Well, I'm on the way....

[blue90292]

wow, nancy! that's great!!

are you giving them away or are they buying them from you??

 

[BirdBrain]

Nancy,
We are in Spring, so we're "near" neighbors.

There are some really good tutorials online that you can follow to learn how to dispatch and prepare your chickens. I'll see what I can find...

Okay, here are some sites:

I really like the pictures and explanations at this one-
http://www.butcherachicken.blogspot.com/

This one uses a different approach-
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/grim79.html

Yeah, Cornish game hen would have been good. I have a couple who are not growing as fast as the others. One injured his leg in the first week, but now he is up and running with the rest. The second was one of 3 who were having troubles when it got a bit to warm for them. The would pull their heads down into their neck and feathers and just sit. We lost the other 2 (the buzzards had chicken dinner instead of us) but this one I got to drink some water with vitamins and minerals. She is doing better but it is like she lost a week's growth due to the stress. She seems to be holding her own. Today I noticed one that was making a sort of wheezing sound and marked her wing with a marker so I could easily find her to check on her.

When we clean out the pen, we begin shoveling out the shavings on one side of the pen. When we get about a third of it out we sprinkle in the new stuff to cover that area. Some of the birds will cross over the fresh, but mostly we take a broom, and moving slowly, push them in the direction of the clean side. Obviously, we take out all the waterers and feeders. When we get another third out we again sprinkle fresh shavings and so on until we are done. We try to move very slowly and quietly around them, but even so there are plenty of them will run and flutter and scare the tar out of their friends for no apparant reason.

 

[blue90292]

nancy, i put an ad out on craigslist for a processor. i got a guy reply, said he takes his to prairie view a&m but they are $4 a bird. i thought was a dollar a piece too high though.

 

[blue90292]

nancy i just talked to the guy again and he said he miscalculated. last time he took his birds, and he took about 40, his bill was around $80. so he's figuring it was close to $2 per bird. call prairie view a&m and see what they say. he said he fasted his and then took them in at 8am.

 

[greentree]

I called PVAMU and they told me they were not processing birds....

I am selling them !!

BirdBrain,

I grew up in Spring!! Now, it has grown up!!
Thanks for the links! I am going to do a few, but I just don't want to do ALL of them myself.

Nancy

 

[BirdBrain]

Nancy,
My DH graduated from Klein High a century ago

and we moved back about 4.5 years ago. We were looking at the birds tonight and think that there are a couple who might be candidates for the 'ole chchopping block early this week. We lost another bird yesterday. We have lost 4 out of 54. I ordered 50, so I guess that is not too bad. I wish I didn't loose any though. I have one this evening whose abdomen was very deep red...not bloody...and I am not sure what that is all about. I think he may be our first candidate so we be sure to eat him instead of offering him to the local buzzard population that gets all the meat scraps here at the ranch.

I'm glad you liked the links. You would have been rolling on the floor laughing if you could have seen my kids and I the first time we butchered a bird. We printed out the pages from that first link and put them in page protectors (didn't want my directions getting slimed) and set to. We kept having to refer back to the pictures. We finally got the job done and we picked up speed tremendously on the following attempts and got to where we felt rather proficient. You know what they day about practice....

Have a great Easter!!

 

[greentree]

Small world, huh?? I graduated from Klein at least a century ago.... what year did he graduate? We moved away 4.5 years ago. DS was in the first class from Klein Collins.

I leased commercial property behind my house for my horses, and always said that when that property goes, so do I!! It sold, and development started about a week after we moved.

Some of my broilers are sneezing..... They are so close to slaughter that I don't know whether to treat them or not. Dr. Brown from First State Vet is sending Gallimyacin, but I haven't decided to use it....

Nancy

 

[BirdBrain]

Sneezing? THat is what happened to "Cluck" last year. We decided we didn't want her to harm the others, so that is why we dispatched her early. I don't think I would treat them. Just send them to the freezer.

I think he was in the class of 78 or somewhere around there.

We moved from a home like that in Alaska. They put in great big homes and some of our friends said that you could look in the second story windows of our home from the first story of the new homes. The property behind us sloped up. I am so glad not to have something like that towering over us.

 

[greentree]

I graduated in 77 !!

That would not have been good, having neighbors looking down into your home!

Dr. Brown thinks my laying chickens have Coryza....I have to treat them for 2 weeks, then vaccinate them. All those egg cartons I bought are just sitting there, waiting for eggs. I am most worried about these broilers, though. They are just SSSOO close to being done. Then, am I going to have this with EVERY chicken that comes on my place?? ACK

Nancy

 

[BirdBrain]

I don't know squat about coryza. I think I would ask on the emergency forum and see what they say.