Rooster Soup

We recently visited our friends Colin and CC in Mendocino who live on "The Land"  They are considered family and our kids are like cousins. We always look forward to our annual trip to their property and this year was no exception.

We were lucky enough to visit when they had a surplus of roosters. You see, one of their hens hatched 4 eggs and 3 of those eggs ended up being boys. Too many roosters in a pen is allot of noise and expensive to feed. I was hoping we could kill us some rooster and make rooster soup. I really wanted my girls to see the process from animal to the dinner plate. CC was more than happy to oblige and do the dirty work.

She hung them by their feet and quickly cut off their heads. I know chickens supposedly go crazy after their heads are chopped off, but I didn't know how crazy. They really flap and flutter, so much they sprayed blood in a giant radius, giving us all a fine dimpling of red splatter. The kids decided to stay away for this part.

After the roosters stilled, the kids came for me to collect feathers. It is fricken hard to pluck the darn things out. CC  began the arduous task of skinning and gutting them. Thankfully she has done this before and I didn't have to help as I am sure I would have been all thumbs.  It is quite a messy and time consuming task.

A couple hours later we had two beautifully cleaned roosters ready for the stock pot.  We composted the third one because we ran out of time to skin it. Later than night we feasted on a rich rooster soup. The meat was too tough to get off the birds so we gave the carcasses to the dogs. The soup was delicious!!!

I love that my kids got to see what is really involved in making a chicken dinner. Thanks so much Colin and CC!


Tying them up

One on left ready to get it and one on right already got it

Coruna & CC skinning the chicken

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