An essential course for anyone who keeps chickens and occassionally needs to be able humanely despatch a bird due to sickness or injury or those keeping a small flock for meat production. Courses start with a seminar style introduction covering rearing birds for the table, breeds, and their husbandry. Using models, props and posters we then learn about the external and internal anatomy of birds paying particular attention to the organs we eat, where we may find parasites and signs of disease; important knowledge when rearing meat birds. Participants will be taught how to humanely dispatch a meat chicken and then how to pluck their birds, first we cover dry plucking and then wet plucking. The chickens used for the course are reared free range on a 22 acre smallholding less than 10 miles from Denmark Farm - talk about low food miles! You will then learn the gutting process in a bright and airy classroom complete with instructions to take home for you to follow later and reinforce what has been learnt on the day.