A Culled Crow

It was a quiet morning on the homestead today, the familiar sound of our 

largest rooster was absent at sunrise. 

As I write this, the process is still fresh in my mind.  We had made the decisions weeks ago to cull our rooster; he had become very aggressive with our hens and at times would attack my wife at I. Boot strikes and shoves would only calm his aggressive dominance for short periods of time, and each of our hens had enough scars and missing feathers to justify it. 

It was a spontaneous decision to do it yesterday, but a little hustling around and quick learning we were able to get it done fairly easily. Admittedly, I was not able to kill him as humanly as I would have liked, but I tried to be as respectful as I could and we certainly appreciate what this animal will, and has provided us. It has taught us a lot. That being said, he was a jerk

This not my first time killing and cleaning an animal, I have been a deer hunter and a fishermen for many years, but this is the first time I have killed an animal that I have raised. 

While my wife had a youtube video on how to clean a chicken playing in the background, I stormed ahead with 60% know-how and 40% guess work. It turns out it isn't too difficult or different than cleaning any other animal I have done. 

Removing the feathers was much easier than I expected, a short, 20 second dunk in 175 degree water, and the feathers fell right off. After that he was cleaned and ready too cook, we saved the neck and heart for Baxter. 

 My wife and I are very grateful to have received this pressure cooker as a wedding present from our wonderful Maine family. It will allow us to become more self sustaining and opens up so many more possibilities. We decide that there was no better way to christen it than with an unruly and tough bird. 25 minutes later, this bird was no longer fighting us, the meat fell cleanly off the bone.  Between the meat and stock, he has provided us with many meals.