Arizona Chickens

[chrissyr]

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Hi all, I'm actually from CA but wanted to ask AZ chicken people a question about people.
Dr's are testing my son for Valley Fever and I've heard AZ has dealt with it a lot.
I'm hoping someone has some great remedies in addition to the medications prescribed.
Wondering if Oxine has been used for it before. Hope you don't mind the people question, but I thought you folks might be my best bet.
The Dr said meds can take up to a month to work and he's had breathing problems.
Thank you so much for your time
-Chrissy[/quote

sometimes there are secondary side effects from having valley fever. Here's what someone i know used after about a year of suffering. They had xrays and blood work to confirm it. This is homeopathic so its not by a doctor's prescription. Also for breathing treatments, they need to be done between 3-5 in the morning. There's a few hospitals out there that did it a certain time of the day that it seemed to help the patients throughout the day with better results.

Valley fever is no fun.. hope you caught it in time before it get's to bad.. we have heard that it is 6 months or more some time's

@City farm were they albuterol breathing treatments?
He's been miserable but I think much better than many with it. They have him one of the "zole" fungal meds. Dr said it could take a month to see improvement and he'll need to be on it for about 6 months. So I'm hoping something else could help earlier than a month. Thank you all for the input. I appreciate your awesome thread

 

[Diannastarr]

O GOSH THANKS, THAT IS SOOO KIND OF YOU TO SAY,

we put a lot of time into our plans for keeping the ladies cool and happy , AZ can get hot and i cant stand to see any animal stressed out panting and over heating , i know i would not like to live like that , and could not allow my girls to live in that kind of heat , thats the worst , instead of protecting them from winter cold , we have to protect them from summer heat ,

 

[micro]

First,

I am self taught with the help of a book. Back in the day before You Tube videos, we read books

My first poultry book was "Raising Poultry Successfully" by Will Graves, copyright 1985. He has very straight forward and good advice. The few pages on butchering with drawings were very helpful to me when I first got started. I basically just followed his instructions and then practiced. If you do not really want to go through the killing/processing of these older hens, consider donating them to the Iskashitaa Refugee Network. I learned about them from a friend in Tucson who had an older flock she wanted to "rehome'. They will pick up your birds and then give them to refugees for food. The refugees come from countries where butchering your own chicken is a normal part of life and they are happy to get the free meat. PM me and I can give you the contact person's name and phone # to call if you want.

Thank you!

Maybe I will see if I can find a good book like that too One with easy-to-clean pages, even?? And I hadn't even considered the Iskashitaa Refugee Network, but that's a good idea. I would like to learn how to butcher my own chickens, I'm just nervous about teaching myself. Also I'd need to get a large pot and a killing cone from somewhere. Mostly I worry about making anyone suffer, but I suppose if I use a cone they'll be passed out anyway? How long did it take you to do one chicken the first time? With 9 birds, I'm wondering if I need to split it into multi-day process, or if I should just plan to do a few one day and let the Iskashitaa Refugee Network take the rest.

Sorry, that ended up being kind of rambly/stream-of-consciousness. I'll PM you for the contact info just in case!

 

[desertmarcy]

Thank you!

Maybe I will see if I can find a good book like that too One with easy-to-clean pages, even?? And I hadn't even considered the Iskashitaa Refugee Network, but that's a good idea. I would like to learn how to butcher my own chickens, I'm just nervous about teaching myself. Also I'd need to get a large pot and a killing cone from somewhere. Mostly I worry about making anyone suffer, but I suppose if I use a cone they'll be passed out anyway? How long did it take you to do one chicken the first time? With 9 birds, I'm wondering if I need to split it into multi-day process, or if I should just plan to do a few one day and let the Iskashitaa Refugee Network take the rest.

Sorry, that ended up being kind of rambly/stream-of-consciousness. I'll PM you for the contact info just in case!

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Raising+Poultry+Successfully $3.47 with free shipping

 

[FeatherPugs]

Well remember when I said people drop animals off along our road, dogs, cats usually - that's how we got our feral girl and now a feral boy and soon to be kittens - I wasn't fast enough on that one. Anyhow about two weeks ago a male peacock showed up in our chicken yard. He was hungry and thirsty. I have advertised and someone about 5 miles away from us said maybe that was one of their 3 that ran off. She wasn't interested in trying to capture it!! Crazy. I call him our foster peacock. I'm thinking it is now my peacock although I'm not really set up to take care of a peacock. Right now he free ranges, comes at meal times. I don't know if he is getting good water and dang if I can find where he is roosting. I know where he keeps out of the heat - in our oleanders - cool in those big ole bushes. So it has been a learning curve for me - never a dull moment at our house.

 

[moms3cuties]

... lol ! You gave me a good chuckle!

Well remember when I said people drop animals off along our road, dogs, cats usually - that's how we got our feral girl and now a feral boy and soon to be kittens - I wasn't fast enough on that one. Anyhow about two weeks ago a male peacock showed up in our chicken yard. He was hungry and thirsty. I have advertised and someone about 5 miles away from us said maybe that was one of their 3 that ran off. She wasn't interested in trying to capture it!! Crazy. I call him our foster peacock. I'm thinking it is now my peacock although I'm not really set up to take care of a peacock. Right now he free ranges, comes at meal times. I don't know if he is getting good water and dang if I can find where he is roosting. I know where he keeps out of the heat - in our oleanders - cool in those big ole bushes. So it has been a learning curve for me - never a dull moment at our house.

, isn't it nice not to have moments dull where you bored, lol! my White Leghorn is about as naughty and curious as yours I'd say. She comes in the house squawks at the front door after flying over my fence and then the neighbors fence. Gosh I thought that chicken would learn someday after I trimmed her wings.

 

[Sill]

@Sill

I'm am very grateful for your assistance in processing 3 five month old roos!!!!! Sill is Very knowledgeable about processing chickens! ....... my son wants 3 Quails now too, lol!

All 3 roos being processed weighed together at 9.4 pounds. Now I'm going to rest them for 2 days in the refrigerator for mothers day. Pic is the cut up pieces for me to bbq in ice water.
The orange cone I used was on the small side.
I learned the bcm was the largest and all roos where hatched the same day. (So all were the same age)

I sold or gave away (4) 13 week old chick's!

I'm having to scale back my chickens!

Less noise makers for sure now! I'll save money on feed too!

@City farm Thanks for the egg cartoons if I didn't say so before!

Glad to have been able to help. Your son is priceless and handled the processing very well even if he (smartly so) left for the actual dispatch of the individual birds. It does get easier and faster as you learn.

LOL! "Screech" was actually a perfect name for him since he hatched screeching like crazy and never really stopped....and with his barred feathering he looked a bit like a rock star wannabe. He was also the first of my NN cockerels to start crowing and sounded a bit like a screaming demon for the longest time.

I hope it gets easier, because this dang bird took me a full hour to process from start to finish having just a webpage to guide me. Half the time I didn't really know what I was looking at, and even though my husband grew up with having to ax off the heads of chickens as a kid, his mother was the one who dressed the bird. Once Screech had bled out he left me to go do something else and was shocked to find that I had already plucked all the feathers a few minutes later when he'd returned. That was his introduction to the benefits of scalding the chicken.

It was taking the guts out that took me the longest. And it was all the harder that I stood on a dislocated knee the whole time I was processing him. By the end I was wiped out and decided to wait until this coming weekend to butcher and clean the next one.

Oh...one question...what's the purpose of putting the cleaned carcass in ice water? I noticed that on someone else's post.

I'll be cooking him out tomorrow night. I'm really curious to taste him, and so far neither my husband nor my son seem to be having a problem with the idea of eating a bird I raised from egg. I hope it stays that way.

I use ice water if I'm doing multiple birds. That way I don't have to keep running into the house to cool the meat, and I'd rather not have the already processed meat just sitting out. I want to get the meat cooled as soon as possible.

I butchered 3 of my meat chickens yesterday using my new stand. It worked like a dream. Where before, I was scrambling for a place to set up, making items to use as a cone, finaggling somewhere to put the cone...set up took 15 minutes for EVERYTHING, including getting the scalding water, knives, processing area, etc.

I'm going to disagree with desertmarcy about cutting the head off and blood spraying everywhere. I put a pile of pine shavings below the cone, and that's where all of the blood went. No spray.

Clean up was pretty simple too. I unscrewed the table portion and stored that in the shed, and the rest of the stand sits in a corner of the yard. I probably should unscrew and store the cones so that they don't get sun brittle. Oh, I use a power drill with a homemade plucker, and fastened that to the top. Way too high for me. I had to hold the chicken out above my shoulder, and while I'm strong, these birds were still heavy. Next time, I'll strap the drill to the side. I think I saw a drill holder for a peg board once...I'll try to find something like that, reinforced with straps.

Anyway, here is cone station. Only took a few minutes to build with some scraps. The little side table held the scalding water. To the left of the orange cone is where I fastened the drill. Oh ha, the drill is in this photo! I paint EVERYTHING, and still need to paint this thing.

To the right of this area, I have a planting stand/processing center/outdoor sink (not yet functional)/chick brooder that I use for processing the chicken. I love it...it's above normal counter height and doesn't hurt my back at all to work at. Oh, also...this time I used a disposable scapel (box of 100 from Amazon) to butcher--it was amazing. I only needed a butcher knife to trim down the neck. One blade worked amazingly well for all 3 birds. I'm pretty nervous I'm going to severely slice myself with the blade, but I guess that's a risk with any sharp object around me!



Ah, I already have a picture on BYC. Here's my multipurpose planting stand. There's a double sink under the green cover where the seed tray is stacked. Of course, the raw wood has since been painted to match. This is where I process the chickens. Dang, I made this stuff!!!! There's no way I would have believed I could have done this 5 years ago!

Very nice set up! I have an old Rubbermaid potting bench that I've used for processing a few time. The nice part of that is it's plastic and hoses off nicely once we are finished. I like how you have your cones set up, they look nice and sturdy.

Hey all, I've got a small backyard flock of 9 birds that are about 2 years old. They're production reds (except for one Buckeye?), and they are not aging well at all. With another brutal summer about to start, I think it's time to bring out the knives.

The problem is... this is my first flock, and I've never harvested or processed any poultry before. Does anyone know of any really good resources for a first-timer? Or have good advice, especially for a desert dweller (e.g. any possible way to cut down on water usage)? Or... maybe you would be willing to help a stranger if you happen to live in the Tucson area?? I've read some good tutorials from the Meat Birds section of the forum, but honestly I would feel much better having an expert around. It's a little difficult to try consulting a computer/printout when in the middle of things, I imagine.

How did you all learn how to kill and butcher a chicken?

Youtube was how I learned. I watched as many processing videos as I could and when I did the first chicken it wasn't so bad, at least after I had the bird dispatched - that's the hard part for me.

we are in Bisbee AZ we have a 12 by 20 tarp up to keep the sun off the raised beds of oat grass the hens love , plus a covered dirt bath area ,and a covered deck with a cooler going all day for them ,plus a big fan cooling them , they love that cool deck , but yeah no corn in summer.... but corn is in the scratch..

I just went through this with my mom. I told her not to feed scratch or corn on the cob to her chickens when the heat hits. "But they love it!" she says. Of course she looses birds in the heat, so there you go.

Thank you!

Maybe I will see if I can find a good book like that too One with easy-to-clean pages, even?? And I hadn't even considered the Iskashitaa Refugee Network, but that's a good idea. I would like to learn how to butcher my own chickens, I'm just nervous about teaching myself. Also I'd need to get a large pot and a killing cone from somewhere. Mostly I worry about making anyone suffer, but I suppose if I use a cone they'll be passed out anyway? How long did it take you to do one chicken the first time? With 9 birds, I'm wondering if I need to split it into multi-day process, or if I should just plan to do a few one day and let the Iskashitaa Refugee Network take the rest.

Sorry, that ended up being kind of rambly/stream-of-consciousness. I'll PM you for the contact info just in case!

Split it up into several days! If you have the time that is. The first birds will take the longest, but you will get faster. Also it's much faster to skin than pluck if you don't care to have the skin on when you eat it.

 

[Sill]

Speaking of processing, I was doing yard chores yesterday evening and the young quail roos kept crowing, and crowing...well one too many crows and I went ahead and processed all 14 of them.

Even when I was down to the last quail that one crowed too, just before he met the poultry shears. It sure is quiet now.

The meat is resting now and will go into the freezer tonight or tomorrow morning. It took me three hours because I plucked them all instead of skinning, and I swear those tiny quail have just as many feathers as a chicken or turkey, just smaller.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
There is a good sticky thread on processing chickens in the Meat Bird section of BYC:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-eviscerating-cutting-up-your-chicken-graphic

I mostly learned from that thread and a bunch of YouTube videos. Watching different videos gives you a good feel for different techniques you can adapt for your own setup.

I don't use a killing cone. I just hang the birds by their feet from a tree branch - one rope per foot - then slice the jugular and hold the head while the bird bleeds into a bucket. I bring them up one at a time so they aren't hanging there getting stressed out watching the executions. I'm using nylon rope with one end tied around the tree branch and a loop with slip knot at the bottom. Slip the foot into the first loop, slide the loop tight, slip the other foot in the next loop and tighten, grab knife, hold chicken head, and slice. Takes a few seconds from arriving at the site with the bird to bleeding it out over the bucket. Sometimes they flap themselves out of my grip, in which case I just step back and let them bleed out while flapping. It splatters but I'm outside so cleanup is not a big issue.

I take the bird down for scalding, then hang it back up in the same spot for plucking. I drop the feathers into the same bucket I used to bleed the birds out. Usually only doing a few birds at a time so I don't have a plucker. For scalding I use a big tamale pot. Used to use a stock pot but it wasn't big enough for my 10 lb. roosters. I also have a bucket of ice water available to quickly cool off the scalded bird and stop the scalding process before actually plucking.

A good pair of poultry shears and a sharp knife make gutting and butchering the carcass a whole lot easier. I put an old (clean) plastic shower curtain over a picnic table for my processing table, and I leave the hose (with nozzle shutoff) in a bucket of water for a sink. I have an ice chest with ice water for cleaned carcasses. Cleaning up the table afterward is a piece of cake. Just hose down the shower curtain to get the worst of the gunk off, then toss it in the washing machine with my bird-processing clothes. Done.

If it's hot and there are flies or ants I will bring the birds inside after they are plucked and gut them in the kitchen. I usually make a mess of that process so I prefer to do it outside unless the bugs are unbearable.

The first bird is the hardest. After you've done a few you figure out a good workflow and it gets a lot easier.

Good luck!

 

[DesertChic]

Thank you!

Maybe I will see if I can find a good book like that too One with easy-to-clean pages, even?? And I hadn't even considered the Iskashitaa Refugee Network, but that's a good idea. I would like to learn how to butcher my own chickens, I'm just nervous about teaching myself. Also I'd need to get a large pot and a killing cone from somewhere. Mostly I worry about making anyone suffer, but I suppose if I use a cone they'll be passed out anyway? How long did it take you to do one chicken the first time? With 9 birds, I'm wondering if I need to split it into multi-day process, or if I should just plan to do a few one day and let the Iskashitaa Refugee Network take the rest.

Sorry, that ended up being kind of rambly/stream-of-consciousness. I'll PM you for the contact info just in case!

I literally just culled my first cockerel this past weekend. I used a webpage from here on the BYC and some info provided by @desertmarcy to guide me, and I had my computer set up on the kitchen counter to refer back and forth to as I went. It took me roughly an hour, maybe slightly more, to kill, clean and process the whole bird. I started with a Naked Neck Turken cockerel for my first kill because with fewer feathers I knew I'd be able to see more of the neck and have fewer feathers to pluck. I didn't have a killing cone so I tied up the bird's feet and hung it from a rope in my garage with a bucket filled partially with water underneath him to catch the blood.

The hardest part for me was knowing how deeply to cut the neck. I was too tentative in my first cut and managed to only break through the skin, which I know caused the bird pain but wasn't deep enough to let it bleed out. My husband came over to inspect the wound I'd made, pulled the skin taught, and then we saw the exposed carotid on the left side of the bird's neck. Once we sliced through that artery death came quickly, but I still had to hold the bird's head when he entered the "death throws" stage. They do jerk around quite a bit just before the end.

Most of the organ removal isn't too hard...except the lungs. They were the most challenging for me to remove because they're so flat against the bird's ribcage, but once you figure out how to wedge your fingers between ribs and organs they suddenly come out very easily. And removing the bulk of the internal organs required me to tug a bit harder than I initially thought I would have to. Getting used to how much force to use throughout the process is probably the key. Since this was my first kill I was tentative through the whole process.

@desertmarcy wrote up a really helpful, very detailed explanation of how to process a chicken a few pages back.

Here's the other page I also referenced: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-process-a-chicken-at-home

Good luck! You CAN do it. You really can.