If I Want to Eat, I Need To Do What Needs To Be Done

Monday November 25, 2019 Guerneville CA.

Butcher day

Last night I selected the birds to be butchered today. Turns out I had five to do. The white one is a meat bird and is fairly heavy as a meat bird should be. Today I transferred them to this little cage to await their fate.

Gusty wind

I puttered around for a good part of the day. The wind was up and it was gusty so I had to put my burner out of the wind a bit and some wind screens were needed too.

Time to get it done

Around 2 I realized I had every thing I needed in place so I lite the burner to heat the de-feathering water and got the process started doing three birds first.

Feather plucker works great

The feather plucker worked like a charm. I turned on the water and put in the three birds and added more water with the hand sprayer, then turned off the machine about twenty seconds or so. Almost no feathers were left on the birds.

That hot water really helps

After a short break I started the second set of birds which were both large birds. I did the white meat bird and a big rock bird. I found out what happens when you don’t soak them in hot water first to loosen the feathers as somehow that’s what I did. The feathers weren’t coming off so I stopped the machine and dipped them in hot water until a wing feather pulled easily by hand and then it all went well.

Cleaning up

I cleaned up and buried the remains in my blueberry patch to help make things grow I hope.

Five ready to go

I put one chicken on the stove to boil away for meat and broth and froze three and refrigerated one to cook a bit later, maybe for Thanksgiving as it’s coming up.

That all took up most of  the day. I did get a little time in chair hopping before the day was over and the sun went down which meant it was time to go on in the house for the day.

Butchering chickens isn’t my favorite job but I need to eat healthy so I do it when it needs done.

Nice day for me, not so good for some of my chickens. :O)