Well just got back from a week up at the farm and have to
say, it is never enough time to do what I hope to, then again with
homesteading, I think that will be a constant issue, even when I am there full
time. One of the things on the to do
list, that pretty much had to happen this trip was to process (butcher) some of
the excess male chickens. We currently
had more males then females and that is not a good thing once they start
breeding in ernest. Roosters have spurs,
(kind of like a spike on the back of their feet), that tend to tear up the
sides of the hens when there is excessive mating so to prevent the hens from
getting worn out the general ratio is 4-5 hens per rooster, currently we have
more than a 1 to 1 ratio, meaning about 20 cockerels/roosters have to go! We originally planned to do them all this
trip, but after processing the first one, we decided to only do 7 this trip
then 7 more during my trip in early Nov to see the difference between the sizes
of the processed birds at 17 weeks compared to 24 weeks. It really is amazing to see the difference in
the size of the birds with and without feathers! While I am not going to go into a whole lot
of detail in how to process a bird, I will do the cliff notes version for those
who are unfamiliar and well as address what we would do different next time.
We were expecting a little rain the day of processing so we
decided to do it inside of the garage, this would probably be the first thing I
would do different, stick to outside of you can (I am still not sure how I am
going to get blood off the ceiling).
Because we free range our birds, and I did not really want them to see
what we were doing we decided to start before the sun comes up, it is also
makes it easier to catch them when they are still in the coup. It also ensures that you have a cleaner
digestive system since they did not eat in the morning. Once we captured the bird, we would carry
then upside down by the feet to the garage, this calms then as the blood rushes
to their heads. One there we hung them
by their feet over some old milk pails and used a sharp knife to slice their
jugular on the left side of the neck, when done right, the birds do not even
realize there is an issue until they pass out.
The key here is a very sharp knife and a decent amount of pressure,
realize the feathers are pretty tough, the first bird took too long in my
opinion because I was too gentle. The
other thing to realize is there will be flapping, as the bird dies (that is how
I got blood on the ceiling!). There is
another area where I will do something different next time. Another way to do this is rather then hanging
the bird by the feet is to take an old traffic cone and snip off part of the
trip enough to fit the head of the bird into it, then you place the bird head
first into the cone which is hung upside down, leaving the head sticking out at
the bottom, this prevents the bird from making excessive movements as it
passes.
We let the blood drain for about 20-30 minutes as we waited
for a large pot of hot water to reach 135 degrees, while you do need to wait
for them to drain, I would suggest getting the water up to temperature before
you start the processes. We had an issue with our flame going on only to
realize our lighter was also out of fuel and this delayed our process. One the chicken is drained and your water is
up to temperature we would dip the chicken into the pot, swishing it around to
get water in between the feathers, we did this for about 30 seconds and then
pulled the bird out and tried to pull some of the longer wing feathers, if the
feathers came out easily then it was ready for the next step, if not they went
back into the pot for another 10-15 seconds, then repeated until the feathers
came out easy. At this point they went
back up to hang by the feet for to remove the feathers. We had gloves with a rubber and small bumps
on the finger and hand portion, this made the next step easier and you
basically petted the smaller feathers off after pulling the larger ones
off. This is probably the longest step. It
probably took us about 10 minutes for the first bird but it got quicker as
things progressed. Once the majority of feathers were off we took a small
propane torch to the birds in a quick motion in order to burn off any remaining
pin feathers.
At this point the birds came to the processing table and I
removed the heads and feet, I will use the necks for chicken stock so I cut the
heads of as close to the head as possible, for the feet, it is just a matter of
bending the knee and cutting at that joint, once this is done, I then cut the
neck off as close to the shoulders as possible and put it aside and gut the
bird, I will not go into a lot more details here, if anyone wants more details
let me know. After the birds are gutted
you need to let then soak in an ice bath for a few hours (we did 3-4) in order
to get them to go into rigor and for them to relax, if not you will likely get-tough
meat, after the bath it is just a matter of cutting them out as you want them,
we ended up putting two of them whole right onto the smoker, they came out
wonderful! As this was our first time
processing chickens it took up most of the morning, I expect next time to be
much quicker as we got quicker with each bird we did.
So lessons learned for chicken processing:
1.
Very sharp knives make the job much easier
2.
Ensure everything is ready before you get
started
3.
If you can get the cones, use them. It is easier
on the processer if you do not have to see them flapping around and prevents
blood from being thrown all over.
This trip I also took the bee hive apart to do a quick inspection
and see where they were on honey stores to determine if I could harvest any
this year. It is amazing how heavy a box
gets when it is full of honey! The bees
had pretty much filled two boxes full and had started on comb in the third
box. I doubt they would have had time to
fill that third box before the cold set in and due to our harsh winters I
wanted to leave them two full boxes so, it means no honey this year. I did however get to taste just a little that
had dripped out when I pulled the box and I must admit I cannot wait until next
year to get more! As we did not pull a
box this year, it means they will not have to rebuild their comb next year so I
will probably be able to pull a box for harvest after then spring nectar flow,
so probably end of May will be the first harvest!
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| This is the bottom of the top box, pretty full! |
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| Top of the second box, you can see the honey on the broken comb |
We also got to harvest our first batch of pumpkins, and
while we have not tasted them yet, the chickens, pigs and even the dogs seem to
all enjoy them. From the looks of it
now, the pumpkins will probably be our one crop out of three that came out
well. The weed issue we had with the pig
weed really stunted the growth of the fodder beets (will still have a harvest
but it will be light). I did pull one
larger beet, the chickens finished it off in no time and the pigs really liked
the leaves portion! The sunflowers had a
couple issues, due to the location of the land we had prepped they did not get
the morning sun, and that slowed them down quite a bit considering the variety
I choose probably needs more sun days then most. Also, we planted them on ground that had sunflowers
last year, and it looks like we may have picked up some bacteria which builds
up after a while if you do not have longer crop rotations, that caused some of
the flowers to more or less implode on themselves rather than bloom. Nothing that cannot be fixed next year with
possibly a different variety and planting in a fresh area. All in all I was pretty satisfied in that we
had a very dry year for Mn, yet we still were able to produce and learn from
it, so this year’s goals have been met (helps that that year we did not have to
count on it to feed animals through the winter this first year). The apple trees also started producing this year! Well the Red Baron and the Red Duchess trees all produced this year, many of the others bloomed but the fruit did not fully set. The apples while small were very good!
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| First batch of pumpkins! |
So primary lessons learned so far:
1 1. Weed
control is very important for crop development, if you are like us going more
organic, means you need to use mechanical methods or biological (Ducks and
geese).
2 2. With a short growing season, every bit of
sunlight is important, put the right crops in the right areas and chose the
right crops for your growing conditions!
3 3. In norther climates get started indoors if
possible, give your plants a head start (what we did with the pumpkins) if you
can. This means for us a hoop house or
green house is on the wish list.
On this trip we also got a new area for the pigs fenced off,
it took them a little while to actually move into the area, but once they got
there they seemed to enjoy the fresh green grass. They do have a date with the processor next month so hopefully they enjoy this time. The other major task I got started on this
trip was clearing the old fence line on the homestead property, in many areas,
the weeds and the tree line had engulfed the fence! I did not get nearly as much done as I would
have liked but did get most of the northern half of the property done, will try
to get to actually fixing fence the next trip back in November so that we have
at least one 3 acre pasture ready in the spring. There was also a lot of little things for the
farm we got done this trip, trimmed and cut the grass in the orchards, got
straw put down as mulch on one of them (still have the second one to do) and
did some grass cutting at the farm property (for clarification, the 8 acres
with the house is the homestead and the other 40 acers is the farm, the
orchards are at the farm location). Thing
this is probably a good stopping point for this entry! Let me know any questions!
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