It's a chicken thing, you wouldn't understand.

Today I got the honor of taking Friday off from work!! But, don't jump to conclusions too fast...because today sleeping in was not a part of it. Nor was any thing that I would typically do. Today was totally out of the norm: I got to visit the Chicken Place!!! aka...
Lucky me, I was up early (a bit to my demise) and driven to Orland, Indiana by Mr. Clayton. Orland is the home to the processing plant for Miller Poultry. Once there I was given a hair net, ear plugs and a fancy white lab coat. Dressed for 40 degree weather, I was ready to be given a tour of the plant - from chicken in cage to chicken in package.

The "city" girl, or non-farmer, has officially watched the killing of thousands of chickens and I didn't pass out, I didn't throw up, and I actually ate breakfast, lunch and dinner! I think a lot had to do with how clean the place was! I honestly did not think a chicken processing plant could be so clean and not have much of a smell to it, but it was!!

So let me describe for you a bit of what I saw: the chickens come live, caged on semi trucks. Once they are unloaded from the trucks they are hung by their feet on a processing line. They enter a dark room so to calm them. At one point while on the line they enter a box like structure which stuns them, literally they go in the box a bit stiff, to come out completely limp. From here their necks a slashed, but not the backbone so that the heart continues pumping. From here the processing line takes them through a plucker, and their feathers are removed to look a little something like this:

From here feet are removed, guts are strategically taken out, the chickens are beheaded and a blood/wet feather mixture gushes through a hole in the floor. Of course there's more detail to it than that, but that's a glorified version. Next chickens are weighed, cut and the parts are separated accordingly - for example: boneless skinless breasts, wings, thighs, tender strips, etc., with about 19 in all! Packaged to look like:

What a day: I am now able to better understand a topic which once seemed so foreign at one point. Now I by no means understand it all (as can easily be told by this novice observation) but I have a greater appreciation for what's done.

And once again I am reminded of my minute role and place in the monstrosity of God's world-how little I know and how much more I can only learn!!

So come Saturday afternoon, its time to head back to Indianapolis..to be with my family and get back to learning more of the Sports Marketing world.