Official Squatch Watchers

[Parront]

Morning all

Am I the only one that dislikes dunking birds in filthy scalding water...or do I have filthy birds

I use water from a turned up house water heater. I can do 2 before the temperature drops too low. I dump it out and replace. But I only do 2 to 6 birds ...by the house.

I have a yardbird

They are "Dirty birds"! I just add clean hot water from the house when it gets cool, and do it outside as fast as you can to get it over with. I'm old now with a family of just us 2 old people, so I am not gearing up for a day of work processing fryers any more. We are retired! But, I do like the taste of home-grown chicken, and I saw that the local Tractor Supply had the meat birds un-sold the other day . . maybe just 6 in a batch for us old folks

 

[rjohns39]

Good morning Parront, have a great day.

The most important thing I've found with processing is getting your evisceration table at the right height. I'm taking Rae's idea and adding cinder blocks under mine. I'm also considering seeing if I can work out a deal with the kid doing my lawn to train him and pay him in chickens...

 

[Parront]

Good morning Parront, have a great day.

The most important thing I've found with processing is getting your evisceration table at the right height. I'm taking Rae's idea and adding cinder blocks under mine. I'm also considering seeing if I can work out a deal with the kid doing my lawn to train him and pay him in chickens...

I like the part about paying in chickens! I have been known to sit at the kitchen table for plucking -- I have flat feet! I have a found table that was here when we bought the place that looks perfect for the job. Kitchen counter height ~ 36" works for me for cleaning and packaging the parts. How do you think your Barred Holland cockerels compare with a Leghorn?

 

[rjohns39]

Thank you @Parront you inadvertently created a problem that could really happen in the real world. In solving the problem or determining how to keep the code from throwing an error, I actually solved two bigger problems.

I think most of the folks who did testing for me, gave me something to research and fix. So thanks to all who tested for me.

@Redhead Rae how are your jsp skills? If I run into an issue writing my merge script that I can't solve, can I reach out to you?

 

[Redhead Rae]

Morning all

Am I the only one that dislikes dunking birds in filthy scalding water...or do I have filthy birds

I use water from a turned up house water heater. I can do 2 before the temperature drops too low. I dump it out and replace. But I only do 2 to 6 birds ...by the house.

I have a yardbird

With the kids, I don’t want the tap water to be hot enough to scald. We hose the birds down with hot tap water before scalding. This removes dirt, helps the bird not drop the temp so much and helps the scald water get through the feathers.

Will the yardbird do a turkey?

I like the part about paying in chickens! I have been known to sit at the kitchen table for plucking -- I have flat feet! I have a found table that was here when we bought the place that looks perfect for the job. Kitchen counter height ~ 36" works for me for cleaning and packaging the parts.

36” is about 6” too short for me. My inseam is 36”.

@Redhead Rae how are your jsp skills? If I run into an issue writing my merge script that I can't solve, can I reach out to you?

I haven’t done anything with Java in more than a decade. I mainly work with Unix/Linux/clearcase.

 

[Molpet]

With the kids, I don’t want the tap water to be hot enough to scald. We hose the birds down with hot tap water before scalding. This removes dirt, helps the bird not drop the temp so much and helps the scald water get through the feathers.

Will the yardbird do a turkey?

36” is about 6” too short for me. My inseam is 36”.

I haven’t done anything with Java in more than a decade. I mainly work with Unix/Linux/clearcase.

10 to 17 lb dressed turkeys.
Removed feet, long wing and tail feathers, ...on big turkeys remove neck too, stop and flip when hung up.
Some feathers remaining on wing pits and back

Forgot about no hot hot water for kids.



My inseam is 28 I need a step for almost everything.

 

[Redhead Rae]

My inseam is 28 I need a step for almost everything.

Funny thing, I’m 6’1” and I have a sister (full sibling) who is 5’1”. The joke is that I stole her 6 inches of height. It’s ok though. She makes her living as an exercise and race jockey at Penn National.

 

[rjohns39]

Good afternoon Rae, have a great day.

Well, we're now pig free and have another 30 pounds of pork in the freezer (way too much work for 30 pounds of meat). We got these to learn from, and boy have we learned a lot. Won't venture back into pigs until we've re-fenced the pig pasture, added a lining of cinder blocks around the inside (yup, I'm steeling ideas from Rae). We'll get feeders that grow to a sufficient weight by 8 months. Gotta get a better block & Tackle for the A-Frame (maybe an electric wench). I'll also want to get the bathtub setup as a proper scalder. Desperately need a tractor and a walk-in fridge. And we need to do "Follow Me" exercises with any new ones, so it's easy to isolate them for processing. It's funny, I've watched Joel's crew walk a herd of 100 pigs down the mountain and into the stock trailer without issue and one about killed me. I think she knew what was coming, getting her to the kill spot was no fun at all. But at least it's done... Chapter closed. For my next adventure, I'll be turning all that harvested park into yummy goodies like liver sausage, breakfast sausage, German lunch meat that I can't buy here, etc. By the time they got big enough to process they were old and very tough. Tastes great, but needs to be ground. I'll also be smoking all the bones and making a ham stock out of them for quick and easy meals that normally take hours to make. What an adventure this has been.

 

[Molpet]

Good afternoon Rae, have a great day.

Well, we're now pig free and have another 30 pounds of pork in the freezer (way too much work for 30 pounds of meat). We got these to learn from, and boy have we learned a lot. Won't venture back into pigs until we've re-fenced the pig pasture, added a lining of cinder blocks around the inside (yup, I'm steeling ideas from Rae). We'll get feeders that grow to a sufficient weight by 8 months. Gotta get a better block & Tackle for the A-Frame (maybe an electric wench). I'll also want to get the bathtub setup as a proper scalder. Desperately need a tractor and a walk-in fridge. And we need to do "Follow Me" exercises with any new ones, so it's easy to isolate them for processing. It's funny, I've watched Joel's crew walk a herd of 100 pigs down the mountain and into the stock trailer without issue and one about killed me. I think she knew what was coming, getting her to the kill spot was no fun at all. But at least it's done... Chapter closed. For my next adventure, I'll be turning all that harvested park into yummy goodies like liver sausage, breakfast sausage, German lunch meat that I can't buy here, etc. By the time they got big enough to process they were old and very tough. Tastes great, but needs to be ground. I'll also be smoking all the bones and making a ham stock out of them for quick and easy meals that normally take hours to make. What an adventure this has been.

Were these the pot bellies or different ones

 

[rjohns39]

Were these the pot bellies or different ones

These were the pot bellies.