On ‘Chicken Killing Day’

I’m hoping that Virginia Phillips’ ‘Chicken Killing Day’ is one of those articles that when you wrote it you thought it was fine, but when you read it, published on the page, you’re horrified.

Let’s deconstruct:

• Phillips, a writer and Slow Food supporter, wanted to kill a chicken. In fact, she writes, "I knew I needed this experience." I, in case you’re wondering, have never felt like I needed to learn how to kill anyone, although I would like to learn how to kill/euthanize animals who are suffering and not in a position to get the proper medical care. But I digress.
• Phillips went to a "chicken killing day," which appears to be like a Tupperware party, except you slaughter sentient beings because you "must support taking the lives of food animals" since you eat meat. The hostess teaches you how to kill.
• Now, part of me respects Phillips for the desire for her endeavor (not for the killing part). If you’re going to eat meat, think you should have to kill the animal yourself. However, the other part–the part with a conscience–says that once face to face with the chicken, how on earth could you kill her? What series of lies, disconnects and rationales do you feed yourself to get you through the slaughter? Wait, wait, she’ll tell you.
• But first, a taste of the lesson (Sandra is the teacher):

Taking turns, we are to complete the following cycle: reach into the cage, seize a bird, grasp it with one hand by its legs. Carry "our" hen, head down, across the lane to a grassy spot, use our "very sharp knife" to do the deed, bring it back, slosh its lifeless body three times in the hot water, pluck it, gut it, and put it in the bucket of ice water.

"You need a firm grip." Sandra dons yellow kitchen gloves.

"Find a nice place and kneel." She places the quiet hen on its stomach, securing it between her knees.

She explains as she works: "Stretch the neck tight, cut widely across the underside of the neck, across both arteries and deep enough to hit bone. I would never use an ax; they are brutal."

The bird gives a big shudder, a small flap, smaller shudders. The blood pours, rapidly disappearing into the ground. "See how the neck feathers are relaxing. I think she’s gone." The dying has taken maybe 40 seconds.

I think my favorite part is: "I would never use an ax; they are brutal." Or maybe it’s the dying that takes 40 seconds and not being sure if she’s dead. It is most fascinating that Phillips calls the hen(s) "it," yet the seasoned killer, who apparently understands that each chicken is an individual and hens are female, calls the hen "she." Although at the end of the article, she does say she has sometime had days that she didn’t feel like killing anything (things, FYI, are not alive and sentient).

• Barb and Randa are also present on killing day. They are nurse anesthetists, which is mindboggling. Their job is compassion. Barb says, "We’re just meat, too," as if what they’re doing is somehow justified, as at the end of the day we’re all made of the same stuff. And she’s right–we are. And precisely because we can all feel pain and pleasure and terror, just like we all have a liver and entrails, we should perhaps realize that we don’t have the right to take the life of another for no good reason (a food type that is not necessary to eat is not a good reason).
• Barb, in another moment of super-human denial or utter lack of compassion, says: "This is so much better than what I did, so much more respectful. I don’t feel sick; I thought I would. I thought it would be gross, but doing it didn’t feel so bad." Let’s ask the hen about her experience. Oh, wait . . .
• Randa then chimes in with what was probably the most startling comment: "I was surprised at the depth of connection, feeling the bird die in your hands. It was taking responsibility." It was taking responsibility? That simply must be a typo. It must have originally read I was taking responsibility. And as for that connection–and the depth of it–I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the connection was a one-way affair. If I were the hen in her hands, being slaughtered by her after having just met her acquaintance moments prior, I’m not sure "deep connection" would be the words I’d use to describe how I was feeling.
• As for Phillips’ kill . . .

Before I make my move, the bird flaps free of my knee embrace. Sandra assists. I try again. This is not knife through butter. Using all my strength I try to make the cut. The panicked bird makes another lunge. Life wants to live! We are both unstrung. I can’t feel or see what my knife is doing, but here is the gushing blood. The struggle has nicked my finger; we join blood.

Ah, the joy of joining blood when you’re killing a sentient being just so you can feel what it’s like to kill her! This is what I mean when I say that sometimes when you read what you’ve written, you suddenly see it as others will see it and it paints a very different picture of what you thought occured.

Finally, and sadly, Sandra’s e-mail to Phillips begins: "I wanted you to know what a great time I had Saturday butchering chickens with y’all! No, seriously, you were as respectful and honoring of these beautiful birds as anyone would hope for." As a reader of this story, I don’t see respect or honor anywhere.