Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[fisherlady]

Originally Posted by fisherlady

Well, call me crazy but I saw an ad last evening and just had to check it out. Someone with Cornish cross chicks, almost 5 weeks old, for $3 each. Hubby called and today we have 32 of them occupying a pen we just shut down and closed up last weekend to make winter chores easier! Just hard to pass up that deal and my mom and my step son both are out of meat from the last batch anyways.
Here we go again!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Originally Posted by fisherlady

Well, call me crazy but I saw an ad last evening and just had to check it out. Someone with Cornish cross chicks, almost 5 weeks old, for $3 each. Hubby called and today we have 32 of them occupying a pen we just shut down and closed up last weekend to make winter chores easier! Just hard to pass up that deal and my mom and my step son both are out of meat from the last batch anyways.
Here we go again!

WELL if that aint a score!!!! good for you!!!!!

 

[fisherlady]

WELL if that aint a score!!!! good for you!!!!!

Thanks...hoping they do well, if so it may change our normal times for the meaties...or we will do two smaller batches a year. Time will tell.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Well, it's time to cull - and it's my first time. I guess it sort of snuck up on me, as I have so much else going on and am building a coop. But several of the boys that are freezer-bound have gotten to be a bit of a handful in the past few days, and it is now TIME.

I have almost everything I need - killing cone, processing table (a fish cleaning table), scalder, good knives, freezer bags (need another trash can and a bucket or two). I'm going to try plucking by hand this time around - I will always be doing low volume harvesting, so I'd like to see if I can do without a plucker. But now I need to figure out the staging of it - WHERE to set up (e.g., near power for the scalder, near water supply, need to figure out where to mount the cone, etc.). I'm also trying to wrap my head around trashcans/buckets, etc. (e.g., feathers, innards, etc. - no dogs to throw them to, and icing container). I used to have one of those pop up canopies that I was going to use, but it collapsed a storm. I think I may try to get another, might make it easier to stage. Has anyone tried hanging the hose from above?

I'll be doing this on my own this weekend - I have 7 cockerels to cull. Would it be better for my first time to do just a couple one day and then the rest later? I'd like to try to do them all at once, but wasn't sure how long it would take. Also, do you cage your birds heading for cull, or just remove food from their pen? Do you let them forage? How do people usually manage this? For whatever reason, I'm less upset emotionally about the thought of killing them than the thought of withholding their food, which is starting to bother me (not that I won't do it). I hadn't expected that.

(I'm about to go dig back through the tread for info and to see if I can find some of those videos again, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask...)

- Ant Farm

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Well, it's time to cull - and it's my first time. I guess it sort of snuck up on me, as I have so much else going on and am building a coop. But several of the boys that are freezer-bound have gotten to be a bit of a handful in the past few days, and it is now TIME. 

I have almost everything I need - killing cone, processing table (a fish cleaning table), scalder, good knives, freezer bags (need another trash can and a bucket or two). I'm going to try plucking by hand this time around - I will always be doing low volume harvesting, so I'd like to see if I can do without a plucker. But now I need to figure out the staging of it - WHERE to set up (e.g., near power for the scalder, near water supply, need to figure out where to mount the cone, etc.). I'm also trying to wrap my head around trashcans/buckets, etc. (e.g., feathers, innards, etc. - no dogs to throw them to, and icing container). I used to have one of those pop up canopies that I was going to use, but it collapsed a storm. I think I may try to get another, might make it easier to stage. Has anyone tried hanging the hose from above? 

I'll be doing this on my own this weekend - I have 7 cockerels to cull. Would it be better for my first time to do just a couple one day and then the rest later? I'd like to try to do them all at once, but wasn't sure how long it would take. Also, do you cage your birds heading for cull, or just remove food from their pen? Do you let them forage? How do people usually manage this? For whatever reason, I'm less upset emotionally about the thought of killing them than the thought of withholding their food, which is starting to bother me (not that I won't do it). I hadn't expected that. 

(I'm about to go dig back through the tread for info and to see if I can find some of those videos again, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask...)

- Ant Farm

Being that is your first time, I'd plan to only do about half of them and then, if you feel like doing more, go for it! My husband and I can pull off about 2/hour, working together and we also pluck by hand. I'm not sure if that's fast or slow but that's about our rate. Food wise, if I have a separate pen available, I'll move them in to it either the night before butcher or the morning of before feeding. If not, I just withhold feed from that pen until we're done. It won't kill the rest to wait a couple extra hours to eat. I've heard that is important to make sure that the rest of the flock can't see you when you butcher so I'd make sure to consider that when figuring out where to place your setup. We always do ours on the opposite side of the shed that blocks the view of the coop.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Being that is your first time, I'd plan to only do about half of them and then, if you feel like doing more, go for it! My husband and I can pull off about 2/hour, working together and we also pluck by hand. I'm not sure if that's fast or slow but that's about our rate. Food wise, if I have a separate pen available, I'll move them in to it either the night before butcher or the morning of before feeding. If not, I just withhold feed from that pen until we're done. It won't kill the rest to wait a couple extra hours to eat. I've heard that is important to make sure that the rest of the flock can't see you when you butcher so I'd make sure to consider that when figuring out where to place your setup. We always do ours on the opposite side of the shed that blocks the view of the coop.

Thanks - that helps! I forgot to include that, but yes, I had heard about not wanting to be visible to other chickens, and that will be part of it.

- Ant Farm

 

[Beekissed]

Being that is your first time, I'd plan to only do about half of them and then, if you feel like doing more, go for it! My husband and I can pull off about 2/hour, working together and we also pluck by hand. I'm not sure if that's fast or slow but that's about our rate. Food wise, if I have a separate pen available, I'll move them in to it either the night before butcher or the morning of before feeding. If not, I just withhold feed from that pen until we're done. It won't kill the rest to wait a couple extra hours to eat. I've heard that is important to make sure that the rest of the flock can't see you when you butcher so I'd make sure to consider that when figuring out where to place your setup. We always do ours on the opposite side of the shed that blocks the view of the coop.

I'm curious as to why one would think the flock can't see the butchering process? Been doing this for 40 yrs and the flock await the scraps I throw them during butchering~ eagerly~ and will lick the blood from the butchering tree. Where you heard this thing, what did they suppose was happening when the flock watched a butchering?

 

[OneMountainAcres]

I'm curious as to why one would think the flock can't see the butchering process?  Been doing this for 40 yrs and the flock await the scraps I throw them during butchering~ eagerly~ and will lick the blood from the butchering tree.  Where you heard this thing, what did they suppose was happening when the flock watched a butchering? 

I was told that they would fear you if they saw you killing their own. Not sure if it's true or not but my birds all trust me, get excited to see me, and are easy to catch if need be. I don't want to risk them being fearful.

 

[fisherlady]

I'm curious as to why one would think the flock can't see the butchering process? Been doing this for 40 yrs and the flock await the scraps I throw them during butchering~ eagerly~ and will lick the blood from the butchering tree. Where you heard this thing, what did they suppose was happening when the flock watched a butchering?

I was told that they would fear you if they saw you killing their own. Not sure if it's true or not but my birds all trust me, get excited to see me, and are easy to catch if need be. I don't want to risk them being fearful.

I have to agree with Bee, our birds are not phased at all by butcher days, in fact, when we set up for butchering we get swarmed by birds checking for 'goodies' and often have to move them out of the way. They seem to ignore the cone area and focus on the butcher table and the plucker area. The broodies get really excited and are about impossible because they are determined to get the best bits for their littles.
We have birds who have witnessed butcher days 25+ times during their years here and those birds run up to us every time we walk out into the yard and show no 'fear', even when picked up and handled for any reason.

Now one thing I do prefer is to keep birds intended for butcher that day in a quiet spot and out of sight of the cone area and often we cover their cage with a sheet to keep them calmer if they are caged. That preference has less to do with any concern over their being 'freaked out' by seeing the butchering itself and is more because birds get stressed when something is strange, so keeping them calmer just keeps it more peaceful for us and Mindy.

 

[tjo804]

All the upset sounds a lot like the movie *Chicken Run*
Many people attach human emotion to animals, that doesn't make it so.