Real Chicken Farmers

Well, yesterday was an interesting day. We took 13 chickens to the processing plant and we watched a little of the "processing." I don't know how they were killed because I couldn't watch that part but I did see them come flying out of the deplucking machine which was astonishing. The 13 birds went from being alive to store ready in less than 5 minutes. I was amazed at how clean those birds could get so quickly and how fast the workers prepared them. However, there is a certain smell that lingers in the processing plant that I can't seem to get it out of my head. Now, I have worked as an animal health technician for about 10 years so the smell of blood doesn't bother me too much but this smell is different. As a matter of fact, when I ate my first farm raised chicken last night I swear I could almost taste that smell. The meal wasn't as satisfying for me as it was for the rest of my family. My whole family took part in sampling the chicken including my youngest who raised them and they all agreed that it was better than store bought chicken. Me, I kept my thoughts to myself. When I went into the hen house this morning I got a little wiff of the "processing" smell for whatever reason and felt sick to my stomach. Maybe I need more time to pass before I try another one of our home ranged chickens again or maybe I am just not the chicken farmer type. I think it is the latter.