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.

Farm Update... Finally!!!

I have been so busy with working on the farm that I haven't had time to write many blogposts.  This post is about how I totally disregarded my brother's advice re pigs.  LOL! We shall see if it works out.

The turkeys are the most fun and curious of creatures.  They like to roost out and about.  They go and visit all the other creatures on the farm. They follow us around and are easy to herd.  So much easier than chickens!

The turkeys spend time running around the fields and eating bugs and plants.  The field is getting so high that now we can't really see them if they move away from the edge of the field.

The turkeys don't go back to their coop at night.  They usually roost on the swing set until someone comes out and herds them to bed.  They really know where to go and hop off and run to the coop.  There they fly to the roosting poles and spend the night.  The turkeys are given free range over the farm.  They only occasionally find their way to the neighbors or into my garden.

We have built a mobile pig pen.  We used hog panels and wood.  We repurposed the awning from our old house and used it as the shade and shelter for the pig pen. We wrapped a tarp across the back to make it protected.

There is barb wire around the top to discourage any wandering coyotes to move along. We move the pen every day and will have to make it twice a day when the pigs get larger.

The turkeys cam out to inspect the setting up of the pig pen.  It is real handy now, as the turkeys come out every morning after we move the pen and clean up any feed the pigs have spilt.  Team work that results in hardly any wasted feed!

The pigs eat the salad before they hit the feed.  They really seem to enjoy the fresh greens every day.  We are thinking that moving the sty daily will prevent the pigs from trying to escape.

The pigs do eat their feed though.

Our pigs do stay pretty clean as they are on clean dirt every day.  Doesn't this guy look like Babe?  So cute.

We have five pigs.  A couple are for us, the rest will be sold.  The sty moves through the fields so that they are not close to the house so that smell is not an issue.  The pigs have become T-Bob's project.  He is responsible to move the sty and make sure they have food and water.

Ir's not just the critters that are happy on the farm.  Elizabeth and a friend were leaping and dancing.

They also wandered across the fields.  

 The sunsets are beautiful and almost every day we stop and watch the sun go down.  Life is good!!

Poultry Report

The Chicken tractor was finally finished enough to be used for its intended purpose.

It still needs nesting boxes, but they can be added later when the ladies start laying.  

The first challenge was to get the chicks in the chicken tractor.  They just really didn't think this was a good idea.  We called in the volunteers to assist us.  We set up a fence to funnel them to the ramp up into the coop.

They tried to exit the chicken tractor as fast as we chased them in.  They tried, and some succeeded going under or over our fence.  My sister in law was one of our assistants.  She held down the fence and chased down the escapees.

Paul was busy trying to keep them going the right direction.  It was quite the circus!!

There were plenty of escapees to chase down as we had the fence set up too loosely and the chicks were very determined.  It was in the process of moving them that we realized that we were missing a bunch (20) of chicks.  We were so sad to find them piled up dead in the coop, having been suffocated by a possum.

Elizabeth is a first class chicken catcher!  She runs them down and has no qualms about grabbing them and putting them where they need to go.

Paul caught the last of the chicks and they were loaded into the coop. We kept them in there with food and water so that they could get used to their new home.  They need to learn that this is where they should return too. There are 44 birds in there now.

The chicken tractor is built to be very light and strong.  We are able to pull it easily, fully loaded with chicks, with the ATV.  There are too many chicks in there to let them just free range in the yard.

The day the chicks got relocated on the farm, the next batch of poultry arrived.  We got 20 Bourbon Red turkey poults.  These are a heritage breed.

Turkey poults can be told apart from chicks by the little nob on their head. They are very cute,but VERY feisty.  Much more than our chicks have been.  They feel like they have to peck everything and everyone!

They claim first place at the waterer and at the feeder.  They definitely boss the chicks around!

Here is the chicken tractor out in the field with the electric fence in place.  I think we will have to move it only about once a week.  Not even that often, with the rapid rate grass growth we are experiencing right now.

Americauna chick.

The next day the new batch of chicks arrived.  We got some Americaunas,  Delawares,  and some Cuckoo Marans.  There are distinct differences between the chicks.  The Americaunas are the hardiest and easiest to care for.  All 25 I ordered are still alive.

Delaware and Cuckoo Maran chick

The Deleware chicks are smaller and seem pretty hardy.  They are an old meat bird, but really dual purpose ( good egg layers also)  They have the most issues with pasty butt.  I don't think it is because it is easier to spot on their white feathers.  The Cuckoo Marans are the least hardy.  We had an unfortunate incident where the waterer was allowed to be empty in our rather hot garage.  There were chicks laying in the dry waterer when I found it.  I quickly refilled it and they all drank their fill.  One of the cuckoos was dead already and three more died over the next two days.  We also had one of the turkey poults die in the first 24 hours.  That is still really a good result, but not as good as last time.  The chicks all seem to be thriving now.

I liked this picture of a poult that Elizabeth took.

They are starting to get their wing feathers.

Here are two of the poults jousting to see who is the top bird.  They are a lot of fun.  Keep reading for further updates.