And now the pictures

sometime before labor day, Tom, Jess, and I butchered the chickens. I thought I would give a simple account.

We started out by cutting a hole in the bottom of a deep rectangle bucket we had and lowered the chicken's head through it. We put the lid on to keep the feet in. Tom took a piece of heavy string and tied a stick on one end and a loop on the other. We slid it over the chicken head and made the string taut by pulling on it. Laying the bucket on it's side on the back of our wagon, he took off the head at which time I could let loose the string immediately and let it drop in a bucket we had directly below and I never had to look. Letting the chicken bleed out by turning it upside down in the ground bucket for a minute or two, then moving it to the hanging rack. Tom made one by nailing wood to the pines, nails there to hang the birds upside down, and a bent piece of soffit hung at an angle to drain any remaining blood.



This didn't take long. We were doing three at a time. Most were roosters. I didn't realize we had that many! The next step was to go to the set up for the plucking and cleaning. You can see how we have the tables set up. The white table on the left was where we would pluck, swiping all feathers off the table into the bucket below (it is covered when not in use because there were bees!) The table to the front was used for cleaning the insides, again, a sweeping of the hand to the left into the bucket kept it clean.



Bringing the bird over, you dip them into ice water until they are thoroughly wet, then right into 145 degree water. This is what that great find from the Steam Engine flea market earlier this year is being used for.





No more than 30 seconds in the hot water, or you ruin the skin. Then off to the table to pluck and clean. Before you clean the insides, be sure to get all the little hairs left behind that can't be plucked. We found using a small hand torch quickly over the bird removes that unwanted hair. And I do mean quickly, 2 or 3 seconds!



Tom found it easier to swipe the inside with his hand then use the knife for freeing the neck, rather than take a knife and pick and poke and possibly damage the meat with a small knife. We had a cooler with cold water and ice waiting to put the birds in. We would put 6 into the cooler and then bring them up to the house to finish cleaning. We weighed most of the birds in at about 8 - 9 lbs. give or take a few depending on how accurate the scale really was. All I know is that they barely fit in a 2 1/2 gallon Ziploc bag for the freezer. We only did half the birds, the end time decreasing to 15 minutes a bird from start to finish. We will be doing the rest soon, and it will be a little bit better this time because we have gotten a system down.

Now, the funny thing is, as we were cleaning up, a white helicopter with a green stripe was flying over. And over, and over us. At first we thought, accident? They are circling very low, like wanting to land in the open area next door. Then, we thought marajuana plants. They are always looking in the gamelands and private woods for plants. Then the next thought was, they are looking for someone as there had been two homocides in a reletively close area . But it wasn't so funny when they were out there for at least 1/2 hour and we realized that they were concentrating on the area right over us. Circling over us constantly and so low over our trees where we were working that I could see the guy. I even stood under him and threw my hands up as if to say, "WHAT????" It was deafening. Tom was getting irritated. The animals in the pasture were going nuts. They must have thought we were doing illegal stuff with the tables and all. I finally came in and called the PSP. I ask them if there was something going on we should know about. Make sure that they weren't looking for one of the suspects or something. I told them about what they were doing over us, and that the animals were freaking out. I no sooner got off the ph0ne and walked outside and it headed due north and never came back. Pppfft!