(It should be noted that this blog, like chicken, should be taken with a grain of salt)
When you spend as much time as I do sitting in a big old recliner chair with a computer in your lap looking out the window waiting for the winter to end but not really caring all that much because you rarely venture out in the cold and snow anyway, you have lots of time to think. Today, I’ve been thinking about chickens and how I might get rich off of them in my old age just like Colonel Harland Sanders did when he started KFC at the age of 65.
Colonel Douglas. I kinda like the sound of that. I can picture it too:big guy with a goatee as white as his suit shilling fried chicken wing franchises nationwide. That’s right, its wings only baby.
Wings are where the money is; or must be since so many places that feature them are taking flight across the country especially in Sioux Falls where in just the past couple weeks it was announced two new restaurants were opening; Buffalo Wild Wings will expand with a third location on the East Side. Plus a franchise, new to this market called Wingstop, will be locating on Minnesota Avenue. Chicken wings are a specialty at most every sports bar in town..not to mention their popularity at parties..especially with the NFL playoffs going on and Super Bowl coming up. The National Chicken Council estimates that last year 1.25 billion chicken wings were eaten on Super Bowl Sunday, and that 23% of people who watched the game ate wings — a few, or perhaps a few dozen, each. Of course you can’t have chicken wings without the whole chicken which got me to wondering; what are they doing with all the other truly delicious parts of the bird whose lives have been sacrificed to harvest those useless..yet tasty..limbs? I picture that scene from “Dances with wolves” when prior to the buffalo hunt, Costner and the Sioux come across hundreds of bison carcasses rotting in the sun stripped bare by white hunters interested only in the valuable buffalo hides.
Are they finding enough outlets and uses for processed chicken meat sans wings? Or are there piles of once prized breasts and thighs tossed out the door to become elegant dining for wild animals? I see some fast food places offering “boneless wings!” No such thing people. It’s probably a desperate attempt to disguise and dispose of the former prime cuts.
Let’s see, where was I?
Oh, yeah..getting rich off chickens.
I’ve done considerable research on the subject of meat efficiency ( a few Google searches) and have decided that it is quite possible to genetically engineer these birds to grow a pair…an extra pair of wings, that is. Listen, it’s already being done ON PEOPLE.
It’s possible to grow a new nose on the forehead of this chap who desperately needs one. Once it reaches sufficient size it will be surgically removed and implanted in the less gross normal position.
Or a replacement ear on this guy’s forearm.
So here’s my prototype for a four winged chicken.
It would appear that aerodynamically, a 4 wing chicken would be just as flight challenged as the two wing variety easing fears of them flying the coop.
Double the profits right out of the chute. Plus the PETA people will be happy (well, nothing short of global veganism will make them happy) by cutting the chicken slaughter in half. Plus, imagine the friendly bar competitions over who gets the more tender and tasty bottom wings in the basket.
I suppose I shouldn’t be letting the chicken out of the henhouse without first getting the process patented but I plan to put Hemmingsen on the case. He’s in daily contact with some of the greatest minds in agriculture who meet each afternoon at Cedrics in Hendricks, Minnesota to exercise those minds playing Jeopardy on the bar TV. I’ll bet that after a few beverages and a basket of wings, they’ll have both the genetic challenges and a marketing strategy all figured out.
Me, I’ve got a couple of white suits on order and a pretty good start on a goatee.
A rather stern blurry selfie but shows my Col Douglas Goatee progress since the New Year.