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| EV, our Boer Buck with two of his Nubian/Boer kids in the Buck Yard |
An interesting day Sunday was. It started off separating the goat kids from their mothers. I finally corrected the drainage problem around the buck house, putting in a curtain drain and gutters on the structure. The day before I cleaned out all of the old bedding straw, putting in fresh material. I put in EV, our Boer buck, and the four weathered boys this Sunday morning. Between the boys screaming for their mothers and their mothers screaming for the boys, we had much noise and little peace. Pooh Bear, our guardian livestock dog, slept through it all.
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| Alure and Nettle, our two Nubians that we are milking this year |
Sunday was also our chicken butchering day, with our goal to process all of the male broilers. The night before Pam and I picked up the chicken plucker from our friends at the Blue Feather Farm in Clinton. The set up takes me about a hour, which we did near the house where we have outside hot water. Then the process of going up to the broiler house, grabbing a rooster and walking down to the processing area. About 300 feet each way - 20 round tips. The chicken I would grab was very upset, but as I made the trip down to the house I talked to each one, holding him close to my chest, thanking him for sharing his life force with us. By the time I was half way to the house they would be totally calm and accepting of their fate.
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| The Killing Cones set up for 4 birds |
We had a setup of four killing cones on a sawhorse, I would put the chicken in upside down, allowing the blood to rush to their head. I then use an X-acto-knife to cut the throat and bleed into a bucket. By the time I had the next chicken brought down the one before would be dead. When I got three dispatched, I then submerged them one at a time in a pot of water, 140 degrees, for one minute. Then into the chicken plucker where I removed their feet (the feet are reserved for future chicken stock). About one minute or so and all of the feathers are gone - then into a metal trash can filled wit ice water. Pam comes out and takes them one at a time into the house where she cleaned, wrapped and weighed them before putting them in the freezer. 20 chickens took us just about the full day.
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| My set up |
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| The inside of the plucking machine |
The birds averaged 4.5 lbs, down a pound from last year. We changed feed this year and last year we let them grow longer.
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