Where does a girl have to go to kill a chicken?

[paulraphael]

A friend of mine, grappling with the usual omnivore's dilemmas, has gotten stuck on the central one: death. If we are only willing to kill by proxy, then it seems our ethics stand on nothing more solid than denial.

Her solution: see if she is able to overcome basic squeamishness and kill her own bird. If so, she will continue to eat them. If not, she will be a vegetarian forever after. Makes sense to me ... I may have to go cleanse my conscience (and bloody my hands) as well.

The rub: where do you go to kill a chicken? The bird should be well raised; there little point in engaging an ethical exercise with a tortured animal. This pretty much excludes the pollo vivero shacks scattered around NYC's outer boroughs. There also needs to be instruction; there's likewise little point to this if there a chance of incompetence turning the slaughter into a bloody, drawn-out ordeal.

Surely there must be a farm somewhere near New York that caters to the foodies, the eco supper clubs, the bleeding hearts. Or a like-minded, humane pollo vivero butcher, or something?

Edited June 9, 2010 by paulraphael (log)

[chezjim]

Chinatown would be my first suggestion, though I don't know if that meets the ethical criteria.

[rooftop1000]

Goffle Brook Poultry in Glen Rock NJ....maybe

t

[SaltySnack]

May I suggest googling the blog Cold Antler Farm. The girl who is writing it (whose name escapes me) is a back to the land urban homesteader. i am sure if your friend got in touch with her, she would be happy to have her come to her farm and help slaughter a chicken.

[ScoopKW]

Paul, you and your friend are welcome to come out to Las Vegas any time and perform a little Henry VIII on one of my mother in law's chickens.

We'll even make coq au vin after.

I have a easier way -- you're in New York. Some of the best pheasant hunting in the world is in your back yard. Get a hunting license this fall, go upstate, and shoot a few pheasants. Hell, there are even places upstate that will rent you the gun and a dog. Having butchered chickens, shot pheasants (and deer, rabbits, etc.) and pulled a mountain of fish up from the surface, I find it's all the same.

[David A. Goldfarb]

How about asking one of the poultry vendors at the Greenmarket? If you're going to make the effort to travel to a farm, you might as well get a Belle Rouge from Violet Hill or something along those lines.

[Tri2Cook]

For me personally, the gutting and cleaning is worse than the killing. Not from a squeamish standpoint, there are just smells involved that I don't love dealing with. For the killing, I have no idea if it's the "proper" method but what we did when I was growing up was: drive two nails into a heavy board or something (We had an old tree stump with big nails in it that was the designated place for the job. There were three nails, one in the center and one on each side spaced for chicken and turkey necks). Place the birds neck between the nails so the head's on one side and the body is on the other. Pull the birds body away from the nails a little to extend the neck. Chop. One quick, solid chop with a sharp hatchet or cleaver and it's done. Yes, there will be blood and the body will flop around but, unless you're willing to go oldschool and grab it by the head and twist to break it's neck, there's going to be blood. Pigs are much more mess than a chicken and can be more traumatic for those not used to it because sometimes they don't go down as expected. Usually a shot behind the ear followed by cutting the throat does the trick but (fortunately, rarely) the first shot doesn't always put them down. I don't have any experience with cows... but that's not going to stop me from eating beef.

[scott123]

The bird should be well raised; there little point in engaging an ethical exercise with a tortured animal.

If you live in the city, unless you're paying obscene amounts of money for poultry (and even that's no guarantee), you're eating poorly raised chicken. If you're willing to eat poorly raised chickens, you should be able to kill poorly raised chickens. The ethical exercise, in order to be viable, should mimic reality- not be some fantasy world construct.

[sparrowgrass]

Hop a plane to St. Louis, and drive south about 70 miles, and I will let her help me kill the rest of the 25 cockerels that I bought as chicks a couple of months ago. My mom and I killed 9 on Sunday, and help is always necessary.

The actual killing is not a big deal--they don't look up at you with big, brimming eyes and beg you for mercy, ya know.

More practically, I think if your friend is willing to try, that should be enough. She understands that for a meat eater, something has to die to go on the table. Lots of folks really block that out of their minds.

[xxchef]

I'd suggest checking out Local Harvest (www.localharvest.ORG). Lots of family farms, organic and free-range operations are members. A quick search there of "chicken" and "New York, NY" brought up 212 entries. Somebody there would surely welcome the opportunity to educate a city girl.

[naguere]

Dear paulraphael I applaud your aim. properly instructed you will find it is not so difficult, people have horrors about handling live crabs or lobsters just the same.

I will follow you on this.

Pictures please.

[weinoo]

If you live in the city, unless you're paying obscene amounts of money for poultry (and even that's no guarantee), you're eating poorly raised chicken. If you're willing to eat poorly raised chickens, you should be able to kill poorly raised chickens. The ethical exercise, in order to be viable, should mimic reality- not be some fantasy world construct.

How does living in the city have anything to do with the quality of the chicken we're eating?

And I don't care where you live, if you seek out the right product, then the "ethical exercise" has been completed.

[scott123]

If you live in the city, unless you're paying obscene amounts of money for poultry (and even that's no guarantee), you're eating poorly raised chicken. If you're willing to eat poorly raised chickens, you should be able to kill poorly raised chickens. The ethical exercise, in order to be viable, should mimic reality- not be some fantasy world construct.

How does living in the city have anything to do with the quality of the chicken we're eating?

Quality has nothing to do with it. A factory farm chicken raised in a small box could easily end up being tastier than a family farm raised chicken allowed to run around and develop more muscular tissue. In my comment above, 'Poorly raised' = 'inhumanely' raised. The only way to know for certain that the chicken you're eating has been treated humanely is to own a farm or know someone who does. In an urban environment, that's possible if you spend vast sums of money, but, for the vast majority, it's unrealistic. If a person is eating chicken in restaurants or shopping for it in Gristedes, Fairway or even Whole Foods, they're eating inhumanely treated chicken. If someone needs to kill a chicken in order to justify eating chicken that other people are killing for them, the chicken they kill should be identical to the inhumanely raised chicken they're eating.

[ScoopKW]

Or grow them yourself. My mother-in-law's chickens are the pinnacle of "humanely raised." They free-range on a freakin' orchard.

Their eggs are fantastic. But when they stop laying, they gotta go -- economics. And the only thing they're good for at that point is coq au vin.

I very much dislike dispatching them. But I do it because I try to be an ethical omnivore.

[weinoo]

The only way to know for certain that the chicken you're eating has been treated humanely is to own a farm or know someone who does. In an urban environment, that's possible if you spend vast sums of money, but, for the vast majority, it's unrealistic.

Once again, a rather broad all-incompassing statement that's patently false.

I don't need to "know someone." I don't need to "own a farm." I don't need to spend "vast sums of money."

I just need to know how to shop properly.

[paulraphael]

If you live in the city, unless you're paying obscene amounts of money for poultry (and even that's no guarantee), you're eating poorly raised chicken. If you're willing to eat poorly raised chickens, you should be able to kill poorly raised chickens. The ethical exercise, in order to be viable, should mimic reality- not be some fantasy world construct.

There's actually a middle path ... chickens that are raised humanely but not on open pasture or in boutique settings. I buy bobo chickens in NYC. Bobo's operation would probably count as factory farming, but their factories are small, and run with quality and humane treatment as priorities. I pay aout $3/lb for chicken from them. I don't think this is obscene; in fact it's about as little as I can imagine you could sell a well-raised living creature for. Even if it's close to twice the price of the cheapest birds at the supermarket.

I believe there are similar operations serving other big cities. Chinatown markets are a good place to start looking.

[scott123]

The only way to know for certain that the chicken you're eating has been treated humanely is to own a farm or know someone who does. In an urban environment, that's possible if you spend vast sums of money, but, for the vast majority, it's unrealistic.

Once again, a rather broad all-incompassing statement that's patently false.

I don't need to "know someone." I don't need to "own a farm." I don't need to spend "vast sums of money."

I just need to know how to shop properly.

Okay, so you're shopping 'properly.' Which brands are you buying? How much do they cost per pound? Have you been to the farms where these chickens are raised, and, if not, have you either seen photos of the entire farm and/or have the conditions been verified by trusted third parties?

The labels 'Organic' and 'Free Range,' thanks to meaningless USDA regulations, have no bearing on the humane treatment of the birds. Terms like 'Cage-Free' or 'Free-Roaming' are just euphemisms for 'high-density floor confinement.' 'Pastured Poultry' or 'Pasture Raised' can signify humane treatment, but even with that, there's no guarantee.

High-density confinement, be it high-density cage or high-density floor, is inhumane, pure and simple. And, for the urban dweller, that's what the vast majority are eating, regardless of the little labeling games we play to try and make ourselves feel better.

If you have a third party verified non confined brand of chicken that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, please, tell me. As far as I know, such a thing does not exist.

There's actually a middle path ... chickens that are raised humanely but not on open pasture or in boutique settings. I buy bobo chickens in NYC. Bobo's operation would probably count as factory farming, but their factories are small, and run with quality and humane treatment as priorities. I pay aout $3/lb for chicken from them. I don't think this is obscene; in fact it's about as little as I can imagine you could sell a well-raised living creature for. Even if it's close to twice the price of the cheapest birds at the supermarket.

Do you really view high-density floor confinement as a 'middle path?'

[xxchef]

The labels 'Organic' and 'Free Range,' thanks to meaningless USDA regulations, have no bearing on the humane treatment of the birds. Terms like 'Cage-Free' or 'Free-Roaming' are just euphemisms for 'high-density floor confinement.' 'Pastured Poultry' or 'Pasture Raised' can signify humane treatment, but even with that, there's no guarantee.

You are forgetting about independent monitoring agencies which DO concentrate on the humane living conditions and treatment of the animals at the facilities they inspect. I'm familiar with the Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) organization [http://www.certifiedhumane.org/] but I know there are several others across the country including a program by American Humane http://americanhumane.org

HFAC is "A national non-profit 501©3 organization created to improve the lives of farm animals by setting rigorous standards, conducting annual inspections, and certifying their humane treatment." They inspect farms, transporters and slaughter facilities and award their "Certified Humanely Raised and Handled" certification, labeling and branding assistance to places that meet their criteria.

[scott123]

The labels 'Organic' and 'Free Range,' thanks to meaningless USDA regulations, have no bearing on the humane treatment of the birds. Terms like 'Cage-Free' or 'Free-Roaming' are just euphemisms for 'high-density floor confinement.' 'Pastured Poultry' or 'Pasture Raised' can signify humane treatment, but even with that, there's no guarantee.

You are forgetting about independent monitoring agencies which DO concentrate on the humane living conditions and treatment of the animals at the facilities they inspect. I'm familiar with the Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) organization [http://www.certifiedhumane.org/] but I know there are several others across the country including a program by American Humane http://americanhumane.org

HFAC is "A national non-profit 501©3 organization created to improve the lives of farm animals by setting rigorous standards, conducting annual inspections, and certifying their humane treatment." They inspect farms, transporters and slaughter facilities and award their "Certified Humanely Raised and Handled" certification, labeling and branding assistance to places that meet their criteria.

http://www.certifiedhumane.org/uploads/pdf/Fee%20Schedule.08.2A.pdf

You call that independent?

[Marmish]

Farm Camp

NYTimes article

[xxchef]

You call that independent?

Perhaps a poor word use there on my part, I meant "private". You were bemoaning the worthlessness of the various government programs when it comes to giving the consumer info on humane animal care (and I don't disagree).

That said, just because HFAC gets paid a fee by some of the producers for performing the inspections doesn't mean they cannot maintain their independence from them.

HFAC is still largely third-party funded and is "endorsed by a consortium of animal welfare organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA), the Atlanta Humane Society, the Humane Society of Vero Beach, the Hawaiian Humane Society, The Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCALA), and others." This helps keep them financially (and often philosophically) independent from the producers they inspect.

They are also the only organization of their type to be audited and "found to be in compliance with the Organization for Standardization (ISO) Guide 65 General requirements for bodies operating a product certification by the USDA. ISO Guide 65 specifies requirements for organizations operating third-party product certification systems."

In other words they have worked hard to design and maintain a system of checks and balances to keep them independent and have gone to an outside agency for verification of these efforts. I don't know what else one can expect an organization to do to help ensure the absence of impropriety or to maintain their "independence".

[weinoo]

Do you really view high-density floor confinement as a 'middle path?'

Yep. And it's as good as us poor city boys can do.