Back to the Heartland!: Harvesting Chickens

I think I may have ended one of my earlier blogs with the dilemma of whether or not I should help "harvest chickens" at a local farm. I decided that I might as well get the whole "Iowa experience" and try it, and if I got too upset I could leave whenever.

Jon, one of the environmental studies professors at Luther College, has a small farm with chickens and cows. He invited the Food and Fitness FoodCorps and AmeriCorps members and members of the community to come help him "harvest the chickens," which I thought was quite the clever euphemism. My friend Stephanie and I went to his farm having no idea what to expect, but it was actually a really enjoyable experience. There were about 15 adults and a whole mess of kids at the event. Everyone was very talkative, friendly, and in good spirits, but most importantly, they were incredibly respectful of the chickens and all the other animals on the farm. Although there were lots of people there to help, only Jon did the actual slaughtering (some of the little kids watched though!). He killed the chickens by chopping the their heads off- he didn't flip them upside down into cones and slit their throats like you often see on small farms. I hid in the barn while the chickens were being killed, but once they chopped the heads off and let them bleed out, I watched them boil the chickens and use a plucker machine to start de-feathering the chickens.

In the barn, I helped pluck the little feathers off that the machine couldn't get and I cut off the chickens' legs. I watched as some of the other adults cleaned out the chicken guts (DISGUSTING)- we kept having to take the dead chickens to the washing station because chicken poop kept leaking out them! It was so gross. That was when I left.

Overall though, it was a really cool experience. I'm so glad I went! I always wash my chicken now before I cook it because I know how easy it is for chicken poop to leak all over the bird while it's being cleaned!

Enjoy the pictures below!