Bye Bye Birdie!

Today we took the Cornish X Chickens to the Meat Locker to be processed.  They were 10 weeks old.

Can you believe they were only 10 weeks old?

I did not know how I would react to the killing, plucking, gutting and what not that is involved, but...I can't wait to do it again!  It was amazing.  I could not believe how easy it was to do, both mentally and physically.

Mentally, I wasn't sure I would be able to handle the fact that I raised these chickens from day old chicks.  I fed and watered them every day.  I held them and pet them.  But, when it was time to put those chickens in my freezer it was easy for me to keep my feelings out of the meat locker.  I actually felt a little guilty that I was not upset about killing my chickens.

Physically, I thought it would be just plain nasty to kill, pluck or gut a chicken, but that was surprisingly easy as well.  I thought there would be more "stuff" inside a chicken, but it's just the basics. 

The most difficult part of processing the chickens was catching them!  Normally, when we let the goats and chickens out of the pen, I feed them right away.  But chickens that haven't just eaten are much easier and less messy to process.  So, this morning, after I let everyone out, my husband and I had to chase the meat chickens around and put them in cages so they wouldn't eat anything.  It was seriously ridiculous.

Then we drove them over to the Meat Locker.  Our friend at the Meat Locker let us watch him process a few ducks before we did our chickens so we knew what we were in for.

Our friend and Jesse did the killing, I'm pretty sure I would have cut my hand off by accident if I did it.  They held the chicken by its neck and slit both sides of the throat.  This caused the chickens to die instantly.  There is some twitching involved, but rest assured the chickens are dead.

Next, our friend scalded the chickens in water and put them in the plucker.  We were very lucky that he had a plucker because that took about 20 seconds per bird instead of hand plucking which can take forever!  The next step was to hand pluck any pin needles left and to cut the head and feet off. 

Breaking the leg joint

After we pull the "guts" out the chickens take a nice cold bath, then they are rinsed and put in the cooler.  The next day we went back to package and vacuum seal the individual chickens.

Fully processed chickens ready for an ice bath

All 11 of our chickens weighed in at between 5 and 6.5 pounds, not too bad for being only 10 weeks old!

I have a new appreciation and interest in the food that ends up on my kitchen table.  It was incredibly amazing and rewarding to know that I prepared my family's dinner from the beginning to the end.