The Chicken Murderers

Jim is the tall guy in the center.

Every farm community has that group—the one that shows up when someone’s in trouble, tools in hand, ready to tackle whatever disaster life has cooked up. Ours just happens to call themselves The Chicken Murderers. It’s possible we should be concerned.

Last week, a fellow farm family lost their barn to a fire. Total devastation. No water, no power, and not even a chicken coop left standing. Only the broiler chickens out in the field survived. So naturally, our ragtag New Hampshire Small and Beginning Farmers group rallied the troops.

Jim (my husband and resident “Head of All Things Sharp and Pointy”) joined five other generous souls from around the state—some driving up to three hours just to say, “Hey, want us to kill your chickens for you?” Because nothing says we care like rolling up to your burnt-out farm and offering to process your poultry.

Since the fire left the original farm more like a pile of kindling with charred memories, the whole chicken shebang was moved to a nearby farm with functioning water, power, and, importantly, a place where feathers could fly freely.

Enter: the mobile poultry processing unit. This isn’t your average backyard setup. This thing is a trailer of doom on wheels. Stainless steel everything, cones lined up like a poultry guillotine, a scalder the size of a hot tub, and a plucker that looks like it could double as a wood chipper. It’s like the Batmobile of backyard butchering. Normally you rent it, but something tells me this gig was more of a “pay what your conscience allows” situation.

The rig rolled in around 9:30 AM, full of promise and potential chaos. The chickens made their entrance at 10:00, riding in high style in a horse trailer. You could tell they were suspicious. There’s just something about arriving at a party where nobody clucks back that feels… off.

Setup took a while, as these things do. The cold well water took forever to heat, which gave the crew plenty of time to stand around rearranging equipment eight different ways and pretending to know where everything goes. Meanwhile, deep conversations blossomed—everything from livestock guardian dogs to soap that smells like lavender instead of barnyard funk. It was like a farmer’s TED Talk with feathers.

And then... 2:30 PM hit. The water was finally hot. The cones were lined up. The plucker was spinning menacingly. It was go time..

Let’s pause to appreciate that five hours were spent preparing for one hour of poultry pandemonium. But once they got rolling, it was a well-oiled (and slightly feathery) machine. Chickens in, chickens out. Heads off, hearts out, into the bag, onto the ice. There’s something oddly poetic about a group of folks bonding over a shared task involving beheading 50 birds. It's like the most morbid barn dance you’ve ever seen.

By late afternoon, 50 chickens had been properly dispatched, cleaned, bagged, and iced. The family had food. The community had stepped up. And Jim came home smelling like wet feathers, scorched water heater, and... Eau de Chicken.

Chicken drying/packaging rack.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about farmers, it’s this: when things go up in smoke, we don’t run away—we run toward the smoke, with coolers, knives, and coffee strong enough to dehorn a bull.

Also, apparently, we give ourselves serial killer nicknames. But hey, every good support group needs a little dark humor. And a plucker.

Photos courtesy of Lisa Richards

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