Modern Hill Woman

Mom raised chickens, from the tiniest fuzzy things to the drumsticks in the skillet. I’m a little leery of chickens. Hens peck and roosters sometimes flog or spur people. The one time I heard my mom curse was due to a chicken biting her.

Every spring mom ordered a big box of baby chicks from an advertisement in the paper or a magazine. The day they were due to arrive she walked the quarter-mile to the mailbox to collect them and carried them back up the hill. During chick season our mailman Mr. Hawkins delivered four or five boxes of chicks a day on his route. I’m sure his car was noisy and smelled.

They came 100 to a box and the cost was $2.50. It was common to lose a few after being packed tightly into a box with 99 of their closest friends.

If the weather was chilly mom stored them in the laundry room with lights above them for warmth. One time a few curious chicks hopped up on a table, then into the wringer washer and went to meet Jesus.

She’d pick up each chick and sweetly introduce herself and rub their heads. In reality she was separating hens from roosters. There are a few ways to determine their sex; growth of wing feathers, comb size, down color, or a process called venting. She used some or all of these methods, but the endgame was thighs, breasts, drumsticks, and eggs. The young pullets would start laying at 8-12 weeks and the ones for butchering were around that age also.

Butchering day could be traumatic for younger kids, and definitely was for the chickens, but it was a necessity. Mom and the boys carried out the executions. Mom chose to wring their necks. She was swift and competent. The boys used an axe and tree stump because their skill at neck wringing just resulted in stretched out necks and then the axe had to be used anyway.

With chickens flopping around everywhere, if you got too close one might flop up your dress tail. The birds were dipped in boiling water and the younger kids had the unenviable task of plucking feathers. The stench of wet feathers and burned off pen feathers filled the air. Two of my sisters won’t eat chicken or eggs to this day, but I love fried chicken.