Butcherin Chickens and Buildin Wagons

Down the Hill and Across the Road

We sometimes let our desires over shadow our abilities. Such was the case back in 1995 just after I retired. As a kid, I remember butchering chickens which seemed like an easy job. Memories are a blessing. However, memories are not always completely accurate or maybe better said memories do not always contain complete detail. They say one cannot recall pain. One can recall the fact that something was painful but the pain itself cannot be recalled. I thank God for memories.

So, the summer of 1994 my mind took me back to my childhood and farm raised fried chicken. I also thought since I don’t have to go to work each day I could raise some chickens. I didn’t have a chicken house. So, I built a chicken house with the help of my two oldest grandsons. Now I say oldest that means an eight year old and a two year old. They were really good help. During the time we were building the chicken house we had taken a break to eat lunch.   One of the things we had for lunch that day was sliced pears. Well the two year old Isaac was eating his pears by dipping them in ranch dressing. Gene the older grandson said, “Grandpa I just can’t sit here and watch him do that”. (Fond Memories) So, that summer we got the chicken house built. It turned out to be a very nice building. We had a chicken house with no chickens, so far so good.

I got all the stuff I needed to raise chickens feeders, waterer and electricity to the chicken house. I made a hover with heat lamps to keep the baby chicks warm. I was ready for baby chicks.

Then early the next spring 1995 I purchased one hundred baby chicks from the hatchery at Windsor MO.  My plan was to have some chickens for fryers and some pullets to keep for laying hens. So, I ordered a special deal of heavy barnyard chicks. In the special deal there was no guarantee sex or breed.  The total number of baby chicks I received was one hundred and eight. I can’t remember for sure how many pullets were in the bunch but it wasn’t that many, the remainder were males, which was good, they would be the ones I would butcher. It only takes eight weeks to raise a chicken to butchering size. During that time I never lost a single chick. So, I had about ninety-five butchering chickens. I thought this isn’t going to be too difficult. Like I said earlier, memories don’t always include detail. My only experience of butchering chickens was when I helped as a kid and later when Shirley I were first married. We raised some chickens one year and butchered them. By the way, someone who can butcher a chicken is my wife Shirley. Shirley can butcher two chickens to my one. When I say butcher I mean catching the live chicken, chopping its head off, picking the feathers, gutting it and cutting it up into pieces.

Okay, so I didn’t have Shirley to help me, she is working. I figure if I get everything set up right I can finish this job in about three days. I get out the camping stove to keep the big pot of water boiling. I have a machete to chop off their heads two very sharp knives for the rest of the process. I had a large plastic tub for cold water to wash and rinse the pieces of chicken. I’m ready to go! Oh yeah, I do have help, my oldest grandson Gene was staying with me that summer.

Gene and I are ready to butcher chickens! The first thing is to catch the chickens. This is not an easy task. I made a hook out of heavy wire that would stay bent in a hook shape without straightening out when I hooked a chicken by the leg. Gene and I would drive the chickens into the corner of the chicken pen so I could hook one by the leg. We would catch only four at a time, butcher them and then catch four more. We had caught several when Gene came up this saying “last man out is a dead man”.  At first he could hardly watch when I chopped the head off and the chicken flopped around on the ground. He said, “Grandpa I don’t like this very much”. By the second day he was picking the chicken up and bringing it to me for me to souse in the boiling water so the feathers would be easily plucked off.  By the third day Gene is doing well with the butchering business. I am not so excited about it. So far we have butchered twelve chickens. At that rate we are going to be butchering chickens for the next several days. I thought maybe there was someone who butchered chickens as a business. I got on the phone and called the places that butchered cattle and hogs to see if they knew of any place that butchered chickens. I had no luck at all. Well, I realized I had to do it myself if it was going to get done. Gene and I butchered chickens for what seemed like weeks and weeks. We got to the point we could butcher fifteen chickens a day.

That summer Gene and I did a lot of different things we canned beets and butchered those chickens and built a wagon. Gene said, “You know, Grandpa for us to live something has to die.” I said not really Gene those beets we canned we just pulled them out of the ground. He said “yeah but when you pulled them out of the ground they died” That was quite a summer!

In addition to canning vegetables and butchering chickens we also built a wagon. Shirley and I had looked for a wagon for a couple of years. We didn’t want to spend the money for a new wagon and used farm wagons were hard to find. We found the running gears for an oil field pipe hauler which was a lot like a wagon without a bed. It didn’t cost much and we could make it into a wagon without a lot of expense. Shirley and I took the pickup and trailer and went near Paola Kansas and picked it up. Since it was mostly disassembled we were able to load it on the trailer and haul it home. The next thing we had to do was put it all together and build a bed on it. Again, my helper was my Grandson Gene. He and I would work on it a little while each day. It may have taken us about three weeks to finish the wagon. When it was completed we had a fourteen foot by seven and one half foot flat bed wagon with rubber tires. When we got it finished Gene put a sticker on the back that read, “Don’t Drink and Drive” We have used the wagon for several years to give rides to a lot of different people. The wagon is still going well, the “Don’t Drink and Drive” sticker has faded away. That wagon is still in use and the memories of that summer are still in my mind.

My Grandson Gene is a grown man now. He and his wife live in Florence Italy where they teach culinary arts. He has come a long way from butchering chickens and building wagons. And I might add that when Gene was a student at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park New York he was the only student in his class that had caught a live chicken, killed it and gone through the complete butchering process.

 “Grandpa for us to live something has to die”.

For us to live Christ had to die!

Jim Gray

Peculiar MO