Once common, butchering chickens is another task that some may never have seen.

In days gone by, families kept several chickens – laying hens – for eggs, with the chickens typically hatching young in the spring. Roosters commonly were butchered at a few months of age.

Local residents say butchering chickens can easily be done in a day – different from hog butchering, also outlined in this week’s issue.

Gloria and Darlene Wallace of Mountain View grew up on a family farm and learned to butcher chickens at a young age. They are currently passing that skill along to their children.

They have altered the butchering process to make it simple for those who don’t mind chicken meat without the skin. They follow these steps.

First, you kill the chicken.

Gloria’s husband, Kenny, takes the chicken by the feet and places the head on a wooden block. He then puts his foot on the head and with gloved hands pulls the chicken up by its feet to separate the head from the neck.

“Mom could just twist their necks to kill them, but I haven’t found anybody else who could,” said Gloria. “You can also chop the chicken’s head off.”

Once the head is separated, the chicken is tossed to the ground to stay until it stops moving.

“I’ve held their wings, and let them drain in a bucket,” said Kenny.

“I like the meat better when they flop,” added Gloria.

“Mom said that helped to clean the blood out,” explained Darlene.

Kenny then gives Gloria or one of the children the chicken so they can cut off the feet.

The ladies then skin the chicken, which they say is much easier than scalding and plucking the chicken.

“We don’t mind not having the skin. Besides, it’s healthier for you,” said Gloria. “However, turkeys are better plucked.”

Once skinned, they gut the chicken, saving the parts they like to eat.

“Typically, we save the liver, gizzard and heart,” said Darlene.

“Be careful of the bile duct on the liver,” Darlene cautioned. “The liver must be cut out without breaking it, or it will ruin the entire chicken.”

The gutted chicken is then placed in a pot of strong salt water. Let it sit for at least and hour.

Finally, remove the chicken from the salt water, wash it, cut it however you like and then freeze it.

The more traditional method of butchering a chicken is to behead the chicken, drain the blood, scald and pluck, singe, gut, remove pin feathers and cut up.

To scald, get water boiling in the biggest pan you’ve got and dunk the chickens in for a few seconds to get the chicken good and wet.

Then, remove the big wing feathers first, then start at the feet and rub the rest of the feathers off.

Singe the chicken while the feet are still intact. Take a burning sack and turn the chicken over the fire as close as possible to singe the fine hair off. One local resident says brown grocery sacks work best because they don’t burn up as fast.

Cut the feet off, gut the chicken and then remove the pinfeathers.