Well, I thought there was hope, but the chicken I’ve been keeping in the shed

In the end, for this one, I went with a sharp knife to the throat, a pot of hot water at around 70° C (160° F), and hand-picking the feathers. I will only put links to the video and some pictures here; if you are squeamish I suggest avoiding them.

Video of bird before, during, and after slaughter.

(Apparently YouTube examines the soundtrack and since I’ve used copyrighted music in it, refuses to play the audio

In case anyone is curious, the first two pieces of music are Zero Seven’s Waiting to Die and Un Bel Di from Madame Butterfly. The third is fairly recognizable :) I had debated using Only Happy When It Rains (it was downpouring), Up N Down (just to throw in some dance music) and I Would Die For You. At the end of the day, taking four-ish hours to cut together a video is too long as it is :)

Pictures

Was it difficult? A little bit, although most of my concern came from trying to find the right place on the throat to cut. I definitely should have cut higher and will remember that for next time (plus they will be in a cone then). The rest of it went well; the plucking was quite straightforward, but needs to be done as soon as the dunking is complete – we decided to take it inside to finish off and it had cooled down by then. Eviscerating was a bit tougher (I was following these directions

In the end, she only weighed 1.25lbs after picking, and there may have been .5 lbs of meat there. Certainly not worth keeping alive for another two weeks in terms of comfort or food.

Anyway; I’m glad I have some experience now. Looking forward to getting slightly better equipment setup for the remaining thirty-something of them in a couple weeks time. It looks like I may be giving away a few live to people who want to grow them even larger :)