I’ll just begin this post on the morning of the “taking care of the ducks”. Again, I didn’t know how I’d feel once we started so I skipped breakfast. Turns out, that was a mistake and I definitely should have eaten because “taking care of” 6 ducks is hard work.
The other two friends which I will refer to as “Suburban Farmer” and “Farm Raised Friend” participated as well. Armed with almost too much information from the internet we readied our tools, and tried to make small talk as we calmed our nerves.
I was scared. I was scared I would cry, I was scared for the duck, I was scared of how I would feel during, and after. So, being the scaredy cat I am, I nominated Farm Raised Friend to do the first honors. Farm Raised Friend was raised (obviously) on a farm and had helped her family slaughter pigs before – we thought she should go first.
We didn’t use the traffic cone method that much of the internet uses for chickens because ducks have SO MUCH fat that we simply didn’t think we have a knife sharp enough to do it quickly and painlessly. Which left the hatchet. You can use your imagination for that part.
In case you think that it’s only chickens whose muscles twitch after death – you’re wrong. Apparently, it’s most animals – unless you stun them first which is what is typically done with cows and pigs and larger animals. I thought that they only twitched for a minute or two – but I was wrong. WRONG. It depended on the duck, but I swear a few of them kept flapping for 5 minutes. But again, that could be my brain’s interpretation of the situation vs reality.
I had a brief moment of wanting to turn around and walk away and forget what I saw with duck #1. But that would be hiding from reality, and I had already made the decision not to. So I just stared at the scene, shaking with a horrified look on my face. Slaughter and meat prep is not clean or easy, it is not pretty and it is very, very real.
I tried to tell myself that they weren’t feeling any pain beyond a few seconds, because if consciousness is from the brain and their brain isn’t receiving any blood, plus their brain isn’t connected to the rest of the body then it can’t be communicating the pain. Right? I was horrified with the first duck, it’s flapping seemed never ending (though, may have only been a minute or two).
Ducks have tons of tiny pin feathers and hair, so in addition to plucking all its feathers you have to go after the hair – with tweezers. So Suburban Farmer, Farm Raised Friend and I all sat around the first duck pluck, pluck, tweezing away. It took ages.
After 2 ducks, we decided on a new course of action. It was also time for me to be involved in more than the plucking. I took duck # 3′s life, as well as ducks #4 and #6.
We decided a better course of action would be to process more than one duck at a time, so we would kill, hang, kill, hang, kill, hang – remove extremities, then pluck, pluck, pluck tweeze. We also removed the insides at the very end and saved the livers for a friend of Farm Raised Friend.
It’s mostly after the plucking that your brain registers what you’re looking at as something found in the supermarket vs something that was playing in its ducky pool a few minutes ago. Honestly, after duck #3 and I were “introduced” it became easier. I began to accept that I was no longer on the outside of this whole thing, I was on the inside – taking a conscious and active role. I think we also began to perfect our techniques so that became easier as well.
It took us from 11am to 3pm to process six ducks. Suburban Farmer is keeping a few ducks for egg laying, and a few others aren’t big enough to go the way of Sunday’s six just yet. Suburban Farmer also has roosters that will need to be “taken care of” later in the summer.
This experience didn’t scare me off, but it did grant me more perspective, as a result Nick and I will be eating more vegetarian meals and I’d also like to investigate cooking with unusual cuts of meat. I don’t want parts of these animals wasted. There are only so many animal deaths a week that I feel comfortable contributing to.
I had dreams about the ducks on Sunday night and I felt exhausted in every way possible on Monday. I don’t regret doing it, and I plan on participating the next time as well. I understand why many farmers space out their slaughters and freeze the animals after. It would be too much to do that every weekend.
*Curious about the types of ducks? We processed two black Swedish ducks, two blue Swedish ducks, one Cayuga and one Peking. The Peking was HUGE compared to the others. HUGE. I can see why it is a popular duck to raise for meat.
