Life and Death, part 2 - Cockerels

Well, actually just the death bit here I'm afraid, but feel I need to write about it. You might not want to read this if squeamish; or veggie/vegan. But at least, I hope, it's an immediate, honest account of part of life.

Four cockerels had to go - we've got one left to do the business, and apart from their increased fighting, it's just not sustainable to have them as gobbling pets. That's how it is keeping farm animals - the boys don't have such a long life. Still, they had some life which is a good thing I suppose... And they had space and good food, and sea air.. and very wet clay right now. I'm not quite as virgin to farming as this slightly tortured stream of consciousness might make it seem; but being the cause of death is new to me, and cleaning buckets of blood makes the meaning of meat that bit more real.

So yesterday we separated four cocks, and didn't feed them for 24 hours. And today after dark we picked them up by their feet, one by one, and took them, in quiet shock, to the pole barn to be killed. We tied them upside down to an upright, and dispatched them with a dispatcher. What a horrible term - clinical, efficient, to the point - but actually that's what needed. No messing about - break the neck, go with the reflex flapping of wings, and then cut the throat to let the blood drain out.

Tim did the first three, me watching closely. I did the last. I could feel the sort of plier ends of the dispatcher come together cleanly; thankfully there was no struggle, no horrible botch. It was ok. I struggled to cut the neck though, and although I knew he was dead, it still felt gory, messy, revolting repeatedly slashing against a tough little tube lacking any equal reaction. Thankfully Philippe was on hand, and suggested going in through beak, which allowed a clean cut. Amazing how red the blood is, and how quickly it coagulates. And praise be for shock - just the act of carrying them, combined with the dopiness of dusk, meant that they were remarkably calm going into it all, despite some obvious awareness as they were brought in.

It was actually the plucking that affected me more, holding the carcass, warm as my hands touched more skin. Five of us did this, in the haybarn next door: initially quiet, respectful, grave; but chatting more about that and this as we developed rhythm and confidence plucking the feathers, and as a natural response to the macabre event and equally macabre cold evening of this November floodtime. We chopped the heads and legs off, Tim blowtorched the strange hairs off, we washed out the horrible buckets, and that was it, done.

Coqs au vin to come sometime, using all the meat as fully as possible; the appropriate follow up to a necessary reality I think. I might not sleep like an angelic log but, as a recently revived carnivore and lifelong eggivore, I am glad I was able to be involved and have a little more conscious connection to it all.