Chicken Weekend

Last Friday, with the help of the Painschabs and the Lees, we butchered 75 chickens here on the farm!  We are so grateful for all of their help.  It would have have taken Derek and I FOREVER to process that many chickens on our own.

The process went like this:

First, we catch the chickens out of their tractors with a chicken catcher hook.  The hook is a long wire with a handle on one end, and a hook on the other end that you put around the chicken's leg and pull them toward you.  Even the kids helped us with this part.

Owen catches a bird out of one the chicken tractors 8.26.11

Laura is very excited to have caught a chicken. 8.26.11

Next, the chickens are brought to what I call the "kill station," because, well, that's just what it is.  We record the live weight of the chicken before turning them upside down in a kill cone (road cone), cutting the veins in their neck, and allowing them to bleed out.  No, we don't chop their heads off and let them run around.  Actually, if you're interested in any more explanation of the killing/butchering process, I highly recommend the University of Minnesota Extension - Home Poultry Processing website.  When the chicken is dead, it is then scalded in 150 degree water for one minute before going for a ride in the Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker (which Derek built for us last summer).

Noah mans the Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker.  8.26.11

I cannot say enough good things about the Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker.  It may not look like much, and I admit, I was extremely skeptical when Derek ordered the plans and told me that he was going to build it - even after he showed me all of the YouTube videos of how great it was going to work.  But now, I cannot imagine plucking chickens without it.  It is AMAZING. After less than 30 seconds in the plucker, the chickens have almost no feathers left on them.

Dad plucks any feathers that remain on the bird after the Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker.  8.26.11

Mom shows off a "naked" chicken.  8.26.11

After all of the feathers have been plucked off of the chicken, Derek takes care of the evisceration process (cuts the head and feet off, and guts them).

Derek prepares to remove the internal organs of the chicken.  8.26.11

The birds are then chilled and packed for the freezer.

Carrie checks for feathers a final time and packs the whole birds into freezer bags.  8.26.11

Oh, and did I mention, that just as the last birds were being cut up for the freezer, our heifer, KC, went into labor?!  She labored for two hours, and delivered her very first calf without any trouble or need of assistance.  Lilly, Violet, Noah, and Derek even got to see the new calf being born.  Betty, was born at 8:05pm on Friday night.  Lilly named the calf Betty, because Friday was also her great-grandma Betty Johnson's birthday.

Derek with heifer calf, Betty.  8.27.11

And then, when we went to check for eggs the next morning, we found that our spring chickens had laid their very first egg!  A big weekend on the farm indeed!

CLICK HERE to go to my Kodak Gallery album with more photos from the weekend.