remembering them as tiny peeping fluffballs, they were so cute!
teenagers - a bit more awkward, but still cute...
figuring out how and where to sleep...
always eating!
our first egg...
feeding them messy stuff like this, and them standing in the food and flinging it all over the coop...
chicken glamor shots...
chickens in the snow...
Why the reminiscing? Well... our chickens are all gone now.
Last Sunday we put them in boxes...
loaded them in the car...
and drove over to a friend's house who was having a chicken culling party.
They had the whole set-up. A cone (for doing the deed)...
a rented chicken plucker...
and a table with knives and cutting boards for processing.
This is NOT one of our chickens! There were 8 other birds meeting their fate that day; I didn't take pictures of our girls...till later.
Lest you think I am totally heartless (and you would certainly have reason to think that!), it was a very hard day. I was sad to see our girls go. I didn't kill any of them myself, but I did end up dressing two of them (such an innocent sounding euphemism!).
Several folks at the "party" had evisceratead a chicken before, but it had been at least a year for those who had and it's not something you just remember how to do. We had Gail Damerov's book out (which frankly isn't super helpful) and one person had been to a class and she still vaguely remembered the steps. I think the first chicken took at least 30-45 minutes from killing to putting on ice! We got much faster after that - we had to with 15 birds to deal with!
It was quite an experience I must say. One interesting thing was seeing the various levels of egg development inside the birds when we took out the innards.
And the plucker was amazing! Seemed too weird to take a video of it in action - but I'm sure you can find videos online.
At the end of the day we had a basket full of 2.5 to 3.5 pound chickens, chicken feet and necks for stock, and other innards (like liver) for...whatever Jeremy is going to do with those.
This was always the plan. The decision to do it now was prompted by two things. First, we had to buy eggs at the store for the first time in two years because the girls just haven't been laying much. (Eww, that's what we used to eat!?) And second, our friends were having a party and renting a plucker! Can't say no to that. =)
Plus it was really nice to do this as a group learning exercise instead of on our own.
The girls are in the freezer for now. I think we might can them later - I've heard that can really help the tough quality of old bird.
We've been chickenless for three days and it is very strange being out in the backyard and not seeing and hearing the girls. It's time to clean out the hen house, disinfect things, and get everything ready to go.
After all, our shipment of new baby chicks arrives in two days!! =)
Now you can better envision the task I had, while pregnant with Jessica, of cleaning 37 chickens, by myself, with no plucker, that you dad had decided to kill all at once. Took me about 12 hours. The smell of burnt feathers from singing the pinfeathers was in the house for days. I didn't eat chicken for a long time. I used Carla Emerys old fashioned recipe book as my guide.
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