I know this post has been anxiously awaited by all.... Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, I thought I'd better explain why we even tried this pioneer adventure...
The short answer is that I just wanted to see if we could do it.
If push came to shove, could we produce our own meat? What would it taste like? How long would it take to raise the chickens? What do you have to feed them? What is the price comparison between factory raised frozen chicken breasts in big bags at Winco (which I will never take for granted again, by the way) versus, our whole chickens. I had read several "back to the land books" but I wanted to see what it was really like.
This is what I learned. Buying them is the easy part! They are adorable and they only cost a dollar and all little animals are so fun for children and adults.
When they were about 3 weeks old was when I noticed how much they ate. Nothing at all like little hens foraging around and laying eggs. These guys are made to produce MEAT. We fed them twice a day and if we were the least bit late they would literally run at us when we opened the door. GIVE ME FOOD!
It was not hard for me to think of them as food. It was hard for me to kill them though. I had to stop and think through the whole thing and whether it was ok, and visualize how all that nice frozen meat got on the shelves of the store.
This was the response of Golden Delicious to the entire event. It was also what all of us wanted to do, but to quote from one of the books I read, "you can't run away on harvest day".
We butchered 11 birds, and after the first 4 things got better. We started laughing and joking a little bit - admittedly macabre humor - things like, "These guys really need a scarlet pimpernel to save them". And even laughing at Mr. Bechtel's old Levi's which were spattered with blood. (I told you this was PG-13).
I did not pose this picture. Don't you wish you were here... Braeburn brought them out of the coop. He and Nova Spy tied their legs together, Mr. Bechtel chopped their head off on the chopping block and then Prairie Spy and I hung them up on the lynch line.
We tried both skinning and plucking and eventually settled on plucking because Mr. Bechtel was the only good skinner and we needed him to gut them (I have no idea what the offical chicken term is for that).We dipped them in boiling water for 20 seconds and then just started pulling feathers. My facial expression tells you what I thought about it. Then Mr. Bechtel would take out the insides (hard part) and we would hose off the meat, ice it down, wrap it up and freeze it.
None of us have been brave enough to eat it yet!
I'll let you know when we do.
4 comments:
So... when you eat them, will you be able to focus on the taste, or just think about the "cute little chicken" you are putting in your mouth? Alaska Wild Berry definately falls into the latter category. Which is why, like Cain, I focus my efforts on the fruit of the earth...
Wow...I think I'll be a vegitarian;) I LOVE that first picture!
Shortly after Mr. FR and I got married we slaughtered a pig at the Animal Science building in Rexburg. Mr. FR thought I'd be puking everywhere. He was so disapoointed. We had no trouble eating all the bacon, ham and pork chops. But we didn't raise the pig either so maybe that would make a difference.
Your kids will be grateful if they ever go on one of those pioneer treks where they give you a whole chicken and tell you its your dinner. There's always the story of the beautiful girl who grew up on the farm and had her group's dinner done while the others were still plucking! Anyway, I wish I could have been there...I've always wondered what its like to see a chicken run around with its head cut off.
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