Preserve an Endangered Species with Heritage Chickens

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If you'd prefer to leave slaughter to someone else, skip the rest of this section. If you couldn't dream of eating your birds, you can still raise hens for eggs. When it comes time to replace eggedout hens, put an ad in the paper offering "Laying hens for a dollar apiece." The price will deter anyone but a mink farmer or someone else with a legitimate use for the birds—who will call, promise to treat your birds humanely, and offer to catch them and take them off your hands for nothing. You'll probably be happy to accept the offer.

You'll find more detail in the books recommended on page 39, but here are the basics of the slaughter/dressing process.

Capture birds at night on the roost; cage them and withhold feed (but not water) for 24 hours.

Get a tanner or other large pot of water boiling. Put bird in a killing cone (a metal half-funnel fastened to a wall) or suspend by the legs. Cut the throat lust behind the lower beak and bleed out. If you don't let the bird's heart pump out blood, you will have "fiery," inedible chicken.

A better method is to dispatch the upside-down bird instantly by holding the head firmly m one palm and inserting a sharp knife into the mouth, through the soft bone at the back of upper palate, and into the base of the skull. This takes practice but is the quickest, most humane procedure. You will feel the bird relax—feather muscles included—and may be able to pluck without scalding.

If feathers are tight, hold well-bled bird by the feet and immerse m hot (but not boiling) water and agitate long enough to melt fat around feather sockets, but not long enough to cook the skin (swish up and down in hot water for a good 15 seconds or so). Wearing rubber gloves, strip feathers while still steaming hot.

Remove head. feet, and neck; remove swallower tube from neck and attached crop from chest cavity at base of neck. You can scrub the feet thoroughly, boil to a pulp, and strain to get a lovely soup thickener that is used widely in Chinese cooking.

With a sharp, pointed knife, cut skin an inch deep and in a funnel shape (large end inside the bird) all around vent. Open the skin to the keel bone and pull out entrails. Pull fat from inside the carcass and around vent area and rend for cooking. Discard all innards but the familiar heart, liver, and gizzard. Open gizzard and remove girt.

Wash carcass inside and out with clean cold water only, and chill immediately to below 40°F. Cook within three days, or freeze immediately—the giblets separate from carcass.

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