I hadn't butchered poultry in a long, long time before this year. I don't know about anyone else, but butchering birds was not like riding a bike (to be fair, I've also forgotten how to ride a bike, so I have a beef with that saying to begin with). I spent a lot of time reading about and watching other people's techniques before diving in. Our freezer is now full, and these are some of my personal little notes.
Emotionally, it never gets easier. If anything, the guilt accumulates. But I know my animals had a great life and as easy a death as I'm capable of giving them. I know it - it never makes it any easier, but I do know it, and that gets me through it.
It doesn't matter what age they are, every muscovy will be a pin feather nightmare. People who say there's an ideal time to pluck muscovy are either lying or have super human capabilities that allow them to pluck their birds within the one nanosecond that exists where the feathers will cooperate. Outside that nanosecond, and you're stuck with pins.
Even if they lied about plucking muscovy, they didn't lie about the flavor: muscovy are feathered beef with bacon flavored skin. On that note, always pluck; never skin. I've found skinning to not be any easier, and anyway it's downright criminal to discard the best part of the bird.
If you're hatching in hopes of hens for eggs, you will get almost entirely roosters. If you're hatching in hopes of meat, you'll wind up with nothing but hens, at which point chicken math will set in and chicken and dumplings won't be on the menu for the foreseeable future.
No normal chicken will ever compare to supermarket carcasses, so don't bother with dual purpose birds; waterfowl can serve as the main meat source. The scrawnier breeds of chicken eat less, and they're just as edible if you find yourself craving chicken.
Let the birds hatch and raise what you plan on eating. I get waaaay too attached to anything I've had a hand in rearing, so I've put away the incubators and keep my distance from the younglings.
Kill your favorite first. I know myself well enough to admit that if I don't do my favorite first, then he'll never get done.
Always be prepared for the fact that you will be slaughtering your favorite bird of the batch. No matter how much I want it to be female (because I can always justify adding another girl to the flock), the reality is that my favorite will always, without fail, turn out to be male.
Roasting a whole bird is the worst way to prepare waterfowl, and probably accounts for most folks who think they dislike goose or duck meat.
Muscovies have maybe a million feathers, while geese have at least ten bazillion gazillion feathers. All the same, geese are a hundred times easier to pluck than muscovy.
You should never dry pluck for the same reason man should never eat sushi: man discovered fire so he wouldn't have to endure eating raw meat, and man paired that fire with water so he'd never have to experience the hell that is dry plucking.
Sometimes a kill won't go as planned. Don't panic. Fix it immediately, and don't be hard on yourself. As long as you were quick to adjust, it was probably harder for you than the animal.
If you think about it, you're more likely to screw up. Just do it, and you can think once it's done.
No matter how careful you are to remind your husband that another slaughter day is coming and freezer space will be at a premium, he will be certain to come home with what seems like 100 gallons of some interesting flavored ice cream he couldn't pass up. In his defense, the pickle ice cream was one of the best things I've ever tasted.
Emotionally, it never gets easier. If anything, the guilt accumulates. But I know my animals had a great life and as easy a death as I'm capable of giving them. I know it - it never makes it any easier, but I do know it, and that gets me through it.
It doesn't matter what age they are, every muscovy will be a pin feather nightmare. People who say there's an ideal time to pluck muscovy are either lying or have super human capabilities that allow them to pluck their birds within the one nanosecond that exists where the feathers will cooperate. Outside that nanosecond, and you're stuck with pins.
Even if they lied about plucking muscovy, they didn't lie about the flavor: muscovy are feathered beef with bacon flavored skin. On that note, always pluck; never skin. I've found skinning to not be any easier, and anyway it's downright criminal to discard the best part of the bird.
If you're hatching in hopes of hens for eggs, you will get almost entirely roosters. If you're hatching in hopes of meat, you'll wind up with nothing but hens, at which point chicken math will set in and chicken and dumplings won't be on the menu for the foreseeable future.
No normal chicken will ever compare to supermarket carcasses, so don't bother with dual purpose birds; waterfowl can serve as the main meat source. The scrawnier breeds of chicken eat less, and they're just as edible if you find yourself craving chicken.
Let the birds hatch and raise what you plan on eating. I get waaaay too attached to anything I've had a hand in rearing, so I've put away the incubators and keep my distance from the younglings.
Kill your favorite first. I know myself well enough to admit that if I don't do my favorite first, then he'll never get done.
Always be prepared for the fact that you will be slaughtering your favorite bird of the batch. No matter how much I want it to be female (because I can always justify adding another girl to the flock), the reality is that my favorite will always, without fail, turn out to be male.
Roasting a whole bird is the worst way to prepare waterfowl, and probably accounts for most folks who think they dislike goose or duck meat.
Muscovies have maybe a million feathers, while geese have at least ten bazillion gazillion feathers. All the same, geese are a hundred times easier to pluck than muscovy.
You should never dry pluck for the same reason man should never eat sushi: man discovered fire so he wouldn't have to endure eating raw meat, and man paired that fire with water so he'd never have to experience the hell that is dry plucking.
Sometimes a kill won't go as planned. Don't panic. Fix it immediately, and don't be hard on yourself. As long as you were quick to adjust, it was probably harder for you than the animal.
If you think about it, you're more likely to screw up. Just do it, and you can think once it's done.
No matter how careful you are to remind your husband that another slaughter day is coming and freezer space will be at a premium, he will be certain to come home with what seems like 100 gallons of some interesting flavored ice cream he couldn't pass up. In his defense, the pickle ice cream was one of the best things I've ever tasted.
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