Processing Poultry, In Life and Death...

Today, there is only one photo.  It was all I could bear to take.This morning, Dina and I reluctantly rose at five am, plucked our Dorothies from their comfortable roosts, placed them gently their old chick brooder, and drove them to Cambridge to leave them in the care of Louis, a man with a knife and bloody apron.It was the second time we have culled members of our current flock but the first time we shed tears.  The first two we butchered were easy to let go. They were at the top of the pecking order – big bully chickens that harassed the weaker chickens and plucked out their feathers. We were sad and relived in equal measure when they were gone.Today’s trip to the butcher was a different story. These girls were the last four of our original flock of Buff Orpingtons and they were model chickens:  friendly, trusting, curious, and beautiful.  We raised and coddled them from tiny puffballs of nuclear-cuteness to resplendent feathered dinosaurs. They had distinct personalities. All of our friends knew them.Watching them peck peacefully at the straw in their brooder during their final truck ride pulled at our conscience. They clearly trusted (as they always had) that where we had put them was good and safe. I hesitate to anthropomorphize and presume how they regarded us or that they felt betrayal at the end. But for better or worse we transferred our emotions onto their experience, which made the process a struggle.  They were chickens, but they were our chickens.I’m noticing a spectrum of feelings about killing animals ranging from pure thoughtlessness on one end to callous indifference on the other.  Those on the thoughtless side don’t recognize the connection between tidy packages of meat in the deli and the hot-blooded, squawking bird from which they came. At the other end are those who are so accustomed to killing animals that they can take life  without a second thought.As we move along that spectrum, emerging from our own naivety about the origins of our food into the process of killing animals ourselves, we still stumble at the knife’s edge – literally. Even though we feel it’s the ethical and conscious stance toward eating meat, killing a living creature is an almost impossible task. In order to be farmers, we figured we just needed to do this enough to “get over” the sting of the killing animals we’ve raised from babes.But perhaps the morality of eating meat remains closer to where we find ourselves now – in a struggle with killing to eat. It feels important to know enough about our food as to avoid being mindless consumers.  But it also feels wrong to become so inured to killing that we cease to be present to gratitude, sadness and reverence.This is a contemporary struggle.  Only from place of abundant privilege in which people aren’t living hand-to-mouth do we have the luxury to step back and consider the ethics of growing, raising and killing our food.   I recognize this and I realize I’m at risk of coming off as a bit precious.But I do think lives of privilege require a bit of extra reflection and responsibility.  Without it, we forget that our abundance is finite.  We forget our gratitude and consume without regard for cost, we destroy our environment and deny ourselves the opportunity for spiritual growth.Stewarding land, caring for animals, and yes – killing them – connects me deeply to the cycle of life. It feels very real and essential to being human in a way that sitting in front of this computer does not.  And so, I guess I wish the privileged among us would grapple more with these questions. I think we would become more responsible consumers and better stewards of this planet.I hear that Native Americans blessed the lives of animals they took in the hunt. This feels really right.Before leaving for the butcher this morning we sat in the bed of the truck with the Dorothies and tried to summon a few words that could convey our gratitude and respect for their brief passage though this life.  It’s all over now, and we’re still very sad.  This whole business of raising, butchering and eating remains fraught and full of mystery. Perhaps over time we will find some peace, but for the time being, we’re finding meaning in the very real rawness of our emotions.As hard as it feels today, perhaps this is right where we need to be.