It's time

[Lil Chickie Mama]

Sunday dinner is going to be a family dinner with 6 of us so a few of my then 19 week Ameraucanas are going to be processed either Friday or Saturday. I know I'm gonna cry but I'm a big sap-moving on... Any advice is appreciated and I'm doing research but 2 things I've yet to find are 1) how do you go about skinning the bird if you don't plan to de-feather it (we don't eat the skin anyway) and 2) is it bad/creepy/just-plain-wrong to process chickens anywhere near your lucky ones that are spared? I have it in my head that I don't want them to see what I'm doing (I'm such a bad mom) but I know they can be pretty...unintelligent...so would they have a clue?

 

[Winsor Woods]

I've never skinned a ckicken but I have skinned plenty of quail. I'm sure it's similar. I cut the feet off at the first joint and the wings off where they connect to the body. Cut off the head. Then I hold the quail and put my thumbs on it's breasts and pull the skin towards the side with my thumbs and it rips right down the center. You might need to slice the skin on a chicken to get it started though. Quail skin is pretty thin. From that point you just pull the skin off like a glove.

As far a processing near you lucky survivors, I've read accounts here at BYC that even the unlucky ones will be sitting around watching like it's stadium seating. Sometimes you just reach over and grab a spectator. Others have said that they couldn't keep their free-rangers away because they were picking up all the little scraps off the ground. I don't think you need to worry about your remaining chickens being terrified by watching. Just feed them some treats like grapes before and after if you're really worried about it.

Dan