Butchering Chickens and Turkeys on the Farm

Monday was the big day!  The day we had our first big butchering extravaganza.  We butchered 95 broilers and 9 turkeys.  We were blessed to have lots of friends come to help us with this big project.  

NOTE: I did my best to keep this post approved for sensitive viewers

 

We had a family of ten people come on Sunday night, they were traveling through, and stayed to help us with our butchering.  They were experienced which was a great help.  The weather was about 30 and snowy when we started.  The driveway was slippery, but I am aware of only one wipe out.

The snow was pretty as it lined the trees.  The young guys went back and collected the broilers.

Paul was outside early getting the scalding pots heating and the plucker set up.

We had worked very hard to get the garage all cleaned up.  We knew the weather was predicted to be cold and snowy.  We set up all the things we could inside.  Unfortunately, the heater broke the week before our butchering frolic.  

Here is how we set it up.  The small table by the door was for removing any feathers the plucker missed.  The white table with the cutting boards on it was raised up so that the eviscerators could stand and work.  We had one person who just removed the legs and the oil glands.  We saved all the feet for broth.  I am planning to can it. The brown table on the lower right was for the older people who prefer to sit while working.

Paul did an amazing job with our sink set up.  He ran a water  hose to the beams over top and put on a splitter.  That made it so that we had two hoses that the QC  (Quality Control) people could use to clean the birds.  We used two old stainless steel sinks in a metal frame and had room to set in two roaster pans, one at each end to hold the birds to be checked and then the ones to be weighed when they were finished.  The sinks had pvc pipes underneath that were angled and connected  then the pipe ran out underneath the garage door to an area which could absorb the water.

We had brought up two picnic tables which were covered in plastic.  They were for the cleaning of the birds before they went into the scalder.  We used an enzyme cleaner and a hand brush.  The birds needed very little cleaning.

The boys brought up the broilers in our trailer which they pulled with the ATV.  The broiler pen was a couple hundred feet from the butchering area, so this was the easiest way.

Everybody stood around and watched as the first birds were done.  We were so blessed to have so many people willing to help.  We had a couple friends from church as well as a couple families that we have gotten to know through other butchering days we have helped with.  Our birds were treated well.

The boys built a little holding pen that the broilers were put in as they waited their turn.  Then they could be getting more while the rest were processed.

The young girls wandered around the farm and enjoyed the softly falling snow.

Dad stopped by to inspect our set up.

Karen ran the plucker.  The plucker pulls off the feathers very gently and in about 45 seconds you go from a fully feathered chicken to a bird that looks like this.  Such a labor saving device!  It eliminates the most tedious part of bird processing.

My DH, as a farmer, who would have thought it?!!!, He stuck around most of the morning and helped carry birds.

The evisceration table

We had a big container outside the garage to cool the birds as they waited for further processing.  We had frozen a lot of ice before our butchering day. 

Evisceration is the process of removing the birds insides.

The QC station was where all the birds are double checked to see that everything that should have been removed was actually gone (feathers and internal pieces and parts).  The birds are also given a good washing at this point.

'Grandpa', part of the overnight contingent, did the job of weighing.  He was meticulous in trying to get everything weighed out exactly right!  The birds were given a number that was attached by rubber band to their leg.  The number and weight was then recorded on the computer so that we could see how much yield we actually got and what our price per pound actually was.

The birds went from the weighing station into a large can lined with plastic filled with ice water so that they would chill.  We started at 8:30 in the morning and all the birds were cleaned and cooling by 3 PM.

We really appreciated the inside help as well.  Several people heated hot beverages and put out snacks, heated lunch and kept an eye on the younger children.

Our help left about 4 PM.  The temperature had dropped throughout the day and everyone was worried about icy roads.  We still had to cut up the birds that we wanted in pieces, and put all of them in bags.  It took us until after ten to get that done.  We all felt like human popsicles by that time.  It was down into the low teens.  It was a long day but worth it.  We are now really looking forward to having our own chicken wings for part of our Christmas Eve dinner appetizers.

For those interested:  We raised Freedom Ranger Broilers that were second generation raised on non-GMO feed.  We got them from the JM Hatchery (AKA as Freedomrangerhatchery.com) out of Pennsylvania.  We bought 100 poults and ended up with 95 birds.  They seemed really healthy and were excellent free range birds.  They were still able to fly a few feet off the ground, and would range for several hundred feet from their pen during the day. We only put food in their pen at night, the rest of the time they were on their own.  We butchered them at 11 weeks.  They yielded 4-6# carcasses at that point.  When we do them again, we will get an earlier start.  You really don't want to be butchering chickens in November in Ohio.

Family Night on the farm

This will be a rather unique blogpost.  I am writing at 1 A.M. and I don't have any pictures to illustrate my story, for which you will be grateful, and I smell like very wet chicken.  Poor me!

Here is my story.  Tonight my DH and I were arriving home at the farm after a very nice date night.  We had gone to hear George Barna speak on parenting and then went out to Aladdin's for dinner.  By the time we arrived home it was after 10.  My DH commented to me that one of the black chickens was lying by the end road.  I said that that didn't make any sense.  I wasn't questioning his veracity just the fact that a black chicken was by the road made no sense.  He went out to look while I stayed on the driveway to keep my shoes dry.  When he came back he reported that the chicken was still alive.  That was really strange.  My DH is a "city slicker" farmer and doesn't touch chickens.

I went and got some boots. a flashlight, and Michelle.  We went out to the road and Michelle picked up the rooster and looked at it closely.  No blood and it seemed intact.  But why was it by the road?!!  The roosters always head to the back to be near the hens and not towards the road.  The rooster chirped and snuggled as we headed back towards the coop.  Alas, the fence was broken down and there was a dead rooster caught in it.  Another rooster was missing altogether.  The fence to the broilers was also broken down.  Fortunately, there coop was buttoned up so tightly that the fox or coyote couldn't get it.  As we were examining the broiler pen, we noticed that all the broilers were sopping wet.  Chickens don't stay healthy when they can't get dry. The place where the pen had been moved to last night had become a swamp with all the rain!

What to do?!!! We called for reinforcements and went and cleared out one of the stalls (My DH and T-Bob used their big muscles to do that) that was filled with junk and covered the floor with hay.  We also cleared out the road trailer, got the ATV out and went back to the broiler pen.  Do you know how long it takes to chase down and move 100 broilers?!!! These are Freedom Ranger broilers and they can move fast.  Thomas was in his documentary mode, meaning he is putting together evidence for future political campaigns that indeed he was raised on a farm and is a real farmer.  He made Elizabeth, (Poor kid, she was in bed sleeping when all the excitement broke out and so she was recruited to come help. Second night in a row that she has been up past midnight), hold the flashlight and video tape him catching the broilers while standing barefoot in the broiler pen full of mud and bird poop.  He is not afraid of hard work or dirt- as long as the camera is on -  LOL.  He continued working though once the camera was off.  We loaded the wet birds into the trailer and hauled them to the barn.  There we reversed our human chain and unloaded them all.  The chickens seemed very happy to be in a warm dry place.  

T-Bob and I went back to check on the roosters and fix their fence.  When that was done we went to move the electric power to the fence so that if the robber comes back he will get a real surprise.  T-Bob made sure that the power was off, but when he moved it there was still a power reserve that jolted him as he walked.  These electric fences are very powerful and give you a real "kick-in-the-pants" and not just a strong tingle.  In fact, he almost fell over from the strength of it and the battery charger went flying.  He thought I had thrown a brick at him and hit him.  At least that's what it felt like.  I would never do such a thing!!!  My DH was once again called out to set the fence charger back up.  Both T-Bob and I wanted nothing to do with it after that.  I think the fact that the ground was soaking wet was a factor in the shock.  By  the time we got in the house it was almost one in the morning.  Michelle was finishing butchering the dead chicken that was caught in the fence.  Don't want to waste the meat on one of my primo roosters.

So what did your family do for 'Family Night'?

Did I mention that we love life on the farm?  It is definitely character building!

Life on the Farm

Things have been super busy here at the farm.  We have had lots of birthdays (four) in the last ten

days of June, as well as LOTS of company.  It has been one of those times where I have been too busy living to do any writing about it.  Also, since the company has left, I have been getting caught up on my rest.  

 One of the projects we have done recently  to build a hoop coop.  We found the plans on the Backyard Chicken Website.  It is really simple and uses three steer fencing panels and some chicken wire.  It has a basic wood frame.  We did buy treated lumber for the base to increase the structural longevity.  

It has a simple wood frame and we put in two roosting poles.  Recently, My DH was given a bunch of white tarps.  We have used a couple of the tarps to provide weather protection.  

We cut off part of an old screen door to give access.  We wanted it to be tall enough that someone about 6 ft can stand in the center.

We put the little chicks in there and it has worked well.  We were able to move them out of the garage and get them on grass.  After three days we opened the door and let the chicks free range inside the electric fence with the old hens.  I was pleased to see there were no issues between the hens and the chicks and everyone seems to get along.  The hens even come in and visit the chicks and get a snack or a drink.

Here is the almost finished structure.  We still want to put a tarp on the back end of the coop for more weather protection.  We are still trying to figure out a way to make this coop more mobile.  We need to figure out a wheel system.  Right now, we slide it along on a couple dollies.  

One other potential use for this structure would be to use it for a simple green house in the spring.  The white tarps let a significant amount of light through and tables on the edges would give a good planting surface.  

Here is a recent picture of the fields.  A close examination shows that there are lots of beans, sunflowers, radishes, corn, sorghum and several other plants coming up nicely.  We planted a grazier nurse crop on the field which contains a mix of about ten different seed types.  The purpose of it is to build organic mass in the soil, also known as topsoil, and to encourage the restoration of nutrients to the soil.  It is nice to see them turning green!  We are hoping to get some cattle to feed/graze on there late this summer.  

The herb bed is looking good.  The plants all seem to be thriving.  No casualties yet.

One of the plants in the herb spiral is bee balm.  It is flowering and does give it a nice dash of color.

I love the purple flowers on the clematis.  We have several in the front and a pink one on the side of the shop.

Elizabeth found a very cool snake skin in the front garden.  We welcome anything that keeps the bugs down.  We tried to encourage the hens to snack on the Japanese beetles in some of the gardens, but they were a little rough on the plants and they were more interested in digging up the dirt and looking for worms than eating beetles.

For all those people that were wondering, yes, the pond can and is swam in.  It is a spring filled pond and also gets filled with rain water.  When the weather is warm, we do get some pond scum, but Thomas has been faithfully raking it out and putting it on our compost pile.  

We also have these super sized bug catchers, also known as bull frogs.  We had some young men here who caught three that were HUGE!  They wanted to use them for frog legs, but we requested that they return them to the pond so they can get more bugs.

This is some of the recent happenings on the farm.  Stay tuned and I will try and get some more posts up soon!

This week in review

This past weekend was our last speech and debate tournament of the season.  The last tournament is really large and is very competitive.  Thomas had varied results.

In the debate speaker award category Thomas placed tenth out of 114 competitors.  He was very pleased to get a gavel.  His debate partner Mikayla also got a gavel.

The guy here with Thomas  is an OSU law student.  He has been a mentor for him for several years.  He has been a good influence on him.  Our family has come to really appreciate Elliot.  Someday we will even vote for him when he runs for Congress!

Here is Thomas with his debate partner of two years.  They had a good run and won two tournaments and were in other semi-finals.  They worked well together and had a good influence on each other.

Here is Thomas with his hardware from the tournament.  He has a speaker's gavel, a sweepstakes medal and a first place plaque.  He had a very successful year!

I like this picture of DH and Thomas.  Thomas looks so much like his Dad.  

Thomas won first place in Impromptu Apologetics.  He did a great job!  He spent a lot of time studying Josh McDowell's book, 'More Than a Carpenter'.

Michelle took this picture.  There were millions of dandelion fluff balls to choose from.  Our yard needs to be mowed soooo bad, but it is just too wet.  Lots of dandelions here!!!

Here is another picture of our beautiful dandelions.  The moth liked them.  I saw a bird land on the stem of a dandelion.  It slowly bent over.  Then the bird flew to another dandelion stem and was able to hang onto it and while eating the fluff off another one.  It was such a tiny bird.  I am going to see if I can figure out what it was.  It was only slightly larger than a hummingbird.

The chicken coop is finished.  It only needs a chicken exit and ramp built as well as the nesting boxes installed.  Paul installed a window in it today.  It is very close to usable.  Now he is studying how to set up the electric fence.

The hens are doing well.  They roam all over the yard and sometimes into the neighbors yard.  They are not living there anymore so I guess it's ok.  We will be fencing them in soon too.
 

Here is one of the blueberry bushes we transplanted from the other house last fall.  It is looking well and has lots of blooms on it.  Yeah!!!

The garden is looking good.  The bare spots are where a robin dug at it.  You can tell because it pulled up the straw from underneath.

Here is the next bed I will be planting.  I am hoping my brother brings some of his beautiful aged manure very soon so I can finish the bed.  My tomatoes are overgrowing in the basement and need to be planted yesterday!

The shallots have all come up now and looking good.  The yellow color on some is merely from the reflected light of the sunset.  The plants are healthy.

The flag irises are starting to bloom.  They are really pretty. Mostly yellow and purple ones so far.

Over the winter, the herbs that Paul and I dug up and moved to the farm, all died.  It was very sad.  I was trying to figure out where I was going to get more and how to do it.  Then, when I was down in Amish country last time, one of my patients offered to section her herbs as they were so big so that I could have some starts.  It was such a blessing!  They look really healthy and all I need to do now is get that herb bed built so that I can plant them.  At least for now, they are happy in their barrel bottom.

I bought some rhubarb to plant in my apple tree guild.  They have done well and are happy while they wait for me to plant them.

Here is a sunset from the other evening.  It was so beautiful and then to have it reflected off the pond was twice as nice.  If you could see a larger view of this picture you would see the glow of the sunset lighting up the dandelions in the grass. Our Creator does such awesomely beautiful things.  I love our place here on the farm!!!

This Week on the Farm

This has been a good week.  The weather has been springlike.  Warm but not hot and quite a bit of rain.

My Dh gave me a dump truck load of manure for Mother's Day with the promise of another load if needed.  It came from the neighbor's down the street.  I am putting it in the bottom layer of my vegetable garden.  We'll see how it goes.  My brother has promised me another load of his aged to the point of dirt horse manure some time this week.  Should I be worried that I get so excited about animal excrement?

This week one of my big projects was to teach the chicks that it was OK to be outdoors.  I worked hard to chase all of them out of the stall and into the fenced area.

They kept trying to run back into the barn.  Their food and water was out there, but they still were 'chicken'.  They crammed against the area and the side of the barn.

Every time a car or truck went down our road, which is very frequently, they would run towards the barn like the sky was falling.  It was pretty funny to watch. They would timidly move into the fenced area and then come running full tilt back cause a car went by.

Black Jersey Giant Rooster

 It was helpful that the free range hens that roam the yard came round and presented a good example of calm behavior in the yard.  By evening they were gradually coming out.  Then we had to work to chase them BACK into the barn.  Silly birds!

Barred Rock hen

 After almost a week of this they are finally getting with the program.  They come running out when I open the barn door, they have learned to love to eat grass and dandelions, and they head back towards the stall when it gets dark.  Yeah!  Keeping chickens is pretty easy most of the time, but this was harder than I anticipated.  I probably spent 8-10 hours on these silly birds.

My DH is working diligently on building our mobile coop.  We have a deadline of next weekend to complete it as we have another batch of birds, including some turkeys, coming then who will need the bird stall.  The old chicks will need to live here and be outside most of the time.  When they are outside they are so much healthier.  They eat bugs, grass and a lot less feed!

My DH and Paul are building it out of aluminum that he has scavenged off of jobs that required demoing.  This will result in a lot lighter weight structure that will be easier to move around.

Sunday was Mother's Day!  We had everybody in the family over that was local.  We also celebrated Mom's birthday at the same time.  Michelle made a nice birthday cake for her.

Our neighbor's joined us for the celebration.  None of their children are local.  Earl is the guy who has rescued us so many times here on the farm.  They are both very sweet.  Ian photobombed it!

It was really nice to have the family together!

I forgot to take pictures during the meal.  The adults ate the desert while the children were outside playing.  It was pleasant and peaceful.  Yummy cream puffs and a slice of birthday cake.

Shell

 We were glad to have My brother's family spend the day.

Michelle and Miss President took a picture together because they 'matched'.  This is what it looks like today...

But someday they will be almost the same height!  Miss P is a tall girl also!

My DH continued to work on the coop.  The siding was given to us by a neighbor.

The coop is becoming 'Joseph's coop of many colors' as the siding was from several different projects.

The chicks are a popular place to hang out.  Elizabeth likes to study them.  She is such a farm girl already.

This is the white leghorn rooster.  Our hatchery did a really good job of sexing our chicks.  I think this is the only one that they missed on.  He is a little guy.  So far he gets along well with everyone.

Spring is in full bloom here at the farm.  We are enjoying the flowers and trees.  The garden is growing well.  The shallots are looking good and the lettuce is growing quickly.  Life on the farm is good!