Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

OH TaraBella if you hang around this group you'll be very hard pressed not to get to that many!! We are total enablers here.

I sure hope my last post didn't sound argumentative. I tend to know a little about a lot but not a lot about anything. And I always love sharing knowledge. Sometimes I feel it can come across as a little Know-it- all sounding. I sure don't intend to be that way.

 

[HEChicken]

HEChicken I use a propane burner and it can run for hours with very little fuel. Once it is hot I turn it down substantially and just maintain the temp. Back in the 70's we just built a fire with scrap wood and did all our water heating over it. A fire pit or open barbecue could work the same way.
I always dry pluck my ducks and would never mess with the wet ones. The feathers come out very easily. If you wet them they are nearly impossible. I also use the parafin method. I dry pluck all the feathers then dip in hot parafin water, then a bucket of cold water. You simply just crack the parafin shell and pull all the down out. Piece of cake and is super fast.
I had a friend butcher ducks with me who used to be a butcher. He was so impressed he said he would never wet pluck a duck again.
I also forgot to validate that Sharol said you complete plucking before you start another bird. If you are by yourself that is absolutely correct. If you have an assembly line of people no need to wait. The feathers will "lock" in as the first effects of rigor mortis set in.

Haha - yeah, it sounds like you have a lot more tolerance for "process" than I do. I am all about "no muss, no fuss". Finding all those pots to put water in and dunking in one, then the other, hot water, paraffin, cold water etc, and then having to dispose of them after, would drive me batty. I was the same way about making and canning pasta sauce. For the first batch I followed the accepted, standard "method" that involved putting tomatoes in hot water until the skin splits, then dunking in cold water, removing the skins, dicing, cooking, transferring to food processor to process n batches, then returning to the pot to simmer and reduce and finally loading the jars and running the canner. What a kerfuffle, and it took ALL DAY LONG. I decided I was going to find a better way or I wouldn't be making any more pasta sauce. The method I came up with leaves the skins and seeds in and instead of spending all day transferring from one pot to another, all I do now is throw them whole and raw into the food processor, puree, then put into the pot to simmer and reduce, and then run the canner. The reducing portion of the process still takes hours but during that time I can be doing other things and just stir it now and then when I walk through. The resultant sauce is absolutely delicious and probably more nutritious because it does still have the skins and seeds in. The skins were pureed at the beginning so you aren't aware of them and I haven't really been aware of the seeds either.

When I butcher birds, I put them in the cone that is permanently mounted outside, then bring the bird in and do the rest in my kitchen sink. I put a movie, TV show or book on tape on to listen to while I work, and move the trash can next to the sink. The skin and/or feathers and intestines go into the sink, the innards that will be fed back to the birds go in a bowl, the bird is skinned and then rinsed right there in the sink and from there goes straight in the crock pot. Clean up is as easy as washing out the sink, and grabbing the vacuum to suck up any stray feathers that floated around and landed on the kitchen floor, and in under an hour from the time I grabbed the bird, I am done, kitchen is clean and I'm ready to move onto the next task.

For me, set up and clean up are part of the whole process and also the part I hate the most, so whatever I can do to reduce the time spent on those two things, the happier I am

Been gone awhile I had surgery last Monday am I am recovering.. Luckily I have my mom staying with me to help with my hens and ducks... I am up to 4/10 laying eggs now ) Happy Camper ) My ducks however are getting bigger then my hubby wants.. so I guess how long should I give them before I butcher? and will the hens lay eggs without a drake?

What kind of ducks are they? I raise muscovies and they grow to butcher size by 14 weeks. I have a batch of 15 ducklings that are currently 11-12 weeks old and already plenty big enough to butcher. I don't know about other varieties of ducks though, since muscovies is all I've ever raised.

Do women have eggs and cycle even when they are not in a relationship? Same with birds……Yes, they will lay without a drake around. The problem with not having a drake is that if/when they go broody, the eggs won't be fertile, but they won't know that, and will sit for a really long time (not laying eggs), while waiting for the duds to hatch.

 

[adventerousone]

They are Black Swedish mixed with White Crested ducks.. I think I have 3 drakes 3 hens.. but not sure yet :/

 

[chicken danz]

Adventuresome hope you are recovering well. How old are you ducks? You can vent sex them but that is really a lot easier to do when they are young. And if they get to laying age, the boys have a curl at the base of the tail. As soon as they have some size the boys have a very hoarse quiet voice and the girls quack and are louder. I often wish chickens were as easy to sex as ducks. The boys can really be hard on the girls so butchering them is going to help rather than hinder.
HEChicken I use the same pot and burner for all my butchering. The only difference is with ducks I only get the water hot enough to melt the parafin. The cold water is simply in a 5 gallon plastic bucket filled with the garden hose. I never butcher just one duck at a time. If I'm going to do it I'm going to do several at once. I have my stuff set up in the barn. I have a table out there, a water hose, the cone, and the burner and pot. It stays there. On butcher day I bring a trash can out and all the feathers guts etc go in the trash can. That goes to the trash burner when I'm done. I don't do it in the house or make a mess in the house. I just bring the finished birds in to bag them once I'm finished with everything else.
Now if I'm just butchering one that, for example got over heated, I just bleed it outside and bring it in and skin and gut it in the kitchen sink. I'd rather keep it outside and be done with it.

 

[adventerousone]

Yes I am getting there.. I hate not being able to do everything I need to... The 18th they will be 2 months old.. I have been told that black swedish ducks fly like bowling balls but I am worried they have been getting a bunch of momentum.. I know I have 2 quackers for sure but still cant figure out the others.. they are very skittish and not nearly as tamed as I was wanting.. sadly I think getting 6 of the siblings was a mistake because they never got used to us even though we were always holding them.

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

Very interesting and informative reading everyone's process on processing!!!!

We use a cone, then use a turkey fryer to dip and pluck. This time around we did skin several of them to save time, it really wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. We processed 9 birds in a bit over an hour + clean-up time.

Now it is time for some food and drinks with friends!

 

[adventerousone]

I have been walking my son to his bus stop every day ... last week I noticed a foreclosed house on the corner that has been empty at least 2 years has grapes along their driveway ... my mom and I went down there and picked 2 buckets of grapes today and a few pears from the tree in the corner of the yard.. seems horrible to let it go to waste .. I noticed the yard kitty corner has chickens .. a bunch maybe 25 or so and ALL are missing their tail feathers and some patches in different places :/ what would cause that???? poor things

 

[sharol]

I tried to get some pictures of my specked sussex chicks and the br chicks that Graycie hatched 3 weeks ago. They are not very good, but those little suckers can really move.

Anyone have any idea about gender yet?













I know. It is too early to know. I get that.

there are 3 total of each breed -- Speckled Sussex and Barred Rock

 

[chicken danz]

Adventuresome they are probably molting. I have some pretty naked girls right now. Ducks will imprint but normally if you have several they'll only imprint on each other. A lot depends on how old they were when you started as well. Normally if you have over 2 or 3 of them they won't tame as easily.

 

[chicken danz]

Sharol I haven't a clue. Often the girls get longer tails first, but both breeds develop quite impressive combs early regardless of sex so I can't tell by that. So in the three sussex for instance if two have longer tails I would guess those to be girls. The BR don't develop tails as quickly and I can only tell those as they feather in because they boys feather in a lot finer. My newest hatches however all have fine feathering so I just don't know either. I was trying to raise a few for future breeders. I need a back up rooster and more girls. I guess time will tell.