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

[rebrascora]

@AllynTal
Thanks to you and your man for sharing that! Allowing you to go public with it makes him a real hero in my book.
I'm more of a crier than a fainter but I managed this time without shedding tears, so I must be toughening up. Handling the head seems to be particularly difficult for me from a squeamishness perspective though and the idea of eating these rather unusual parts is taking some getting my head round, but I think you are right that it is all part of the "change in mindset" from impersonal plastic wrapped supermarket meat that you can almost pretend was never a living creature, to making the most of every last scrap of a bird you raised and cared for and then butchered when it was appropriate.

My worry is that I won't like the taste and/or texture of the feet and comb.....I'm still struggling to acquire a taste for cockerel meat and trying to find ways to serve it to camouflage the stronger flavour. I've processed the odd older hen for a neighbour and I'm fine with that but the cockerels are more gamey. I know I will get there and hopefully come to relish the flavour....and I refuse to buy chicken when I have excess cockerels that need culling. It's just getting my head round it and that will come with practice both at processing, cooking and eating. Why didn't my Mam introduce me to this stuff years ago! Mind you, she did make the most wonderful black pudding from a gallon of pigs blood and I always helped stir the bucket of blood and milk. I have never tasted black pudding as heavenly as the stuff she made, so perhaps if she had introduced me to chicken's feet and cock's comb soup as a child, I would be drooling at the thought of it now.

People worry so much about protecting children from this stuff, but I think in most cases they are more accepting of it than we adults are.

Anyway, many thanks for the feedback and info.

Kind regards

Barbara

 

[OneMountainAcres]

We've never tried actualy coming with the feet at all. We usualy freeze them and feed them to the dogs as snacks, treats, or part of their meals (they're raw fed). We may have to try using them though.

 

[Hay Belly]

I'm standing there with a chicken head at my feet, holding this thrashing carcass with feet kicking, wings flapping and blood flinging from the severed neck as it flops this way and that, and my tough-guy, tattooed biker-dude husband is on the ground passed out cold.

That's why I cut the carotid and not the spinal cord, much less painful for the chicken.

 

[AllynTal]

@AllynTal
...My worry is that I won't like the taste and/or texture of the feet and comb.....

Try it. If you don't like it, you don't have to do it again. If you want some feet recipes, send me a PM.

That's why I cut the carotid and not the spinal cord, much less painful for the chicken.

That's your choice. When the head is severed in a single whack, there is no pain, so I don't see how something can be "less painful." The carcass flailing is caused by random neurons still firing in the nerve clusters along the spinal cord. That's not a pain reaction. Humans don't have those nerve clusters along the spinal cord so we associate that flailing with pain because our brain handles everything and if a body is flailing, it's alive and reacting to pain. Chickens are built differently.

 

[Beekissed]

@AllynTal
Thanks to you and your man for sharing that! Allowing you to go public with it makes him a real hero in my book.
I'm more of a crier than a fainter but I managed this time without shedding tears, so I must be toughening up. Handling the head seems to be particularly difficult for me from a squeamishness perspective though and the idea of eating these rather unusual parts is taking some getting my head round, but I think you are right that it is all part of the "change in mindset" from impersonal plastic wrapped supermarket meat that you can almost pretend was never a living creature, to making the most of every last scrap of a bird you raised and cared for and then butchered when it was appropriate.

My worry is that I won't like the taste and/or texture of the feet and comb.....I'm still struggling to acquire a taste for cockerel meat and trying to find ways to serve it to camouflage the stronger flavour. I've processed the odd older hen for a neighbour and I'm fine with that but the cockerels are more gamey. I know I will get there and hopefully come to relish the flavour....and I refuse to buy chicken when I have excess cockerels that need culling. It's just getting my head round it and that will come with practice both at processing, cooking and eating. Why didn't my Mam introduce me to this stuff years ago! Mind you, she did make the most wonderful black pudding from a gallon of pigs blood and I always helped stir the bucket of blood and milk. I have never tasted black pudding as heavenly as the stuff she made, so perhaps if she had introduced me to chicken's feet and cock's comb soup as a child, I would be drooling at the thought of it now.

People worry so much about protecting children from this stuff, but I think in most cases they are more accepting of it than we adults are.

Anyway, many thanks for the feedback and info.

Kind regards

Barbara

Not sure what kind of chickens you have or what you are feeding them, but I've never known a cockerel to taste any different than a hen, no matter how they are prepared. They tend to have darker meat and bigger thighs, but it generally tastes the same has a hen. The meat one buys in the store is both cockerel and pullet and one can't differentiate in flavor there either, though most likely so young that it wouldn't even matter.

One way to sweeten any chicken meat and clarify the flavor, is to feed fermented feeds....makes the eggs and the meat have a superior flavor, more clean and nutty and not so much the taste of the grains and farmyard. They even smell better when they are cooking...the eggs have no sulfur smell and the chicken smells like it should, not so much of the farmyard smell. The FF even makes their fat taste cleaner and better, while rendering it a more deep, golden and silky color and texture.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

well tomorrow is my first butcher day of chickens we have 36 Cornish cross meat birds.

 

[rebrascora]

Wow! That's a lot to do for your first time. Good luck! You will be expert by the time you are finished.... and rather weary I imagine.

 

[the poppster]

well tomorrow is my first butcher day of chickens we have 36 Cornish cross meat birds. 

I'm sure you have gone through it already....but I always find it goes more smoothly, if I have everything set up before hand....no running around at the last minute...or even worse, during processing...ice water in a big container...coolers...I used a half of a plastic 55 gallon barrel cut length wise....with a piece of plywood to cover...it was set into a wood frame, to keep it from tipping....a water hose for rinsing....a bucket of warm water, with a dash of Clorox to rinse hands....paper towels...a clean cutting surface...I use a sheet of plywood covered with cardboard. For the really big birds, I made a killing cone out of a 5 gallon bucket....cut a half circle out of the bottom edge, so when you place the bird into it head down with the back against the side of the bucket....giving room for the huge breast on them....you'll do fine! Take your time, start early....it's going to take a while....stay calm...good luck!

 

[itsasmallfarm]

I'm sure you have gone through it already....but I always find it goes more smoothly, if I have everything set up before hand....no running around at the last minute...or even worse, during processing...ice water in a big container...coolers...I used a half of a plastic 55 gallon barrel cut length wise....with a piece of plywood to cover...it was set into a wood frame, to keep it from tipping....a water hose for rinsing....a bucket of warm water, with a dash of Clorox to rinse hands....paper towels...a clean cutting surface...I use a sheet of plywood covered with cardboard. For the really big birds, I made a killing cone out of a 5 gallon bucket....cut a half circle out of the bottom edge, so when you place the bird into it head down with the back against the side of the bucket....giving room for the huge breast on them....you'll do fine! Take your time, start early....it's going to take a while....stay calm...good luck!

ya we got every thing set up today and tomorrow morning we just are ready to start off.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

Wow! That's a lot to do for your first time. Good luck! You will be expert by the time you are finished.... and rather weary I imagine.

ya we had no idea what we where doing ordering so many birds for the first time