Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

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Bettacreek said:
Well, sixteen days to hatch, lockdown three days prior, sorry, lol.
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they'reHISchickens said:
CAUTION: GRAPHIC POST
well, we had a succesful family processing day today. DIL got 4 leghorn roos and 4 spent black hens at the Schuylkill Haven Saturday night market. ( They live about 10 minutes from there.) She said there were few chickens available. Paid $2/ea for the leghorns. $5 each for others.
Lesson 1. When I looked at the crate this morning, we noticed a white egg on the floor! ??? I started looking closer. Leghorns were hens! I picked out the one I thought may have laid the egg and then another one to keep her company in their small flock so they wouldn't have only one new one. Then we had a lesson on how to tell a roo from a hen ( hint.. NOT by the size of the comb.) Fortunately DIL had chosen one of our FBlueCM roos for her flock so we had a comparison.
Lesson 2. How to best guess if they are laying. DIL and DD learned about pelvic distance. All 4 leghorns seemed wide, but this was processing time! We split the diff.. 2 saved, 2 process. Black hens all seemed narrow. Best guess on black hen breed: Black Stars
DS had water boiling outside on a campfire and a HUGE stump ready plus a sharp hatchet. Both DD's volunteered for holders, SIL2B did the deed. Total of 10. We took up 5 of our 4 yr old Orps. Some we plucked and skinned some. Leghorns worked better skinned due to many pinfeathers and hairs. Orps were exceedingly fatty. Age or are we overfeeding? Unknown hens were also quite fatty but not as bad. Found loads of eggs in the leghorns, none in the blacks and one in an orp.
DS had heat in the shed for cutting. All three gals grabbed knives and followed SIL2B's instructions ( he is a hunter and farm butcher.) Then I followed with how to cut whole chicken into pieces.
Overall conclusions: Eminently doable to process your own but having a group made the process MUCH more bearable. Finished in 3 hours with lots of amateur debate time.
Kids are planning another session in summer and contemplating meat birds. John and I are not interested in meaties but will have roos from FBCM hatchings.
Oh, and as we were checking out their laying flock coop we found another leghorn egg! Bonus
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Yet to learn: how to caponize. No roosters to practice on
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Glad you got to have a 'group' learning experience for it... we did our first ourselves, we had done a lot of hunting type butchering, and I grew up with butchering of rabbits and other critters, but still would be nice for the 'group' thing. We got to see a demo done on it, and I had watched a bunch of demo and website type pics before we did the deed also. It is a much smoother process for us now that we've done it a few times!
We got the plucker and scalder to do our own meat birds, so will most likely be doing that this summer. Thing is with it just being the two of us we have found our culled roos to actually provide quite a bit of our normal chicken usage... but then again, come summer I really like to do roaster birds and we smoke whole chickens, so I'm sure we will use a lot more chicken then.
With it just being the two of us processing I think we will stick to 10 birds or less at a time till we get a lot better at it!
 
Sally, we dunked in the hot water and pulled feathers to pluck. Wore medical gloves and girls agreed they helped grip and kept fingers a bit warmer.
This was solely a teaching session because only I and SIL2B had processed before and he had only skinned and it had been years for me to actually do the entire process. Found out it's like riding a bike-- you don't forget. My girls and DIL wanted to learn to be selfsufficient. DD spent yesterday helping BF with pig/beef butchering. DIL wants to go organic and
 
they'reHISchickens said:
Sally, we dunked in the hot water and pulled feathers to pluck. Wore medical gloves and girls agreed they helped grip and kept fingers a bit warmer.
This was solely a teaching session because only I and SIL2B had processed before and he had only skinned and it had been years for me to actually do the entire process. Found out it's like riding a bike-- you don't forget. My girls and DIL wanted to learn to be selfsufficient. DD spent yesterday helping BF with pig/beef butchering. DIL wants to go organic and
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fisherlady said:
Boy what a difference a day makes! Yesterday we had a bunch of fuzzy butts who dove under mama and wouldn't come out when anyone was around... today we have a group of little hooligans who are everywhere they can get to and just run back to mama every few minutes for a warm up!
She is so gonna have her hands full in another few days!
Progress has been so fast... she introduced them to her food dish already last night... it was something to see her take her fish bits (one of her own treats we've been providing her to keep her weight up) she took her treats, mushed it up then gave it to her chicks
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by today they were all over her food dish, and starting to get out of the nest on their own. This afternoon they all got out and got introduced to the regular feeder and their first experience with waterer. Everyone seems fit and feisty, climbing over everything and generally being happy little fuzzy butts!

A few pics from today..








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So precious, I want a broody that will commit. I have yet to have one, I think I might have one this year!
 

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