Butchering...

Birds ready to butcher!!

This fall we raised 300 business birds so we spent three Saturdays in October butchering. The birds were all about 8 1/2 weeks old (usually we only let them go for 6-7 weeks before butchering!) so they were big birds. Usually our average bird weighs about 3 pounds- this fall our average was 4 1/2!!! The biggest bird we ended up was 7 pounds- with a couple 6 pounders too!!

Our first Saturday was rather discouraging-- we were supposed to start at 8am, but is poured elephants and hippos (it was way past cats and dogs!!) during the early morning and on until about 10am. When the rain did let up, we had to move all the equipment out of the car port--there was about 7 inches of standing water where we had set everything up!! When we finally got everything moved to a dryer spot and corralled everybody to start at 11, we had a electrical problem with the scalder.....to make a long story short, we eventually did get started about 2:30, and managed to do almost 70 birds before the day was over.

Our second Saturday was much more successfull- it didn't rain, there were no problems with the scalder and we got 136 birds in the freezer! Plus when everything was cleaned up, we got to watch the Wildcats (our favorite college team!) play a great football game- and win-so all things considered- it was a great day!! :)

Our last Saturday presented a few challenges as we had another round of scalder troubles, but after a few miutes of work, Dad was able to fix the wiring and get us back in running order!! Lydia ran the scalder that day, and we emptied the last pen- butchering our last bird!!

Moses has the dirtiest job of all- removing the heads!!

Seth got home from work early one Saturday and he pitched right in and helped!

Thanks, Seth!!

Micah brings the ready-to-pluck birds to the scalder for Scott.

Scott takes the birds and scalds them before running them through the plucker- truly a life-saver!! We used to be able to butcher about 50 birds in one day when we were hand-plucking. With Scott's plucker we did 135 birds in about 6 hours.

I get them next for the 'fine-tuning'- making sure every little feather has been removed!!
I'm glad for the plucker which makes my job so much faster!!

Esther does the least pleasant job with a smile!!!!

Tabitha finishes the process by doing the final check-over, bagging and wrapping them, then labeling them for the freezer- she's indispensable!!

With all the business birds in the freezer, we only have a few birds left- we'll be butchering the remaining 150 this coming weekend!!