The day finally came this weekend for our
formerly cute little broiler chickens to head off to freezer camp. The day was not without it’s problems, but in the end, we got all 25 birds processed and packaged up to fill our freezer (and my mom’s freezer, thanks mom!) We are hoping that this will be about 4 months worth of chicken for our family.
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| Erica Packaging a Bird in a 2 gallon freezer bag |
We got off to a rocky start. I had purchased a drill operated chicken plucker, but I failed to actually test it out on our drills ahead of time. Of course when it came time to get started, we realized that the plucker was too long to fit onto our drill press that we had wanted to use, so we grabbed the corded drill as the next best option. No dice. It doesn’t open up enough to fit the plucker where the drill bit goes.
We had a brief moment of panic, before yelling into the house for all hands on deck. I really didn’t want to skin the chickens and leave myself with no option of roasting, so we plucked all 25 chickens by hand. It could have been worse. Feathers come out fairly easily from a well-scalded bird, and these were young, so had fewer feathers overall than an older bird would. Certainly it took longer, but next time, we will have developed a deep appreciation for the plucker!
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| Eric got really good at chicken evisceration by the end! |
One thing that impressed me, was how into the process the children got. The 2 big kids took turns cutting the feet off the birds. That was apparently a really fun thing to do!
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| The kids thought that cutting the feet off the chickens was great fun! |
All in all, it was an exhausting day, but it turned into great family time. I’m sure the children won’t soon forget it, and will tell this story in the future. (Whether they will tell their children or their therapist remains to be seen, but I’m sure they will tell it!)
We have processed a few birds in the past, but this time went smoother, owing to us watching a few videos on YouTube. These helped tremendously with the learning curve, maybe they’ll help you too!
On Farm Chicken Processing (I had to include this one. I love the fact that she is babywearing in an awesome back wrap while working!)
If you missed the other posts about our broiler chicken experiment, you can check them out here.
So what about you? Have you ever raised your own meat birds? Thought about it? Bought pastured raised? Think I’m nuts? Let’s hear it!
We will be starting to process our own this next Fall. And then every Fall rotating out the older ones and in the Spring getting new. My dad has said he would be in charge of the process (he has done several hundred over the course of his older childhood days) and then I could sort of glance over his shoulder until I felt I was able to jump in and help. Eventually, I’d like my husband and I to be able to do it all ourselves. I won’t lie, I’m a little nervous… or grossed out… not sure which it really is…
I think it is very normal to be nervous! I always get nervous before we start, but, honestly, after about the 3rd bird, the “ick” factor diminishes as you set about your task. Good luck!
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