Redneck Bar & Grill

There seems to be a need for a how-to on big fat bird squeezing. Surprises me, too. What surprises me even more is to realize that I know how to squeeze a plump bird properly. Go figure. I guess it’s just specialized redneck knowledge. And no, this isn’t related to choking chickens or spanking monkeys. That’s a different post for some other day.
Reading this post just won’t be the same unless you know why I’m writing it, so you better go look at JD’s I am Famous (and More!) post. Okay, read it now? Good. Now go back and read all the comments.
So if you want to squeeze a nice, fat bird, you have to promise to follow JD’s parameters. Just enough to get a little squawk (maybe a squack if it’s a duck), and no more! This discussion is not to allow anyone to go out squeezing birds indiscriminately or in a harmful manner. The other thing I’d like you to do for me is stay off the bottle! I don’t want to hear of anyone getting all juiced up and squashing some poor bird while inebriated.
I never planned on squeezing birds. It was more my parent’s idea. They would send me out there by myself to pick eggs, and there would be chickens sitting on them. Right off the bat you find out that one end of a chicken is pointy, and it can hurt you. You can usually just reach under the hen and get the egg, or the hen might jump up and leave. Remember to watch out for the rooster, if you have one. Some of them sneak up behind and attack! No, really, I’m serious. Not too bad for an adult, but a seven year old is a little shorter. Those little peckers can hurt! Anyways, sometimes we had to catch the hens or move them out of the way, so we would have to pick them up. Usually squeezing was involved to keep them in your hands. Birds are warm and fluffy, just like you bird squeezing wannabe’s might have all thought.
Let’s move on here.
All bird squeezing beginners should start out with large chickens, or quails, or another domesticated bird with small useless wings. The reason for this is big wings can hurt you! Just take my word for it. A goose can darn near flap you to death. And don’t even think about what a swan could probably do. Once you’ve mastered chickens, you can work your way up to larger birds if you want. Another key point to remember is the beak, and you want to stay out of the way of that. Chickens, ducks and quails have short necks, so if you squeeze them from behind they can only reach around so far to get you. Geese have long necks and really nasty bills, so you do the math (chickens over short neck + tiny beak <goose with long neck dangerous bill).
I shouldn’t have to point out, but will anyways, that squeezing wild birds can be a dangerous activity fraught with peril. If you can even get close enough to a wild bird to squeeze it, it’s not gonna be happy. If you do any wild bird squeezing, I suggest you get a camcorder and someone to tape it, so you can show us how it went!
One last tip. Every spring, many kinds of birds moult, which means to lose most of their winter feathers and grow new ones for the year. The new feathers are called pinfeathers, and chickens for sure seem very uncomfortable if you squeeze them in the pinfeather stage. A good analogy might be how some people have reported they feel after they shave their unmentionables and the hair starts growing back in. I haven’t done this myself, so I have to go by what I’ve heard about “uncomfortable crotch pricklies” and I imagine that’s what chickens go through every spring, on their whole body.
So take it easy on those chickens. You can tell if they are moulting or not by checking to see if they look bedraggled. If they are sleek and shiny, you’re good to go. Squeeze!
Now after all this, I expect some feedback. I want to hear some reports from the field. Even if you get as far as seeing a bird and then ‘chickening out’, I want to know!
Photo courtesy of Sillydog

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