I was tempted to call for help, but I managed to fix the dishwasher single-handed, a moment of delicious triumph. If I were a forest-dwelling hunter-gatherer and I'd slain a rabid rampaging wolf with my bare hands, I couldn't have been more cock-a-hoop with chest-beating male pride. The part of a man that mends dishwashers is exactly the same part that used to express itself overcoming monsters. I am reluctant to rise to the role of conqueror. It was with a sinking heart that I discovered the stupid thing wasn't emptying properly, but sometimes a man's got to do what a man's got to do, like it or not.

A number of passers-through the farm have pointed out that among my newly acquired chickens there were four cockerels. They shook their heads at the birds and muttered words to the effect of, 'You know what you've got to do'. But until now, there hasn't been anything to worry about. The chickens have been nothing but a source of great delight. They pecked around in the harmony of their matching suits like Showaddywaddy, lifting my spirits, cock-a-doodling for sheer joy and egging for England. Those hens are a kind of PR machine for country living. There is nothing that makes visitors happier than sending them off with half-a-dozen eggs. I find eggs make a far more appropriate gift than a copy of Blur's Greatest Hits.

Maybe it's because it's getting warmer, maybe they've just reached a certain age, but two of the cocks suddenly started fighting this week. (A bit like what happened with Blur.) Relentlessly, viciously stabbing at each other in a constant kerfuffle, leaving both their necks blood-spattered. It was horrendous. The time to act had come. I asked my neighbour, who is a devout Christian and thoroughly nice bloke, to give me a hand. He grew up with chickens like I grew up with television and he knows the drill. Cocks will fight until there is only one standing so it's best to step in and make things as painless as possible. Some people shoot them in the head with air pistols, some even blast them with shotguns, but the most humane way is to break their necks.

First we had to catch the cockerels, which wasn't easy. By the time I was holding on to one my heart was already beating fast. Then you take the legs in your left hand, the head in the other and pull the neck firmly over your right thigh until it clicks. The wings flap a lot once the bird is dead, which adds to the melodrama of the situation and, by the time we'd dispatched the three surplus birds, my pulse was racing hard from physical exertion and the awful glamour of death.

I called the butcher and he came over and showed me how to pluck and dress the birds. I don't mind dealing with big lumps of meat, but a dead chicken isn't meat. It's still very much a chicken. The plumage is fantastically elaborate and, of all the tasks I've attempted in cookery, plucking is probably the most horrible. Everyone who eats chicken should really try it once.

When the birds were thoroughly plucked, which seemed to take forever, we removed the innards: the neck, heart, liver, lungs, spleen and gizzard. The biggest surprise was the testicles, which sit inside the body and are as big as chestnuts.

Once the thing was tied up with string it was a familiar object again, an oven-ready, free-range organic chicken. It's a task we've become completely disconnected from, but there is something to be said for staying in touch with our inner slaughterer. It's quite wholesome, really.

Peace is now restored in the chicken run.

· Alex James was one of the judges of the 2008 Observer Food Awards