Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[Sally Sunshine]

EDIT of OP.... I want to add a big THANK YOU to everyone who helped me! What a great amount of info y'all added to help me along! Thank God it was a smooth process, as well it should have been, I sure did my homework with y'all! Thanks for all the visual aids, tips, tricks and links too!! you all ROCK! I will be here for anyone who needs support as those of you were for me! Our chickens were THE best chicken I ever tasted, bet any awesome turkey I made! And I make some good turks! Thanks for the brining info too!
Thank YOU!! I LOVE BYC!

A SUMMARY OF THIS THREADS LINKS VIDEOS HOW-To's WILL be ADDED to this ARTICLE https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/processing-day-support-group-summary-of-thread for EASY ACCESS, IF I missed adding something you feel should go in the summary PM me and I will add it!




Don't worry about being gentle in response,
just be kind and honest.
I know this is the route we want to go. HELP get us through this please!
And maybe even help others down the road!


I have met so many people on here that cant get through the first steps,
suggestions to help ease our way in!


This week will begin a new chapter in our life, I know its not a lot but we have 4 Giant Sweet Brahma roosters that will be sent off for processing.


I chose to send off to start to ease into the process. I am having old age tender footedness! I have envisions of opening up zip locks and finding that I know EXACTLY which bird is which drumbstick!


How do I separate myself from them?
This is a step I not only NEED to take, but its a step I do WANT to take.
We are not vegetarians by far, we love our meat and we do spend a small fortune on chicken at the Grocery store.

If I could turn vegetarian then things would be different, but we are meat eaters and as these generations go by we are loosing touch with reality and what's on our plates, I know I have for sure.....


I am giving my own therapy aren't I!

​

 

[Elke Beck]

Sally, I think the only way is to set a date and not allow yourself to back down. If you need help, let us know the date you are sending the birds for processing and we will hold you accountable.

This is not supposed to be easy; taking a life is a solemn thing. For me I do not want to ever get so calloused that I do not feel sad about taking a life. I want my meat chickens to have a lot of good days and one bad day.

My brother, who is a scientist, has a theory of conservation of difficulty. The theory goes that in any situation there is a certain amount of difficulty. You can move the difficulty around, but you cannot eliminate it. For example, anyone who had a computer in the 80's knows how hard it was to use a computer. You had to learn a lot about programming in order to use simple programs. Now computers are pretty simple to use because the designers and programmers have taken the difficulty away from the user and hidden it behind the scenes. So today you can fire up your computer and go directly to your desktop instead of start from the C prompt. To bring this back to chickens, if you are going to eat meat, then there is a certain amount of difficulty in the situation. Factory farms have allowed people to ignore that difficulty by raising chickens in conditions that are horrible and that do not respect the nature of the chicken -- the difficulty has been shifted from the people eating them to the chickens. I see the sadness and discomfort I suffer from killing chickens that I have carefully raised as my taking some of the difficulty on myself.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

 

[ozexpat]

what a girl!!

you know I am joking sally!

step1 stop naming roosters and bird you will eat. They are food not pets. If you must call them food names like stew, caserole, pot pie.

Step 2 - put a knife through their jugular, bleed em pluck em gut em and chill them. Do three or four at once Quarter them and then you wont know who you are eating.

You can cull a chick. its not much harder. once its lifeless, its just a process.

Good luck my friend.

 

[Beekissed]

That article holds no surprises for me....I've been on this forum for 5 years and have watched the urban movement towards chickens with much dismay. This society, with their "I want it! Give it to me now!" attitude brooks no arguments about the welfare of the animal. They think that love means letting every animal live, live, live even when the quality of that life is a misery, and showering it with food of all kinds, expensive coops, cute clothing and claims of "humane" treatment being the equivalent of "compassion".

Spoiled children with a new toy...soon to be an old toy. I never heard the term "attrition" until I came to this site. It seems to be the definition of doing nothing wise or prudent for the welfare of the flock of chickens at all.... and then letting predators, pet dogs, and illness plague the flock until they are dead and you can apply "chicken math" to get more new toys. All the while acting shocked when someone mentions killing them for mercy reasons or for food, with self-righteous claims of "I could NEVER do that!!", as if that was a badge of honor~to claim you could never give your chicken a more merciful and humane death than "dying naturally", which translates into the aforementioned "attrition".

IME, attrition is a word used by those who want a euphemism for "poor husbandry" and "no compassion for my flock..only for ME". I have people like that in my own family...who have begged me to sell them some of my livestock. There is no amount of money they could offer that would induce me to let them have one of my own good animals...not those that are near and dear to me. I'd rather give them to someone who has their heart screwed on right than someone who thinks "attrition" is the way to thin out a flock.

 

[Amandakae]

I DID IT!!!!

I am EXHAUSTED, but I did it. I sent 16 birds to freezer camp. I thought that I would feel a lot worse than I do. These were my first animals to kill for food for myself and my family... well the first to kill for any reason actually. I have had sleepless nights and migraines from tensing while dreading it for weeks now!!

Pathetic. I am a real homesteader now. Wow. I did have help, some friends of mine came to help me and walk me through it. I killed 3 myself. I am so thankful for their lives. I am also happy with their size! I think they are around 4lbs.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

My first time raising meat birds - although not the first time I've had to cull and process a chicken. Butcher day is day after tomorrow for our 26 Cornish X, and I'm NOT looking forward to it. It's hard to remain detached when they're the first flock you've raised for this, and even though they're HUGE at 8 weeks (9 lbs avg.!), I can't help but think they're still just babies! *breathing deeply* I'll be fine, I'll get through this, I just needed to share.

 

[BantyChooks]

Cooked up the Australorp today. I pulled a few bits off before I turned the meat into chili... he tasted great. A tad stringy, but that's no surprise. I put the bones in the cooker for stock.

 

[fisherlady]

I mentioned in an earlier post that we try to make use of as much as possible. I make chicken soup out of the carcasses each time we process birds now, and share it with friends and family who always return the dishes quickly with a request to remember them the next soup day! LOL

After soup is made we grind all of the left overs from the soup making. Skin, bone and all of the other little tiny, unidentified bits and pieces and such. This makes a product that looks kind of like a pale sausage. We freeze it in small amounts (like large meatball size) and then have it available for use as soft food or treats for animals whenever needed.
And yes, I do use the feet also. I didn't the first few times, but did more and more research on here and decided to give it a try, and the broth is certainly richer for it!
Some basics in the process...

Water temp between 150-160 degrees

Place a few of the feet at a time into the water to scald, only takes maybe 30-45 seconds. Don't place in too many at a time or it will cool off your water and they won't scald as well and will be harder to peel. They are ready to peel when you can use your tongs and pinch the skin at the base of the leg and it tears.


Here is a pic showing one leg partially peeled, notice how bright and clean looking the leg is, and how large they actually are compared to my hand (not all breeds are so large, but these are CornishX)

I often begin by removing the hard tonail covers. This is easily done by tightly pinching from the end and pulling. They pop off surprisingly easy. If your hands are tired or sore it can also easily be done by using the back of a knife blade to pinch the nail against your cutting board and popping them off that way.


You can then peel the skin from the leg. I haven't perfected this part yet, much of the time it works great, and it comes off in a couple of pieces, but sometimes I get one that is just stubborn and it peels in multiple small pieces. Thankfully those are the exception, and probably my own fault because they were a bit to short in the water or something like that. But overall they do peel surprisingly easy.










A before and after...

Once peeled the feet can be added to your pot of water and other carcass pieces (bones, skin, necks, etc.) that you are simmering for your broth.

I didn't remember to snap a pic of the stock pot in the process... but here is the end result... Adding the feet to the process really did seem to thicken the broth.




Ready for the freezer...



After the people food is taken care of we end up with the left overs to deal with. We used to pitch them, but it bothered me and I remembered I had an old grinder stashed in the closet and drug it out and put it to use.

The left overs before...

Placing a 130 yr old grinder back into service.... note... special thanks to Radioman for being the arm power behind most of this part of the process. I can only grind for a few minutes at a time, he is the true hero here!
The resulting 'chicken mush' as we call it...

We have a small plastic cup we use to form the mush into approx 2 oz portions. It would be easy at this time to mix in any extra treats you may want to include, such as wheat germ or cracked corn or raisins.. whatever you wanted. We keep it simple because it is also used as a treat for our dogs or cats or as a food supplement if they need to be on soft food for anything (such as our dogs recent encounter with a porcupine which resulted in surgery to remove quills from her inner jaw, inner mouth and tongue)
After the mush is frozen we then just dump them into a gallon zippy bag and keep in the freezer till needed.

 

[Beekissed]

BeeKissed, I know you and I don't agree on this, but I would keep the little boy out of this (the killing and the dying part of the process) unless Mom has a pretty good idea it won't traumatize him. She has enough to deal with without worrying about the well being of her son.

Mom has never done this, so she herself will (likely) be somewhat traumatized by the whole thing. Your boys grew up with a matter-of-fact attitude about where food comes from. I bet you never introduced them to slaughter or hunting because it was very much a part of their life since they were babies. Mom self identifies as a city girl, so I really doubt this little boy has the same attitudes and experiences your little boys had at the same age.

My own feeling is that for this first one or two, Mom needs to focus on what she is doing and not worry about her son. For most of us on this forum killing is somewhat of a traumatic event, and watching a bird dying can is disturbing. They don't go quietly like in the movies! I'm not saying how we feel is right or good: it just is, which is why this forum came into existence.

Maybe it will be just fine, but why chance it? Mistakes happen when people are distracted and worrying about a little boy's feelings is a major distraction.

Has it ever occurred to you that your attitudes and the many on this forum are the result of parents who thought exactly the same way that you do? That killing animals for food is some horrible, traumatizing event filled with all sorts of drama and pathos? Now we have a thread where grown people are trying to work through these attitudes so they can face the facts that something must die every time they put meat in their mouths. The mere subject of the thread would be a laughable thing back in the day, and rightly so. No, I don't think perpetuating those attitudes is advisable...if you only do what you've always done you will always have what you always had~translation: Something has to change these attitudes and the change has to start somewhere and you can very well see how ingrained they are by the time one has reached adulthood. Then someone has to start a thread about it....

If the goal is to raise one's own meat and kill it at home..which is clearly the goal in this case or we would not be discussing it at all..then the goal needs to start with a grass roots attitude of acceptance that things must die. What's the perfect time to learn that, exactly? Can anyone identify the correct age to reveal to a human that creatures die so that they may live? What is the perfect manner in which to do so?

While I respect your opinion, I see no need to over dramatize a simple process and act like it's going to scar her kid for life if he sees a turkey die. Yes, I deliberately introduced my children to slaughter and hunting as a direct and well thought out course of action because I don't believe in telling children a lie, nor cushioning the facts of life for them. As a result they act like men among men, can produce their own foods and treat it like every other normal action in life..no different than changing the oil on the car or getting a job to support their families. Eating is a fact, eating meat is a fact for many, that meat must die in order to be eaten is a fact as well. I would not have my children hide their heads in the sand about these basic facts in life. Nor would I advise anyone else to do so either.

 

[MamaKitty913]

Hi, we just processed 6 Cornish with 9 more to go this weekend. It was hard as I had never deliberately killed a living creature before. After exploring all the youtube video''s and reading here at BYC what really helped was that I had a hen who had a broken leg. I felt very bad for her and after sitting doing some soul searching realized that I would be helping her, by ending her life I ended her suffering. It was hard until I looked at her unable to walk and I knew it was the right thing. I held her for a bit put a rope around her feet, placed her on an old dog run wire and as she hung down there was no struggle just a sad acceptence for us both. I think it was also easier since this breed will die of health complications. This experience has taught me that the knife must be SHARP, they do struggle a bit when placed upside down, and the after "tremors" and "wingflaps" should not be "helped" by your touching of the bird, it brings no comfort for the bird. Don't be afraid to do what you are about to do - don't hesitate- be decisive or the animal suffers. I have trouble with my hands and am weak so I didn't feel the broomstick method would be quick, also eliminated the axe, no way I could "bash it's brain in". So I choose cutting the jugular on both the left and the right side, cutting away from my body. There was not that much blood and I had a garden tote lined with a garbage bag under them, the first hen died in less than 3 seconds! In all the others death occured in less than 5 to 10 seconds (less with a sure hand). I have meat on my table that will nourish my family and animals, I am grateful and thankful. I am also humbled. I will say the anticipation of killing something was actually way worse than the doing, again maybe because I felt I had to do it and an unexpected rain storm allowed no more time for my OCD (CDO for those truly affected, lol) and morbid thinking to kick in to high gear. I also know that I truly will eliminate the need for someone else to kill for me if I do it myself or go vegan... I like meat so I have to do it. To anyone who is about to undertake this - it's okay and you DID it yourself from egg or chick to the table with God watching you harvest his gifts - God Bless.