Today was Butchering Day #1. I really don't know how many Butchering Days there will be...or how soon the next one will be, but we (meaning Daddy and myself) emptied one coop over the course of the day. All twenty-six birds were rooster, except one. I forgot to weigh the one I popped in the oven for supper, but it was one of the lighter ones anyway.
Neither Daddy nor I were moving with the greatest alacrity today, so it took most of the day to get the birds done. We pretty much butchered in batches of five seeing as we only have five of the killing 'cone' sacks. The vinegar bottles are too small, but the sacks are a little loose. At least one of the birds managed to trash his way out .
Daddy, as usual did the killing, scalding, and running the whiz-bang chicken plucker, while I caught the birds and dressed them. It's a good system and we get along at a sufficient rate. I managed to keep up and so didn't have a couple of plucked birds waiting on me as has occasionally happened in the past.
Once we got done, Daddy did most of the clean up while I got the chicken into the oven and then started on the feeding routine. Daddy helped me move the coops (actually, to be more honest, I should say that I helped him) and before I started feeding I move twenty birds from the paddock (attached to the brooder coop) and out onto the grass. Did they ever squawk at me!! Anyway, once I got that done I fed all the chickens (I had skipped their third afternoon feeding today being up to my elbows in chicken innards) and watered the grass where the coops had been sitting.
Now...about supper...that chicken is starting to smell pretty good if I do say so myself...