Monday, September 27, 2010

Meat Chickens - Cut, Scald, Pluck, Clean







A couple of weeks ago it was time to process our meat chickens. This was our first ever attempt at growing chickens to eat. We have had layers for egg production for a few years now but this was totally different. Layers don't usually lay their first eggs until they are around 17 weeks old. These girls were ready to be processed at 7 weeks! So it's a fairly short deal start to finish.

The first step was to put them upside down into the cone and slit their Carotid arteries so they just slowly pass out and die as opposed to chopping their head off and then they, yes they really do run around like a chicken with it's head cut off! Next after they have peacefully slipped off into never never land they go into some 140 degree water for 60 seconds to loosen the feathers. Then they go to the plucking table where the feathers are removed.

Next the head and feet are cut off and the evisceration(removing the innards) begins. The livers and gizzards are put into a separate bag and the chicken is ready for the freezer or frying pan.

We were painfully slow as this was the first time but we got faster as we went along. Next spring we will get more broilers and hopefully be even faster yet.

Eating chicken that you grow yourself; that you feed healthy food; that you don't feed antibiotics and hormones is a very rewarding and delicious experience.
Posted by Matthew at 7:45 PM

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Welcome!

Welcome to our family blog. We have a small (55 acres) farm and are attempting to raise beef cattle, some hay, laying hens, honey bees, a dog and a small garden. We also have a small pond that has fish in it but they pretty much raise themselves.The Twenty-eight eleven is the name of our farm. It comes from Deutronomy 28:11 which reads: "The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you." We count on God's blessings for our life as we know it so we thought it appropriate to go ahead and give Him all the glory for anything good that we produce, be it crops, cows, or children. This blog will be a fun project for us to document what is going on at our farm and hopefully share some natural ways of farming along the way (as we learn too).