Author: Donald Guenther
Obtained: October 25th, 2013
My mom had a pet chicken and she used to dress it up it like a doll. The bird ate pancakes at the breakfast table and lived behind the front door in the house. One day as mom strolled down the road with her brother Dick the bird jumped into the air saying “EEK” and dropped dead.
Strange story and strange as it may seem that my first memory is being in the family’s chicken coup. We used to gather eggs. I heard how big brother Ron once raised a great big turkey only to see how small the bird dressed out, and how tough a dead bird can be. Now they call those kinds of birds range animals but in our time they were less than desirable. We raised chickens for the meat and eggs.
The chicken slaughtering took place out at the end of the turn around, with no little kids present, and behind Ron’s old Henry J that he purchased for nothing and that didn’t run anymore. Dad used wood from the wood pile as the chopping block. Today they cover the chicken’s head and speak kind words to the animal before doing them in. Back then it didn’t happen quite that way. Grab the bird, manhandling it to the get the head on the block and whack!
After dad cut the head off the chicken was scalded in hot water to make the feathers come out more easily. The smell at that point could make anyone vomit. I did the plucking. I held the back legs and worked away on the bird. I knew enough not to breath in the smell, plucking a chicken takes 20 minutes, so the breathing has to be through the mouth.
I remember while plucking, my sister Phiddy could make the chickens cluck after being beheaded. Once my dad only partly severed a diseased chick’s head and tossed the bird in the dump only to have the chicken run in front of the kitchen window, my mom froze at the sight. Mike the famous headless chicken had visited our little town so we little guys doubted the validity of that story but mom won’t deny it. When it came to family history stories Mom and Ron’s versions didn’t always line up. You can imagine a youngster like Ron telling everything interesting to the younger set while mom tended to keep things more distinguished. Ron also had a tendency to embellish a bit. The best way to get at the truth had Ron telling you the story in great detail and then running the story past mom. At that point you had the story pretty closely figured. The story of the headless chicken running around is true but Ron adds a name to the chicken and dad chasing the bird around. Mom says that part didn’t happen but dad did chase a cow around that had its head stuck in a ladder. Mom had to help him by calming the cow with a bag of oats before removing the ladder. Dad’s pride thoroughly toaste
My big brother Ron helped my mom dress the chicken’s after dad had slaughtered them and we plucked their feathers. My mom could speed through the process but Ron more or less dissected each bird. He would explain all the parts to his siblings while he worked on the chickens. He could even force air up through the body cavity and make the dead bird chuckle. He probably learned that at college when he lived on the turkey farm. At the farm he lived on peanut butter sandwiches according to mom. I never thought that sounded particularly bad.
When mom cut up a chicken I remember everyone had to stand back. With 14 children she had learned how to perform everything most efficiently. Her knife strokes, breaking apart joints and dismembering feet were done so quickly no one dared stand too close.
Ron wouldn’t make it as a butcher or anything other than a scientist, that had been event from early on. Mom had to be careful not to damage him by suggesting his feats at home weren’t appreciated on her high production assembly line work. She did enjoy having him around because she loved discussing all the latest news she’d read about in the newspaper, The World. They shared a capacity for remembering every little detail on just about everything.
Sounds like a blood and guts scene out of a horror movie, but we thought nothing of it. We were country children used to having to kill and eat farm animals. My mom and brother both knew one year that mom had the family milk cow butchered and put in our freezer for meat. My brother had no problem eating our pet, while my mom couldn’t eat her old friend. Ron most likely enjoyed the thought of not having to milk anymore.
When I learned how my big brother maturely handled the situation of eating the family’s pet milk cow I decided that my son would take after him. With my son in his early teams he raised pigs for the 4-H fat stock sales in the county fairs. The first year he raised two pigs, one for the sale and one for us to eat. He named the pigs after his school teachers. I worried that he had made friends with the pigs. When eating time came he had no problem. He commented that the meat ranked at the top. He had the mindset of my brother Ron. Ron had no problem eating our milk cow Gussie and neither did Nic when it came to his pigs. The money from selling the pigs enabled Nic to purchase a motor cycle trail bike. This spoke to Nic’s capitalistic mindset of buying motor cycles and having fun.