It’s only when you try to find some non-pink clothes for your kid that you realize ‘holy crap, this kid has a lot of pink clothes.’ It is also the time that you realize your kid doesn’t own – or refuses to wear – unpretty clothes. Even to catch chickens. I’m sure this is what Jenn was thinking as the two of them headed out to the coop bright and early this morning.
Yes. Entirely suitable attire for a day in with the chickens.
Why, you might ask, were they so purpose-driven to get to the coop this morning? Well, today was the day. The day the chickens were taken in to be *ahem* ‘processed’. Jenn spent much of the evening last night devising a method by which she could load our 23 meat birds in the truck and get them safely to the meat packers, an hour across Sudbury.
Jenn’s chicken-hauler.
Suitable attire or not, it didn’t seem to affect her any.
“Twenty three?” I hear you say, “didn’t you start with twenty five? What happened to the other two? Not more ‘coons, I hope.” No, not more ‘coons. They were victims both of heart attacks due to being overweight. The first one died sometime at night and so Jenn didn’t want to eat it and instead fed it to Valley, one of our dogs. The other one, however, was going downhill and rather than let it suffer and die, Jenn, my wife and animal lover, lopped off it’s head and skinned it; skinned it because she wasn’t sure how to pluck it. First, though, she took it for a walk and talked to it. Then she cut off it’s head, let it bleed out and held on to it while it flapped around like… like… You know, I’m at a loss for words. There must be some close approximation to what a chicken with it’s head cut off does. Wait for it; it’ll come to me. No matter: when I came home, there were four quarters of chicken in the fridge. I barbequed up two of them and Hunter and I ate our first home-raised bird of the season. Pretty darn tasty.
Anyway, the birds were loaded into the truck and at the meat packers for the 10h20 appointment and Jenn went and picked them up for 16h15, having arranged to meet me so we could trade vehicles and I could take the birds home and she could go to work.
All the chickens are loaded and ready to go.
…a kid’s-eye view
We kept a dozen birds whole in the freezer and I cut up the rest into quarters. That took me the better part of an hour and half. It’s not that I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s been a while. Sure, it’s probably like riding a bike, but I’d like to see someone ride a bike after a long hiatus with the same style and grace they had at the height of their ability. I think we’ll be in chicken for a while since most of the birds were ten pounds or better and their quarters are huge.
Processed birds. Turn-around time: 6 hours.
That is a 12-inch long boning knife beside the leg.
Same knife. Only four quarters of chicken fit on a regular cookie sheet.
If we’ve learned one thing, it’s plan to have the birds only a short while and make your appointment with the packers early. Okay, that’s two things. But we still learned ‘em.
Filed under: Writing | Tagged: all pink wardrobe, chicken processing, kid catching chickens, tasty home raised meat
You’ve got some good sized birds there. Hunter is so cute, getting right in there. That chicken she’s holding looks almost as big as her! One year when it was time to take our turkeys for processing Maria told me that she wanted to keep one of our big toms, he was her favourite. I went about explaining to her that I had orders to fill and that they all had to be processed. She re-iterated that she wanted to keep the big one, because “he’s going to be yummy!” Lol!
Did the chickens stay in the plastic containers? At first with our old pickup truck I used to crate the chickens but later I started to just put them in loose and then go to straight to the coin car wash after delivering them for processing. Now that I drive a Tahoe and I don’t want loose poultry inside it I bought a little box trailer so I put shavings in the bottom and load them up the night before, to be ready to go early in the morning. I bought that trailer specifically for moving the chickens and turkeys but it turned out to be great for also hauling around my training rig and getting bulk shavings. Counting down the days until it’s cool enough to get the dogs back on the rig.
I don’t know if the chickens stayed in the containers because it was Jenn who took them in. Even if they didn’t, though, they wouldn’t have been able to get too far. Their fate was sealed…
I expect Jenn will do things differently next time we have a batch of chickens to go. I expect she’ll dispense with the crates all together.
I, too, am counting the days ’til cooler weather.