Feeling Squeamish?

I've always been a fan of hands-on learning.  Recently Birch and I ran into some friends in our stake that have a large farm.  We were talking about butchering chickens and they invited our family out to learn how this is done.  When Birch and I were dating his family raised chickens as well.  Birch and I had the opportunity to help with the butchering process - though we skinned the chickens instead of  plucking them.

The kids were totally disgusted that we were insisting they join us for the afternoon at the farm.  Alysee had legitimate girl's camp preparations she needed to do so she did get out of the experience.  When we first arrived at the farm there was a momma hen who had just hatched her eight chicks and they needed to be caught so cats wouldn't eat them.  Birch helped catch the momma hen and we did all feel sad that it was going to be butchered on the day its' babies were born.  Much to everyone's happiness we found that that banty hen was not one of the ones we would be butchering.  Everyone loved running around catching the baby chicks.

Guess who was begging to take one home?

The unlucky chicken...actually there were five unlucky ones.

After their heads are chopped off you dip them in the can of boiling water to loosen their feathers.

Then the plucking begins.

It took a bit to get into it but everyone (except Nate) joined in.

Trying to get out all the pin quill feathers.

I think we can all agree that the smell of death isn't that awesome.

Naked chicken

Next they blow torch off the tiny hairs -- who knew a chicken had feathers and hairs?!!!

Then we had an anatomy lesson.  It was amazing how clean this process actually was with an expert showing us how it is to be done.

But really the kids would have rather spent all day holding these chicks!

Nate had a really hard time with the whole thing, therefore he was elected to bag the chickens.  These chickens were each probably ten pounds!  HUGE!

Then we took the chickens back to the house and they were scrubbed up and prepared for the freezer.  Meanwhile Chloe found baby puppies to love on.

I think Chloe was born to the wrong family.  She needs a summer on a farm!

Everyone agreed on our drive home that it wasn't as terrible as they thought it was going to be.  Some of my favorite parts was just learning and listening to all the great stories from our friend.  It is so nice for the kids to be around someone so wise and knowledgeable.   We enjoyed a hot dog roast together before we parted ways.  I'm pretty sure this experience will not be forgotten!!