Well we apparently have a house chicken!! [COLOR=141823]We leave the door open when our old mostly blind pug goes outside potty. The pug is not out long BUT we have this cheeky chicken who is more than curious. She has decided she should be a house chicken! More than funny is we didn't know she was inside until Glenn found her in my bed sitting in my pillow nest. He went to get me and this is what I found. Our new house chicken primping! BTW her name is Queenie. LOL!![/COLOR]
I like that name?. It gets easier.. It's funny when we have parties with friend's.. They ask.. "is this your chicken's?" HUH, even if it was I would not say anything.. Even our kid's or D.H.!! They get weird.. It is weird now a day's.. But in our parents or grand parents time that was normal...
We had that one really large hatch from our fertile egg's.. We ended up with like 14 roosters.. Some found home's.. But others gave them back to us.. & Yes, we made Coq au vin.. It was acctaully delish.. Now, they, the old owners could not bear the thought of knowing.. But in reality, if you put them on Craig's list.. They could go down a horrible violent death.. & then just tossed into the garbage.. & I have heard of these rooster sanctuaries, but has anyone ever seen one?? Plus, if there is such a thing, I am sure they live the rest of their lives out in a tiny cage.. They can't roam the pastures with out fighting with eachother.. That is what they do when their comb's & waddles are bright red.. They all think they are the boss.. the boss of what!? Right.. Well they will fight untill one gives up.. There are not enough hen's for them all at a sanctuary.. Unless they are using only certain " exceptional quality" roosters, so anyho, we like to eat chicken, our dog's like to eat chicken, our cat's love's to eat chicken.. Caned chicken!! & preditors love chciken for dinner.. it get's easier..
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 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!
You alway want to have ice water, or put the bird on ice.. We have either running water or a ice chest.. Sometimes both, one to clean, then to chill..
I had not thought about the freezer. It seems like it would be quick, but you are saying it is slow. I hate when babies don't make it.Just seeing that poor little chick breaks my heart.
LMAOROF
Nice station good work and clever
