a tough character and she is still alive. “Eat more chikin.”

As a child I had seen my aunt both wring a neck on one and chop it off on the other. Watching a chicken with no head running around is freakish.

Our dog ate so many of the neighbor’s chickens that we called her “Drag Belly.”

Am I reading this right: you can separate the head from the body of a living chicken using your hands alone?

Yes, especially with the appropriate application of gravity and momentum, though it will no longer be a living chicken.

It’s a helluva thing, killin’ a chicken. You take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.

The killing is easy, it’s living with it that is hard.