There is an old joke....."I was impressed with the new instructional book on Roadkill, some great recipes in it, saving a fortune on my Asda bills......the only problem is.......what do I do with all the bicycles?"

Well.....I also have a use for roadkill.

In the normal Tarquin syle....I brief preamble.

Never having owned an animal previously (do Koi count as animals?), I acquired 6 chickens last year. Built a nice coop for them, fresh eggs every day....tasty.

No security fences, pack of six wild dogs jumped the stone walls last year.....resulting in 3 dead chickens in the field, 1 died the following day......2 severely injured but survived.

After several hours of YouTube videos, I learnt to gut and portion the dead chickens. The first anatomy-lesson was the worst, the other 2 were easier and I have to tell you that they were excellent eating....far far better than store-bought chicken.

Anyway, one year later the fences are in, 10 new chickens were raised from chicks in my bath-tub and are outside now in the coop.....the local "wild dog pack" is missing three of its numbers and have now learnt to circumnavigate the Hacienda!.......things were looking good until a month ago.

3am....horrendous screeching from outside.....Tarkers jumps out of bed, underpants and flip-flops only (not a pretty sight!), grabs a torch and runs, well ok, stumbles, towards the chicken coop.

Flashing the torch around, I find one white chicken pinned to the floor with what I can only describe as the most vile-looking, rat-like creature, trying to bite its neck off. I look around for the dog-killer (a 6 foot pitch-fork) and by the time I locate it....the fiendish thing is off over the 4 foot fence and gone.

The chicken survived a huge gash in its neck....2 days propped up inside a cardboard box and a bit of TLC.

A few nights later....exactly the same thing at 4am.....this time I was ready, sleeping next to the open window, pitch-fork ready, torch to hand.....3 minutes later.....one dead Opossum.....no dead chickens.

No idea if anyone has seen these things, the only marsupial in the Americas, but they look like a giant rat with an 18 inch prehensile tail and ferocious teeth....urghhhhh.

The bad news is....they have about a dozen babies that the female carries around!!

So far this month, no more in the chicken coop, but one dead one under a manhole cover by the back door (it took me 4 days to locate the smell!), one dead one in the sheep-pen and one "exploded" in the electric sub-station after chewing through a cable and knocking out the power to the office (again it took me 3 or 4 days to locate the smell and it was heaving with maggots as I dismantled the panels)......luckily I am getting used to it by now.

OK....back on subject....Roadkill.

Why waste good protein by throwing it to the vultures.....when you can BBQ it.......and feed it back to the chickens?

They absolutely loved this Opossum....the 10 new chickens plus the 2 from last year, took about 4 hours to polish off this specimen once cooked!!........the Revenge of the Chickens!!

I am now working on a new design of an underground BBQ pit......where I can leave the Roadkill cooking overnight, similar to the Kalua pig-roast.

 

 

 

I don't know why, yet again this reminded me of something else (a movie).

I agree, roadkill shouldn't be wasted and it takes someone adventurous to eat etc - probably something I would never do myself, I'm a notoriously fussy eater but I know a friend from Texas who does - yet I can't say for sure, I think they passed a rule saying you can't pick up roadkill or something like that (as I recall a status about hunting seasons, x, y and now the roadkill).

It seems you quite like BBQ's @tarquinbeech.

After viewing my 4am ramblings, it has occurred to me that I look slightly deformed in the 2nd picture?

My head is too large and my top-half is bigger than the bottom half.....I also appear to be developing a double chin?

Does anyone know if this is a sign of developing old age......or am I morphing into a strange alien creature from Lord of the Rings?

In the UK, I think you're not allowed to pick up roadkill if you killed it yourself, but you can help yourself to dead things you happen to find on the road. That opossum looks a bit charred though 

I thought it was just an American thing myself, never heard or known of anyone in the UK to do it (not that it's a bad thing).

Just imagine it's a little hard to remain safe on our small roads and highways.

You wouldn't want to end up Leatherfaces launch or Hannibals dinner! It's a bit grim when you actually think about it, I've seen all sorts though - accidents, coach blowing up, people walking into the wood land areas on the side way but never someone picking up a dead rabbit etc. :/