They were slaughtered Sunday afternoon &mdash; exsanguinated, eviscerated, exposed.</p><p>Chiefs vs. Chargers?</p><p>No. Chickens vs. Novella Carpenter&rsquo;s urban farming students.</p><p>&ldquo;You always remember your first,&rdquo; says Carpenter, 35, of Oakland, Calif., author of &ldquo;Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.&rdquo; She writes about sustainable-food production and has come to Kansas City at the invitation of Bad Seed, a Kansas City organic farm. </p><p>As she speaks, five fluffy red hens peck and scratch the ground near her feet.</p><p>The 10 people sitting on straw bales at the Blue Door Farm along 55th Street in northern Kansas City, Kan., have all dreamed about raising chickens in their backyards.</p><p>Backyard bird fanatics, they call themselves.</p><p>But along with the good (eating hours-fresh eggs) and the bad (cleaning out those coops) comes the dreaded day when a chicken might need to be culled.</p><p>Nice way of saying killed. For many urban farmers, that&rsquo;s the biggest challenge. But there are many reasons to cull, Carpenter says.</p><p>Maybe in the female-only chick batch you ordered online, you ended up with a rooster. (Bad!) </p><p>Or maybe there&rsquo;s one aggressive hen picking out another chicken&rsquo;s feathers. (Bad!)</p><p>Or maybe you just want to taste the best chicken you&rsquo;ve ever had in your life because you raised it yourself.</p><p>Carpenter spends an hour covering the basics of chicken keeping. From how to build the chicken coop (with aviary mesh or hardware cloth, not chicken wire, because a raccoon can reach through it) to how to make a homegrown brooder for new chicks (a big box and an old-fashioned light bulb) to the very earthy topic of what to do with all that chicken poop (bury it in the garden).</p><p>An average chicken lives eight years but stops laying eggs after two, she says.</p><p>She tells the class how chickens will eat just about anything: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always felt if I fell down and died, they&rsquo;d have no problem eating me. &hellip; That might help some of you today once we get started.&rdquo;</p><p>The class groans and laughs a little. Everyone is watching the chickens as they saunter by, wattles wagging, some of them preening feathers even fluffier.</p><p>And now it is time.</p><p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a million ways to kill a chicken,&rdquo; Carpenter says, &ldquo;but I like to use these loppers.&rdquo; </p><p>The pruners are two feet long, with a bite that can cut an inch-and-a-half tree branch. She snaps the blades in the air.</p><p>She looks at her students, notes a few squeamish faces and adds: &ldquo;Remember to breathe when you do it. &hellip; This has been going on for thousands of years.&rdquo;</p><p>She picks up the closest chicken, turns it upside down and smoothes its feathers. At first it squawks, but it suddenly grows calm. She holds it upside down, waiting.</p><p> &ldquo;Thank you, honey, for what you&rsquo;re about to give,&rdquo; Carpenter tells the chicken. She says a little prayer and blows a wisp of sage smoke into the chicken&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;I burn sage to help the chicken&rsquo;s spirit.&rdquo;</p><p>She stretches the bird&rsquo;s neck. Assistant Samin Noscrat, 29, an organic cook from Berkeley, Calif., does the deed with a snip.</p><p>The head drops into a 5-gallon bucket with a thunk. The body flops and twists as Carpenter grips its feet, until finally it is still. Some people let a chicken&rsquo;s headless body run around, but Carpenter believes that is disrespectful. </p><p>She swishes the chicken in a pot of hot water to loosen the feathers, then moves to a table and begins to pluck. &ldquo;It has the same feel as plucking your eyebrows,&rdquo; she says.