How to process processing

[mandelyn]

Improving our set up helped with the confidence. I used to struggle with giving away extra roosters, even for free it was a hard sell in our area. One day I was at the grocery store looking at chicken and I had this epiphany... why am I giving away chicken and then buying chicken? Certainly rooster tastes like chicken.

So we went neck deep into dual purpose and figured it out. It wasn't easy but now, 4 years later, we have a pretty good system going. We refined our breed choices, methods, timing, housing, etc and improved our equipment, from knives to the plucker. We do 15-25 at a time now.

I used to not be able to be there for it, with the flapping and the feels and all. Now I do the processing part and he does the cone/scald/pluck part.

I learned that you can tie a knot with the esophagus to prevent anything from leaking out of the crop if it wasn't empty. I learned to loosen the crop up front, so that it will pull out with the rest of organs from the back. I learned how to cut around the tail and down without severing anything extra or letting any poo out. I learned to do an organ inventory to make it was all out.

Now I know where to look for the lungs and I was just amazed at the variety of sizes testes can be. I can get the neck and feet off really fast and with minimal fuss by bending and using the knife, getting between the bones to make it easier.

When I encounter a genuinely good rooster in the making, I offer him up. After some time I gained a little reputation as being a good source for a solid rooster. Now I get messages from people asking for a rooster, asking if I have any proven good ones. About 1 in 20 are worth keeping around.

It was a lot to wrap my mind around but we got there and it's working. My flock has never looked better, since I can do selective breeding justice and find the better boys from hatching a LOT and growing out a LOT. I have a reason to grow them all out to at least 14-18 weeks.

I learned how to select for growth, how to finish them to get a nice layer of fat going, the breeds we have develop really nice fat. It's gotten down right culinary and there's peace in knowing where the dinner came from. When the chicken is paired with veggies from the garden, it's very satisfying.

With everything in life, there's ups and downs. Hatch day is an up. Releasing them to pasture is an up. Finding the gem in the flock is an up. A bully cockerel causing drama is a down. Processing the rest is a down. Putting a horde of food in the freezer is an up. Eating a nice meal is an up. After a down moment, you gotta get to the next upper.

Earlier in the season we had to do a favorite Turkey hen, after she broke her knee. That was a down.

Had to do an awful hen, sour attitude, terrible layer, just... ugh. That was an up, since it got her gone and we learned how to make old fashioned chicken and dumplings. She had so much fat on her, I can see now why people keep their old hens for dinner. I won't be giving away old hens anymore unless they're super friendly. I have vegan friends who don't care about getting any eggs, so the friendly girls go to them. That's an up too.

I unplugged my incubator, that was a down. I took a walk and looked at the flock, from chicks to juveniles to the boys in the finishing pen to the girls in the grow pens and it was ups everywhere.

I had 2 cockerels the last couple of weeks, they were on the dinner list. I couldn't pull them. That was a down. One guy went to his new flock yesterday, he was so polite to this new girls! That was an up!

The other guy I still have, he's too smart and too savvy plus he's well built and just all around a good rooster. He made eye contact with me and chortled out some chicken speak when I went to pull him and I couldn't do it. I managed fine with the other 17 I pulled but that guy is different. He's not even friendly, not mean at all but a very diligent professional who doesn't want to be a lap chicken.

I don't feel like a wimp in not being able to do those 2 boys. I also don't feel bad about doing the ones we did do. In nature, excess boys feed wildlife. Survival of the fittest and all of that. In a domestic setting, the extra boys feed us. Managing extra cockerels is part of the process of keeping a healthy flock.

Initially my husband would feel bad but now it's become routine and we have a good system of team work going on. He definitely didn't like doing it alone and I had to get the gumption together to help out. They are "my" chickens, after all. He reminds me everyday.

We learned how to grill them better this year. Pre-baked in halves, in the oven for an hour at 300. Waiting for the meat to peel back from the bone a little, like when doing ribs. Then grilled for about 10 minutes, flipping every 2 minutes on a medium heat. So good! Grilling days are a definite upper.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

Improving our set up helped with the confidence. I used to struggle with giving away extra roosters, even for free it was a hard sell in our area. One day I was at the grocery store looking at chicken and I had this epiphany... why am I giving away chicken and then buying chicken? Certainly rooster tastes like chicken.

So we went neck deep into dual purpose and figured it out. It wasn't easy but now, 4 years later, we have a pretty good system going. We refined our breed choices, methods, timing, housing, etc and improved our equipment, from knives to the plucker. We do 15-25 at a time now.

I used to not be able to be there for it, with the flapping and the feels and all. Now I do the processing part and he does the cone/scald/pluck part.

I learned that you can tie a knot with the esophagus to prevent anything from leaking out of the crop if it wasn't empty. I learned to loosen the crop up front, so that it will pull out with the rest of organs from the back. I learned how to cut around the tail and down without severing anything extra or letting any poo out. I learned to do an organ inventory to make it was all out.

Now I know where to look for the lungs and I was just amazed at the variety of sizes testes can be. I can get the neck and feet off really fast and with minimal fuss by bending and using the knife, getting between the bones to make it easier.

When I encounter a genuinely good rooster in the making, I offer him up. After some time I gained a little reputation as being a good source for a solid rooster. Now I get messages from people asking for a rooster, asking if I have any proven good ones. About 1 in 20 are worth keeping around.

It was a lot to wrap my mind around but we got there and it's working. My flock has never looked better, since I can do selective breeding justice and find the better boys from hatching a LOT and growing out a LOT. I have a reason to grow them all out to at least 14-18 weeks.

I learned how to select for growth, how to finish them to get a nice layer of fat going, the breeds we have develop really nice fat. It's gotten down right culinary and there's peace in knowing where the dinner came from. When the chicken is paired with veggies from the garden, it's very satisfying.

With everything in life, there's ups and downs. Hatch day is an up. Releasing them to pasture is an up. Finding the gem in the flock is an up. A bully cockerel causing drama is a down. Processing the rest is a down. Putting a horde of food in the freezer is an up. Eating a nice meal is an up. After a down moment, you gotta get to the next upper.

Earlier in the season we had to do a favorite Turkey hen, after she broke her knee. That was a down.

Had to do an awful hen, sour attitude, terrible layer, just... ugh. That was an up, since it got her gone and we learned how to make old fashioned chicken and dumplings. She had so much fat on her, I can see now why people keep their old hens for dinner. I won't be giving away old hens anymore unless they're super friendly. I have vegan friends who don't care about getting any eggs, so the friendly girls go to them. That's an up too.

I unplugged my incubator, that was a down. I took a walk and looked at the flock, from chicks to juveniles to the boys in the finishing pen to the girls in the grow pens and it was ups everywhere.

I had 2 cockerels the last couple of weeks, they were on the dinner list. I couldn't pull them. That was a down. One guy went to his new flock yesterday, he was so polite to this new girls! That was an up!

The other guy I still have, he's too smart and too savvy plus he's well built and just all around a good rooster. He made eye contact with me and chortled out some chicken speak when I went to pull him and I couldn't do it. I managed fine with the other 17 I pulled but that guy is different. He's not even friendly, not mean at all but a very diligent professional who doesn't want to be a lap chicken.

I don't feel like a wimp in not being able to do those 2 boys. I also don't feel bad about doing the ones we did do. In nature, excess boys feed wildlife. Survival of the fittest and all of that. In a domestic setting, the extra boys feed us. Managing extra cockerels is part of the process of keeping a healthy flock.

Initially my husband would feel bad but now it's become routine and we have a good system of team work going on. He definitely didn't like doing it alone and I had to get the gumption together to help out. They are "my" chickens, after all. He reminds me everyday.

We learned how to grill them better this year. Pre-baked in halves, in the oven for an hour at 300. Waiting for the meat to peel back from the bone a little, like when doing ribs. Then grilled for about 10 minutes, flipping every 2 minutes on a medium heat. So good! Grilling days are a definite upper.

I was thinking that perhaps after the chicken is dead coming and helping him out. It'll ne hard for me but I think if I can be supportive at least it will build his confidence. With the first bird he brought in I spatch cocked it and showed him all the organs he left in. I demonstrated to him how to lightly scrap the inside cavity to remove the organs and identified them one by one. I treated it like a simple disection. I explained to him form and color as health indicators for the bird. He said he thinks I was a Mortician in a past life based on how calm I was about it. I said "it's dead now. It can't hurt anything and it can't feel pain. Its like taking apart and engine for spare parts."

 

[3KillerBs]

...
I said "it's dead now. It can't hurt anything and it can't feel pain. Its like taking apart and engine for spare parts."

I found that once I got them undressed it was no different than working with a grocery store chicken and I've been doing that since I was 12.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I found that once I got them undressed it was no different than working with a grocery store chicken and I've been doing that since I was 12.

Exactly. But thats the easy part. The hard part is the undressing and all that goes with it. I'm gonna focus on "ups" like a previous poster suggested. I let him sleep in...up...and woke him up to the sound of frying bacon...up

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

He couldnt get motivated to do another one today. I asked him what specifically was eating him about it and he said it was the killing process. Said he feels "like a murderer". He said once it's done it just feels like a job. I offered for us to cart them down to amish country but he said no. Maybe he will be better off using a cone? He said its the flapping that gets him

 

[3KillerBs]

He couldnt get motivated to do another one today. I asked him what specifically was eating him about it and he said it was the killing process. Said he feels "like a murderer". He said once it's done it just feels like a job. I offered for us to cart them down to amish country but he said no. Maybe he will be better off using a cone? He said its the flapping that gets him

The flapping can be pretty freaky.

Like I said, I felt better about it once I realized that strong flapping was the sign of a quick, clean internal decapitation, but I intend to try the cone because with my wrists getting worse it's sure to be harder to hold onto the bird now.

 

[Mosey2003]

It goes better if you're doing a few rather than one at a time. One at a time seems like a big event for the day, whereas a few is more of a job for the day. Especially if you can go butcher someone else's birds with them the first few times, then you're not personally invested.

It does get better. For some it takes longer than others is all.

 

[Mosey2003]

FYI, if Kyle is the one in the front on the stump, he's not a Barred Rock, he's a Black Sexlink cockerel. They're easy to get mixed up as they look the same as chicks.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

It goes better if you're doing a few rather than one at a time. One at a time seems like a big event for the day, whereas a few is more of a job for the day. Especially if you can go butcher someone else's birds with them the first few times, then you're not personally invested.

It does get better. For some it takes longer than others is all.

We had a long talk about it last night. He said he only wants to do one at a time because he is "processing the emotion". He said everytime he has ever had to kill a mouse, a raccoon, etc.; it has been an animal that he hated or was a pest. But we like...even love...our chickens. It makes the emotion of ending one harder to feel. We purposely distanced ourselves from these birds when we got them because we didnt want to get that emotional if a roo had to go. Apparently we didn't distance enough. He said the biggest issue for him is that it has a head. He likened it to ordering a whole fish at a restaurant...he can't eat it because it's looking at him.

 

[Mosey2003]

Yeah, the head is kind of the worst part for me, too.