Chicken Slaughter part 2

So there are a few ways to slaughter a chicken. You can cut off their heads which allows you to know for sure they're dead but requires quite a bit of force and coordinated effort. Or, you can slit the two veins on their throats, but theres a slight delay between doing the first and the second and there's no way to tell how much pain Mr. Clucks might be in during that.

We were told that when we go to do it, we had to be very sure and very ready because the worst thing you can do (and I do believe this is worse than killing them) is to maim or wound them. You can't hesitate at all once you start. For our first few birds we each did, we had an instructor next to us with their own knife which was reassuring.

I finally stepped up to the plate and chose the throat slitting method (later I moved to the decapitation after I had practiced on a dead chicken and knew I could do it well). I think the worst part of the whole process was lifting the chicken into the cone. It was flapping and trying to get away as I held it by the feet. Once inside, it calmed down, except for judging me with its beady little chicken eye.

I took a few deep breaths and then picked up the knife and slit. The moment was a lot calmer than I had anticipated, followed by the chicken body flapping and kicking.

We didn't know if a sad or happy picture was appropriate so you can just look at whichever one you choose.

I cut off its head once it was done bleeding out.

The next step was scalding them. The trick was to leave them in the hot water long enough their feathers loosened but not too long they started to cook.

Next, we strung them up and plucked their feathers into trashcans. The chickens we raised were meat birds (the gross kind that can't walk since they grow so fast- next time we've asked for more normal birds) so they were bred to have easy to remove feathers. We slaughtered a rooster as well and he was much harder to pluck.

After plucking, we cut their feet off and and their necks. We scooped their organs out of their body cavities, keeping the hearts and livers. That was the only part I didn't do since I don't do so well with body innards.

As we moved through the morning, we accumulated a number of heads, guts and feet which we then took to the woods and dumped.

And, finally, we were done. Two days later, we had chicken pad thai. Delicious.

Chicken Slaughter part 1

Chicken slaughter was quite the day. We went down to the tool shed where killing cones, buckets, a pot with hot water for scalding and a long table for evisceration were all set up. It was a bit strange to see our barnyard transformed during breakfast. I had also just given the broilers (called that to distinguish chickens between layers for eggs and those that we raise for meat) breakfast and water before heading down to slaughter them.

We started by talking about a bit about what it meant to kill an animal for food. We were all pretty nervous (and pretty nauseous, at least in my case) and it was nice to take a moment before we started. Betsy, our resident rabbi, spoke a little about the cycle and rhythm of life and death and after that we were all a bit calmer and felt better.

We sharpened our knives while the water continued to heat (it had to be 160 F to properly scald the chickens so the feathers were easy to pull off). Reid, who was showing us knife sharpening, had just shot a pheasant that morning so he pulled it out of his truck and showed us, pheasant style, what we were about to do.

Below is pheasant sans innards:

Once we were properly trained and grossed out, we went to get the first few broilers. We put them in this nifty chicken box and they happily sat there clucking while we took out our first victim...

A Milk and Cookies Kind of Day

Today was alternatively grotesque, violent and morbid.

We started by slaughtering chickens this morning, picking through moldy squash this afternoon and splitting wood this evening.

So a big warning: my next post, once I get all my pictures together, will be of the chicken process. Not for the faint of heart.

The good news is that so far I'm a natural at finding rocks for stone walls and splitting wood: it must be genetic.

Can't Wait

I'M SEEING MY CATS TODAY! And Rebecca and Anthony and we're going to have a fabulous weekend. Can't wait!

Also also...

We pressed cider today! And I forgot my camera!

Cider pressing is incredibly easy (with the right tools) and really fun. We made 9 gallons in an afternoon and had loads of fun climbing the apple trees to shake down the fruit.

Also...

Also, this happened. I'm refering to the part about spraying molasses all over the grass. Lee, my fellow farmer friend, is blogging as well. She, however, can add captions and borders to her pictures, making them look much cooler. I'm very jealous.

Chores part 2

The other side of daily chores is the weekend chores. We have a rotation where we each do it every six weeks and I just had my first weekend. Emma and I did all the animal chores two days in a row which was pretty intense. That said, if this was my own farm, I'd do that every day. Of the year. Always.

Weekend chores are supposed to be low stress but the animals decided to play jail break on Saturday. The day began with moving the sheep. We have this electrified net that is set up in a pasture and a second one that's set up for them to move into in the morning. We normally lift up the panels that are close to each other and they scoot through to the fresh grass. We don't really know what went wrong, but a number started getting tangled in it that morning. It ended up, after much sheep herding with the ram and a lamb on the outside of the fence.

Sheep when separated from their flock go a bit crazy and try to get back with them. Not so easy for us, since they were only a few feet away eating yummy grass and didn't realize they weren't with the rest of the sheep. As I wrote a few days ago, there are a few friendly sheep like number 60. Then there are sheep that want nothing to do with up. Emma and I spent 10 minutes walking after the ram and lamb as they walked away from us. Very frustrating.

It ended up with Emma running back to the house to get grain and some reinforcements. While lured towards the grain, Emma and Sophia tackled the lamb and wrestled him to the ground. We dragged him, one each on his front legs, towards the fence and shooed him in.

The ram was much tougher since we didn't feel comfortable tackling him and not getting hurt. He also has one thing on his mind and it's not food so he was not all that interested in our grain bucket. Needless to say, after much stress, coersion and herding, we got him back with his ladies.

The rest of the weekend was better. The cows had escaped a number of times the past week and we convinced them to stay in their pasture with much extra hay. Luckily I have a few weeks until my next weekend responsibilities!