h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi there, I've just been reading your page and see that you have never been a chicken plucker; if you mean as in removing feathers from dead poultry, I have done that and worse.

Way back when.....when I was a girl, we lived on a farm & we used to get our own little production line going. I'd dispatch 'em, my mom would pluck 'em & my da used to draw 'em. All my little brother used to do was cut off the feet, he used to take them to school & sell 'em to other little horrors who'd chase the girls with 'em, pulling the tendons. We only did the broodies tho'.

When I was in Infants, we had a smallholding nearby where they reared chickens for eggs and Xmas sales. Every year, just before Xmas, the man of the smallholding would dispatch the chickens, by cutting their throats over the (outside)toilet bowl, then a gang of us children would pluck them, while the old lady did the drawing etc, all by gas light.

The worst I have ever done was pheasants, when I was training to be a chef.

I used to do it over a tin bath, the blood was saved, mixed with all sorts of other gunk & put on the fields