The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[stonykill]

Those hatchery birds DO get a bad reputation, don't they

IMHO an unfair bad rep

 

[stonykill]

3 more roosters "resting" in the fridge for a few days. And a delicious chicken dinner cooking in the crock pot

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote:
I love my HQ birds, although I am steering away from them and going with non-HQ in the future.

 

[jendodd79]

Not trying to be funny, but what may I ask is team yoga?

I coach our local roller derby team, and we have scheduled team yoga every early Saturday morning

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote:
Haha, that makes a bit more sense. I was beginning to wonder what the world was coming to if yoga became a team competition. Roller derby huh, that's awesome. I speed skate, have since I was 12(40 now). I wish I could compete still, but life gets in the way. My first job was at our local skating rink. If I could make what I do now and do that job, I would so do it in a heartbeat. I loved that job. That is also where I met my wife, been together since 1989.

 

[stonykill]

I love my HQ birds, although I am steering away from them and going with non-HQ in the future.

is H for heritage or hatchery? I so despise acronyms.... lol

 

[jendodd79]

Haha, that makes a bit more sense. I was beginning to wonder what the world was coming to if yoga became a team competition. Roller derby huh, that's awesome. I speed skate, have since I was 12(40 now). I wish I could compete still, but life gets in the way. My first job was at our local skating rink. If I could make what I do now and do that job, I would so do it in a heartbeat. I loved that job. That is also where I met my wife, been together since 1989.

You should see if there is a local reffing league for derby nearby! It's so much fun! We're working on building up our ref squad

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote:
Sorry, Hatchery. I am on our desktop right now and the keyboard is failing, so I shorten as much as I can.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Okay. I have FINALLY waded through the processing photos and am ready to post.

PLEASE BE AWARE - PROCESSING PHOTOS COMING!
PASS BY THIS POST IF THIS IS DISTURBING TO YOU!
​

A couple weekends ago we got the opportunity to join some folks from our church to learn, hands-on, how they process chickens. This couple are immigrants (from Russia and the Ukraine... I believe I'm saying that right). They live in a subdivision in a brand new house that they worked together with friends and family to build.

When they found out we were interested in learning, they invited us to come the next time they process. They do not keep their own chickens but get chickens from local (mostly egg) farmers who keep their chickens for a short season then dispose of them. This couple process any they can get and put them in the freezer mostly for soups, chicken and dumplings, etc. (I think he already has his eyes on my girls....YIKES.....Mine are going to lay way longer than that!)

So...this time someone at his workplace had some excess ROOSTERS and they took them. This was the first time they did roosters. By the time we got there, they had already processed all the ones they were going to do for themselves. 2 remained for my husband and I to learn on and take home. When you see the buckets, you'll see that they've already been used prior to our getting there.

We had watched the videos that different ones of you have posted here, looked at pictorial processing, etc. (Here's a video I really liked:

). Now there are many different ways that people perform the actual "kill" so we weren't sure which one we'd see that day. Our teacher did his like the guy on this video.

So...Here goes with the photos:

Now I mentioned earlier that they live in a subdivision. This is an important point as you will see that we DID THIS IN THE BASEMENT! They felt that, even though they have a large lot and the closest neighbors are pretty far away, they maybe shouldn't be processing in the back yard

They put plastic down on the cement floor and used 5 gallon buckets as you'll see in the photos.


These were BIG BOYS. Their legs and feet were HUGE! I think they had scaly leg mites too but didn't examine real closely.

These two are not great photos, but I wanted something to show the size of these guys.





Here our teacher shows us how he calms and hangs the bird. This is from a rafter in the basement.







You can see his son has no problem with this - a "ham" in the background!
Our teacher is showing my husband the vein. He had him (and me when it was my turn) pull back the feathers and feel the neck.








After learning the feel, Chuck goes first.



Then when we were done w/the first bird, it was my turn on the second.



Our teacher held it still so that if it was inclined to flap, it would not get all over the basement. Both of these birds were very calm and there was not much ado.





Our teacher's wife had a pot with hot water to put the birds into to loosen the feathers right there next to the bucket on the basement floor. They had plastic down on the floor and what appeared to be a large flat plastic tote to work in while removing the feathers.





They took the plucked bird outdoors and singed the remaining feathers with a propane torch.




This is something I haven't seen before. Our teacher had us really burn the lower legs and feet really well. Has anyone seen/done this before? They keep the feet/lower legs for the soup pot I think. We did not take any but mostly because I though I might have detected the mites and was a little hesitant to use them.



Then into the kitchen. You see that (since we would likely be cutting these into pieces for soup rather than roasting whole) she had me cut the bird just under the ribs and open it with all the
internals in place.









In this photo you can see that very green bile sac that you don't want to break open in the processing!



After it was all done, I cut open the intestines on one of the birds as I wanted to look for evidence of worms. I did not see anything there.

After doing these, I felt that it was WAY EASIER than I thought it was going to be. It didn't take as much time as I had imagined and it really wasn't as huge of a deal as I thought it would be. I still think it would be much harder to process my own kiddos since I have so few and I "know" them. We'll see when that time comes!
**********************

I let the meat rest for 2 days then soaked it all in a brine for the third 24 hours. Half of it is in the freezer but I wanted to try roasting one slowly to see how it would turn out. I have no idea how old these guys were but I had thought perhaps young if the people had a bunch of roosters they got in a "straight run". They were very tough but the meat flavor very good. These guys weren't fed like we would feed ours so not sure how our own would compare in flavor and texture.

After tasting the meat, I put all of the rest of it into the soup pot and made a great soup!

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Quote:
There is, Oaks Amusement Park has a nationally ranked team. That is also the rink I was on Speed Team in my younger days. With my work schedule, farm, wife, teen son, son in the Army, I just can't make the time. Maybe in a few years once we are "empty nesters". I love speed skating(old quad style, can't do the in-line) and am still one of the fastest at Oaks Rink(even in old age and out of shape, or should I say extra shape)