Early Saturday me and the youngest girl "Wee" took some roosters over to my Dad's for a good old fashioned chicken killing.
Some would turn their nose up to this and some would say this is cruel but it is a way of life. I think they call it Homesteading and I don't play it, I live it.
When I talk about this to other people it is funny, everyone has a story about when they were little at their grandparents house. The story always ends with the chicken running around with it's head cut off. Our system is a little more modern than that.Just to let you know, everyone who does this has their own way of doing it so I am sure if you process chickens then you do it a different way. Here is our process. I may be a little vague, but it is for a reason.
Take the head off the chicken and bleed him out in the kill cone. After he is done, dip him in 140 degree water and swirl him around for about twenty seconds. If you let him sit in the water to long it will set the feathers and it will be harder to pluck him. The same if you do it to quick.
Now onto the processing table where he will be gutted and cleaned.
I didn't want to show any of the pictures of the actual process because I am sure some would have threw a fit over it. I call those people the "bleeding hearts", but if you plan to do this yourself and have any questions you can always email me.
The next day after another washing you should be able to fold the chicken into a little ball and put him in a freezer bag and into the freezer.
All and all we processed about 20 or so chickens. The more you have helping the better. You can create kinda of an assembly line and work more efficient.
This has nothing to do with chickens, but prom came and went. This is the middle girl "Boppie" in all her glory.
Saturday morning her new dress she bought still didn't fit so it was a scramble for her to get another one. Even if I wasn't killing chickens I probably would have found something else to do than to be around the house while this was going on. Don't let her cute little smile fool ya. After the chickens were done I made the trip to the old farm and got all the tin I could get. I will be putting it up in the bathhouse during the week.
A freak storm blew through with 60+ mph winds Friday night creating some damage to the Mini Farm so Sunday was spent on repairs and maintenance with the oldest "BEB" manning the weedeater.
In the end it was a good weekend, but I still could have used a couple more days to get it all done.
Now, how about comming up here and processing some of my chickens? lol. You daughter looks beautiful! I hope she had fun.
ReplyDeleteThat is a long way to go to kill a chicken SFG.
DeleteThanks for the compliment and yes she did.
Oh isn't that the truth. There are definitely NOT enough days in the weekend! Since I am not a "bleeding heart" I loved your post. I so WANT a chicken plucker as I still have to do it the old fashioned way. I also do it all myself and have no help which would be nice too. Your chickens look good. I have 10 to do myself in a few weeks. I think I will wait until Fall to order some more. This summer is going to be hot, I can tell.
ReplyDeleteGood post. We used put up a lot of chickens when I was kid. We plucked by hand. The plucker looks like a good deal. Have a good week.
ReplyDeleteBecky the homemade chicken plucker with the fingers and motor I think cost him somewhere around $300. It is well worth it though.
ReplyDeleteThis last hatch will be it for us. It is already getting to hot. I have fans running now in the brooder house just to keep it in the mid ninety's.
John like we say, there is a catch to all that free food and grass those roosters were eating.
ReplyDeleteMDR, I like your homemade chicken plucker, talk about saving time and fingers :-)
ReplyDeleteIf we had chickens, I would most definitely want to create a homemade plucker machine. This will be a good investment when we later have chickens. I agree with having help when completing the kill, it makes for a smoother process.
Your daughter looks beautiful, I hope she enjoyed herself at the Prom.
Sandy, If I can help it I will never clean chickens the old way again. This thing is a life saver.
DeleteHaving help makes it that much more funner as well.
Thanks for the compliment on the girl, she said she had a blast.
I don't kill mine and if I did I would get no help from the peanut gallery but I would certainly have a plucker. They are awesome. There are some farms up here that share pluckers. A good idea if you can't afford one.
ReplyDeleteI guess I will stop complaining about the weather here. We had a beautiful sunny weekend in the upper 50's. I actually love the weather here and we have all four seasons. Couldn't take the kind of heat you get and keeping my animals cool would be too much unproductive work. yikes!
After eating chicken off the farm it is really hard to go back to the store bought ones.
DeleteAbout another month and things will be shut down here because of the heat. The last hatch of the season is in the incubators now, it just not worth fighting it.
tell Boppie she looked gorgeous and tell Mrs. MDR that you both have crazyily-beautiful girls! and although we don't have animals, i am no bleeding heart and know that most of homesteaders i know treat their animals lives, and deaths, in the most humane of ways! when you mentioned that it's easier to have several people working together, it reminded me of the assembly line we used to have set up in our kitchen when our dad would come home with a garbage bag of freshly caught fish - Dad slit them up the middle, i squished the guts out, my sister rinsed them and my brother bagged them. we could do about 200 smelt in under an hour - bahahahah! glad to see you got poor BEB working already!
ReplyDeleteyour friend,
kymber
I will tell them Kymber.
DeleteWe have always treated our animals well. I want them to have a good life here but they are for a reason. Some are lucky and get to hang around and others end up in the soup pot. Either way they provide a service.
That is a good story about your fish cleaning, thanks for sharing it.
wow, i know i said earlier that i had no intentions of going to a chicken killing party again and how the last one i attended kept me from eating chicken for a number of years...but i love that chicken feather plucker you have...with that i coulda been eating chicken instead of peanut butter and jelly every sunday. got my bellpepper plants in the ground today...then we had another freaky storm and expecting more rain... lately we are either high and dry, about to be blown away or floating down to the creek. i think some washington d.c. creepy scientist is playing with the durn weather! i got dahlias almost three feet tall and usually we dont see the dahlias popping up until late august early september...???
ReplyDeleteAnony, I am sorry you have missed out on so much chicken.
DeleteYour garden adventures sound like the way mine is going, freaky growth. My Okra is up over eight inches tall and not even suppose to be in the ground yet. I also have watermelons already as big as my fist but I cannot get the cucumbers to grow. It is strange.
Thanks for sharing about the chicken process...that plucker looks fabulous!
ReplyDeleteStephanie my dad gets all the credit on the plucker, I just use it. We have a chicken party about every three months.
DeleteWe actually use a very similar method for slaughtering chickens but no killing cone at this point and we could only dream of having such a great chicken plucker. For now the rubber fingers are rubber gloves on our hands pulling the feathers off.
ReplyDeleteWe did it that way for years Laura. I am really glad my dad made the plucker. For a while we were using one he made to fit the drill motor. It worked, but this is so much better.
DeleteWhat are the rubber fingers made of? They look like rubber heater hose pieces shoved onto some bolts.
ReplyDeleteHillbilly the fingers are made for a plucker. They are like a valve stem on the car tire and solid. You pull them through the hole and they pop into place. You can buy them for about a buck a piece.
DeleteTen-fo. Thanks
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