Do the Chickens Have Large Talons?

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU SUFFER FROM A WEAK STOMACH!

On Monday night we had the Passe-Carlus family over for dinner/family home evening. We had some lovely wheat baguettes and enjoyed a nice night. They are from France and Laurent trained professionally as a pastry chef. He's very kind and complimented me on my brownies and even went for seconds on dinner/dessert. Anyhoo, they are a self-sufficient family that has chickens on their property. He said he was going to be slaughtering some on Tuesday and invited us to come. Hmmm....

I've never seen it done and I thought it would be a good skill of which to have knowledge. Laurent is intense and I figured it would be a great learning experience. By intense I mean he was in the Gendarmerie and was a paratrooper. He's a highly skilled person and... intense. He's a "giter done" kinda guy and makes me laugh. The language barrier always makes me chuckle.

So he does it first then asks, "Mama, are you next?" I replied that Matt, being the papa should do it. Matt reminded me that he has done it in scouts and the military. I said I would just watch. My idea of watching turned into me kneeling on chicken-pooed-on grass with a white clucker between my thighs. My left hand stretched the neck and I slit the right carotid, letting it bleed out. It's a calmer process which reduces the adrenaline in the muscles. It was mostly calm but as it started to get closer to poultry heaven it convulsed a few times. I held firmer and it calmed. I call that the rally cry. It's what some people do before they die. It's a autonomic reaction that can occur that will give families hope when really it means that their loved one is almost gone. It can be difficult to help families understand that.

I'll share a story. One night as I came into work I was given a patient who was dying. She was in lots of pain and asked if I would just hold her. Her kidneys were shutting down and she had lots of fluid building up in her abdomen from that and other issues. It was horrible to watch her. She needed pressure on her abdomen to relieve some of that pain. Before I gave her pain medication that would slow her respirations, I tried to physically reduce her pain. I sat on a chair at the side of her bed and reached my arms across her abdomen where I could get the best hold and decrease that fluid pressure. I stayed that way for nearly a half hour until she fell asleep. Then I called her family and suggested they come up and say goodbye since she would be getting some pain meds that she most likely would not come out of. I concluded that sometimes we all just need to be held and especially when we are passing over to our next season of life.

Random but after seeing a few people die you realize that we are all very similar. What does this have to do with the chicken? The chicken had physiological needs that were met in the same way.

After I took care of mine from start to finish, Ethan did one too. It really didn't bother him. I wonder sometimes if that kid is going to be a surgeon. He is super interested in all things scientific. In fact we bought him an anatomy book for Christmas.

De-feathering tip: Have a pot of boiling water to put the dead chicken into. Let it sit for a bit then the feathers come off like leaves off a branch.

Matt and Laurent supervising my cutting out. Ethan is de-feathering.

Laurent preparing to gross me out

Laurent scratching my arm with the talons. He even took the head and was talking to me via chicken mouth. Weirdo!

Matt helping Ethan cut it open so he could pull out the innards.

In the end, I'm glad I did it. Good thing to learn how to do in a controlled environment instead of when I am desperate or by myself without a clue. If you are grossed out and disgusted it's all good, just don't go all PETA on me.