Today was dispatch day for our oldest cockerels and ducks. It actually began last night when in as stress-free manner as possible, the birds were carefully extracted from their usual nighttime stable accommodation and transferred to large, straw filled dog cages in our garage. It was immediately outside the garage on a concrete drive that the 'said' deed was to happen the following morning!!!
Getting the cockerels was easy, they were on their perches (it being well past dusk) and so we carefully picked them up, popped them in a cat basket and then 'wheelbarrowed' them up to the garage. The ducks were not so easy, they were also in the stable, but on the floor, and whilst we worked as much as possible in the dark to keep them calm, as soon as they felt human contact they began to 'create' and struggle and generally show their total lack of understanding as to what was happening (and who could blame them)! And being Muscovies, with really, really sharp claws, any kind of struggle was a 'lose, lose' for both sides: the ducks because of the stress and us because of the risk of deep lacerations. It’s not so much the cuts of course that are the issue (aside from the pain of course), it's more the c*** that might get transferred from the ducks really filthy feet into our pristine clean bloodstream!!
Around 11pm we declared victory with four cockerels (mixed breeds) and 16 male Muscovies all calm and quiet in their 'cells'!! The male ducks (for Jo Farwell) are easy to distinguish from females by about 6-8 weeks due to larger feet, larger heads and longer bodies (where the wings don’t reach the tail as quickly as the females). Their facial/head redness is also a little more pronounced.
We used to dispatch and dress all our own birds. Nowadays we have a 'man with a van' who does it for us! The method of dispatch we used and the one used by our mobile slaughterman Stephen is the same: an electrical stun and then the bleed. This is the recommended method of dispatch by the Humane Slaughter Association and it is our belief that it really does make a difference to the meat! When the bird is stunned, it is rendered unconscious and thus when its throat is slit, it is still alive, unconscious and not able to feel pain, but alive. What this means is that the blood is pumped from the body (due to the heart still working) and thus the carcass empties quickly and is left really 'clean'. Having dispatched both birds and rabbits by neck dislocation when we first began this life, and ever since by electrical stunning and a bleed, we really do taste the difference when it comes to eating the cooked animal. Stephen turned up bright and early this morning and got to work – we had a friend arrive with ten more Musocvies for him to do so he was kept quite busy. His set up was great: cones, buckets, an aluminum dispatch table, a wet plucking machine and a hot water drum. He worked efficiently and quickly and whilst there was no denying a minute or two of stress for the birds as they were handled out of their cages and into the cones, it was all done as well as it could be really, considering we were ending their lives!!!
Seven-ish hours and several cups of tea later as well as some down time as we caught up a little with news and gossip, all was done and for a mere £3 per chicken and £5 per duck plus £25 travel (split between us and our friend) we had twenty birds in the freezer ranging from 2.1 to 2.9 kilos. The birds themselves were all between 11 and 13 weeks old (ducks) and 21 weeks (cockerels).
We now have a much more female filled poultry paddock, making it a whole lot quieter. Not that the male Muscovies are that noisy but the cockerels certainly were.
As with all birth to 'meat' scenarios on our smallholding, we are filled with a sense of achievement and yet also sense of sadness. With poultry however it always feels a little easier as it would be a hideous welfare issue to keep all those males – this thought definitely helps!!