A couple of chicken-producing outfits are coming about as close as we’re going to get to the schmoo.   

Al Capp, creator of the comic strip “Li’l Abner,” introduced the schmoo in 1948 as a humane way to provide for meat for the table. The schmoo was a little white creature shaped like a bowling pin. Depending on how you prepared it, schmoo meat tasted like beef, pork or chicken.

The best part about it was that you didn’t have to slaughter the lovable little guys. All you had to do was eye them hungrily and they’d keel over from sheer pleasure. That overcame one of the most unpleasant aspects of putting meat and poultry on the table: the slaughter of innocent animals.

Bell & Evans in Pennsylvania and Mary’s Chickens in California are planning to give chickens a break from slaughterhouse stress. Before they hang the birds by their feet and pass them down the line to get their throats slit, they’ll  administer a sleep-producing dose of carbon monoxide.

That sounds like an easy way to go. I suppose it’s something like the feel-good shot they give you before they put you under for surgery. They subject you to a lot of stressful preliminaries, checking out your insurance coverage, finding out whether you’re allergic to anything, and X-raying you to see what kind of stuff  you’re made of. Then they outfit you with one of those gowns that expose your rear if you don’t hold them the right way. They put you on a gurney and leave you to contemplate the fact that pretty soon you’re going to be stretched out helplessly on a table and somebody’s going to be taking a knife to you.   

Then they give you that feel-good shot, and suddenly you’re a happy camper. Aliens could be landing and dismantling the hospital brick by brick, and it wouldn’t bother you. Finally, they give you the knock-out shot and the next thing you know you’re coming to and you know you’ve survived.

That’s probably similar to what the chickens at Bell and Evans and Mary’s will experience, minus the waking up.

If I were a chicken, that’s the way I would want to go: sound asleep, not caring whether I was upside down or right-side up, unaware that I was about to be stripped naked of feathers and carved into drumsticks, breasts, thighs and buffalo wings.

I only wish the chicken folks had thought of that while I was still a boy living out in the country, where the price you paid for fried chicken on Sunday was to chase a fryer around the chicken pen, wring its neck in the back yard and pluck its feathers after dousing it in hot water.

Killing a chicken was never a pleasant duty for me. I’ve known people who could lay a rooster’s head on the chopping block and sever it with one quick stroke, then walk away nonchalantly while the headless bird flopped around until the last quiver of life was gone from its body.

That was probably the humane way to do it, although I’m not sure Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn or Sir Walter Raleigh would agree.

I could never bring myself to behead a chicken. Maybe that’s because you had to do it with your eyes open and focused on the doomed bird. I always executed chickens by wringing their necks. That way, I could look the other way and I didn’t have to watch the chicken die. It took only a couple or three seconds before the neck separated from the chicken, so I figured the suffering was brief.

I remember an early attempt that backfired — literally — and the chicken escaped the pot for at least a while. I was about 5 and had witnessed grown-ups performing the grim task. I figured it was a skill I’d have to acquire, so I decided to try my hand. I picked out a fat hen that couldn’t run very fast. I caught her, grabbed her by the neck and, with all the strength in my skinny arms, gave her a whirl. The hen chose that moment to ease a call of nature, and her aim was good: I got it square in the face. I dropped her and she ran off, apparently with no permanent damage.

When I grew up, I learned that you could buy chickens at the A&P and you didn’t have to wring their necks or chop off their heads. I didn’t stop to wonder how they passed from life to death. The only thing that mattered was that you could take them home, roll them in flour, drop them in hot grease and produce delectable Southern-fried chicken. Or you could drive by the Colonel’s place and buy it already battered and fried with 11 delicious herbs and spices.

On behalf of all condemned chickens, I applaud the humane policies of Bell and Evans and Mary’s, and I hope other chicken merchants will follow their example.

Furthermore, I hope the compassion can be extended to the slaughter houses where millions of cattle, sheep and pigs are sacrificed for our tables. I’m not sure how conscious a chicken is of impending death, but I'm led to believe that the cattle, hogs and lambs sense what’s coming and that their last hour is fraught with stress.

I could enjoy my angus burger a lot more if I knew that the big fellow whose flesh I’m consuming died a painless, stress-free death. Maybe we could resurrect Al Capp’s schmoo and clone it.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 317 Braeburn Drive, Anderson, S.C. 29621, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@aol.com.