Kill Day, or, What Some Folks Won't Do For a Nice Chicken Dinner

It’s 6 AM on a clear and warm Saturday morning in June, the only clear Saturday in a succession of rainy ones. About a dozen folks are beginning to gather in one of the sheds on the Verrill Farm property at the top of Wheeler Rd. in Concord. There are offerings: coffee, herb tea and perfect blueberry muffins wrapped in a homey tea-towel and tucked in a basket, as if anyone could eat (although I do take one for later), as if the sheer ordinariness of blueberry muffins wrapped in a pretty towel could distract from what the morning was really offering. It’s clear that some folks know exactly what to expect, are dressed for the occasion with high rubber boots and bandannas covering their hair. Few know each other. Many, like me, wander around trying to look useful. After a few murmurings of introductions we make our way in silence along the muddy tractor path, down, down, down, around an old foundation to a sunless open area the farm uses to stockpile compost, out of sight.


And there it is, the MPPU, the Mobile Poultry Processing Unit, a jumble of stainless steel contraptions mounted atop a flat bed trailer with a white canopy covering one end, and hoses, tubes, cables, ice chests, propane tanks, plastic buckets, and bottles of disinfectant arrayed all around.


Near the far end of the unit, on the ground, are the plastic crates which each holds 7-9 waiting, quiet birds. But Jen and Pete are animated. To them this is what it’s all about. They have 280 big, healthy birds they’ve cared-for and pasture-raised from chicks; 280 pre-paid customers who are waiting to pick them up and about a dozen people who have volunteered to help. Pete and Jen are cheerful and patient with us, teaching us the procedure at each station: at the cones, the scalder, the plucker, the eviscerating table and the chill tanks. The cone station comes first. Pete demonstrates. He takes a huge clucking Cornish Cross from one of the crates, takes it up onto the platform and gently guides its head down into the cone so that it’s upside down, with its feet sticking up out of the wide part of the cone, and its head sticking out through the narrow opening at the bottom. With an electrified knife (that’s attached by a long cord to an electric source), Pete touches it to the neck of the bird and stuns it so it doesn’t feel the cut, then cuts its neck. The bird begins to bleed and thrash around a bit


and all the blood drains into a metal trough below. Later all the blood, feathers, and viscera (inedible organs) are composted. There are five cones and soon there’s a chicken in every one. Pete lets anyone who’s game try their hand at this part. It’s a little like a lesson in how individuals perform as a group. Our group of strangers manages well-- the more assertive, mostly guys, take over the cones, while I and others like me mill around trying to decide where we fit best. Eventually we manage to sort ourselves out to the various work stations. I end up at the gizzard-cleaning station and after I get over the ew-factor, I get the hang of it. I take a warm gizzard in my gloved hand and first scrape-off the globules of fat clinging to it into a bucket that’s later given to a local person who makes soap out of it. Then I make an incision down the middle of the gizzard (easier to do when they’re chilled, btw), just deep enough to get your thumbs in there, and pry it open into two attached halves.

Inside is a tight ball of curiously bright green grass, undigested grain, and gravel, lots of gravel. We scrape out and discard all of that and with some effort peel back the lining from the gizzard membrane. The goal is to end-up with one whole, crenellated organ that Jen explains will be “packed and sold to folks who like cooking with gizzards—they are pretty tasty.”

Jen circulates from station to station giving instructions and testing the temperature of the chill tanks and the various ice buckets. We pass a congenial few hours at our tasks and finally weigh and label a total of 280 birds. Pete and Jen are appreciative—they couldn’t have done it without us.
As I drive away and leave the shady den of the “processing” area, I’m delayed by crowds gathered near the sun-drenched fields down the road. It’s a carnival atmosphere at the farm-stand with pick-your-own strawberry mania going on. So I take out my blueberry muffin. I need a cup of coffee. I think, in the end what really mattered was that a dozen or so strangers, a blogger, an MIT scientist, a photographer, an archivist, an ex-Broadway dancer, among others, gave up their Saturday, the one clear Saturday, to bring in the harvest.