Chicken Plucking Party

Chicken Plucking Party

These pictures were taken by my first camera, a Brownie.  They have the fuzzy slow-shutter-speed mediocre-quality-lens look about them that was perfect for a 10-year-old.  My dad may have hogged the camera - I'm in part of these pictures - but this may have been the start of my photographic obsession.  It helps that I had a really fun subject, butchering our chickens.

At Easter in 1959 a store in downtown Northfield, Minnesota sold chicks as pets.   The other kids - their parents actually - were smarter than us and gave us their chicks.  Dad built a chicken coop and everything was ducky until the males got big enough to cock-a-doodle-do.  A neighbor probably complained so a party was set up to do in the birds.

Our parents let us help.  One of our neighbors, Laurie MacKenzie, holds a bird as her mother gives advice.

I'm carting a chicken around although I spent more of my time watching.  Our chicken coop can be seen in the right center of the picture.

I'd heard about chopping blocks but our fathers gave a demonstration of how it was used.

Dad got the job of dipping the bird in hot water for the plucking.

Plucking chickens is a messy business, dominated by the adults.

Kids did get plucking practice. 

This effort was followed up with a neighborhood fried chicken dinner.   These pictures aren't up to my modern standards but they're still wonderfully fun.   Us town kids were given a taste of country living and I was given practice with my new camera.