Circle of Life

One of our goals in moving onto some acreage was raising animals. We have raised chickens so far with ideas about adding pigs and goats in the future. As our baby chicks grew and transformed into fully grown, majestic chickens, we found out that 5 of our 16 chickens were roosters. Typically, it is suggested to have only 1 rooster per 20 hens. There can be power battles that ensue between roosters to establish rank, which we were beginning to see in our run. There was an overall feeling of stress amongst the chickens. Another goal of ours in getting chickens was to experience processing chickens for food. We experienced this for the first time last weekend.

A lot of people ask if it was difficult emotionally or mentally. It wasn’t as emotional as we originally anticipated because we were so process-focused in order to keep the job smooth and efficient. That said, when meal-time came around there were moments of weird-ness as we thought about the chickens personalities etc. We can definitely say that we’ve never been more mindful while eating a chicken dinner before.

Overall, it was an extremely rewarding process, one that we can see ourselves committing to if we want to continue to consume chicken as part of our diet. It was nice to know our chickens live a nice life and we are very grateful for each of them.

One hot tip from us to you: never leave your chicken inverted in the restraining cone unattended. They are determined little buggers and will find a way out while your back is turned, thus initiating a great chicken chase ;)