Processing day **Pictures Added

[evergreen1]

after you have butchered those roosters, what are you going to replace them with?

 

[LilyD]

after you have butchered those roosters, what are you going to replace them with?

I will hatch out more roosters next spring. I don't want to do anymore this year because if I do then I will be butchering in the winter which I hate doing.

 

[evergreen1]

how do you know you will hatch roosters? do you let a bunch of eggs hatch and have the roosters by chance? is it better to just buy some male chicks and raise them?

 

[LilyD]

how do you know you will hatch roosters? do you let a bunch of eggs hatch and have the roosters by chance? is it better to just buy some male chicks and raise them?

I could just buy chicks but my whole idea is to be self sustainable. I want to be able to hatch my own birds so that I am not paying for chicks to be shipped. What I did this year was hatched out the chicks and as I was able to figure out which were girls and boys I separated them into two groups and sold the pullets at between 3 and 6 weeks for $5 a chick. At present I only have 3 females I am keeping to add to my flock all the others have sold except the 8 that I cannot sex yet. The boys I keep and let them run with the hens once they are big enough until they start getting hormones. Then I will alternate when the boys can be out so they aren't out at the same time as the girls. It's a pain because the girls will want to be out all day and so will the boys but this way none of the girls get hurt because it's too much to have over 30 hormonal roos in with my 40+ girls.

I did for about 3 years order the CRX but I really don't like doing that. We always had casualties and injuries with them. The DP roos are much more sturdy.
.

 

[bj taylor]

lilyd, i really like your system. i have one small flock. i have 3 young roosters to get rid of. i'm keeping a big black australorp. i've never killed before, so i'm very nervous about it. hubby says he has no interest in participating in that.
i've got to get the deed done soon because i have too many hormonal roosters & they're harrassing my girls too much.

 

[LilyD]

lilyd, i really like your system. i have one small flock. i have 3 young roosters to get rid of. i'm keeping a big black australorp. i've never killed before, so i'm very nervous about it. hubby says he has no interest in participating in that.
i've got to get the deed done soon because i have too many hormonal roosters & they're harrassing my girls too much.

I still don't like the killing part of it but I keep reminding my self that I eat meat and I am doing them a service by not buying from the factory farms and instead growing my own. I refuse to support abuse of any kind including abuse of food animals so by me processing myself I am in a sense protesting those that raise their animals in more restrictive ways.

If you are really worried about it with it being your first time. Ask around at your local feed store and through the extension service in your area and try and find someone who knows how to process. We had a person that came to our house and processed with us 3 times before we did it alone. The first time he did the killing and we cut the chicken up afterwards but helped by handing him the birds and setting up and cleaning up afterwards. The second time I did the eviscerating with him watching and giving me pointers and the third time I worked with him asking for help if I needed it. After the 3rd time I did two roosters by myself that had become a nuisance and while the killing is still hard each time I can do it by myself and get the roosters done fairly quickly.

The hens really appreciate getting rid of the extra boys. They will tag team the girls and work together to try and breed since they don't really know what they are doing yet and I will have hens with feathers missing on their heads and back if I let them keep trying. For the preservation of my girls sanity I separate them towards the end.

I hope this helps. I know if I were just starting out I would want to do it this way because by yourself for the first time is harder. It's better to have a mentor that has done it before for when the questions come up because it never works like in the textbooks lol.

 

[bj taylor]

that is such a good idea. i will start looking for someone. we've got a couple of feed stores & such where i can ask around. i would much rather do it with someone who knows what they are doing for the first few rounds.
i completely agree w/you that abuse is inexcusable & i don't want to support such things. neither do i want to become a vegetarian. lol

 

[LilyD]

that is such a good idea. i will start looking for someone. we've got a couple of feed stores & such where i can ask around. i would much rather do it with someone who knows what they are doing for the first few rounds.
i completely agree w/you that abuse is inexcusable & i don't want to support such things. neither do i want to become a vegetarian. lol

I'm with you. I do eat lots of vegetables but I enjoy eating meat as well and it's healthy for us to eat the meat as well as vegetables.

 

[LilyD]

I have decided that instead of doing one huge batch which would be over 30 birds I am going to start on the roosters on my days off starting tomorrow. I will be doing 6 tomorrow. We put my table together today in the house and hitched my plucker to it. So I thought I would post pictures.



The drill is held to the table with clamps and I have another clamp to put on the power button so I can vary the speed by turning the screw on the end. it spins and you hold the bird against it by either the foot or wings and it will pull the feathers off the bird . I will let you know how it goes tomorrow. The guy who showed me how to process had one similar but his was in a frame kind of like the table top version of the same thing. Hoping this one works just as well. I will let you know tomorrow. Planning on getting started very very early (4am) and hopefully will be done by 5:30ish if all goes well.

 

[what did I do]

Do you pluck or process in the house?

Please take some pics of your plucker at work.