Flock reduction

Well, here it is! The long awaited and anticipated blog post reporting on our first experiences killing our livestock and Ariel eating meat once again. 

But first: We grew a potato! Tim checked on the garden and went about tending the potatoes to find 3 or 4 large golden potatoes in from the first early potato we planted, resulting in the most delicious french fries and baked potatoes we've had. In the regular potato patch, we pulled up a plant and found a few red fingerlings. Hopefully there will be more and larger potatoes to come. Half the garlics are pulled up and awaiting pickling, as well as some pickling cucumbers from a farm stand. 

We've been busy cleaning up the shop, turning the compost, and I cleaned out the chicken coop and run so the roosters would be extra clean for their last night on the farm. 

Oliver the Pig continues to be a happy and friendly part of our farm. He found a good spot on a blanket in the sun and has been enjoying eating the fresh fruits and veggies that are meant to be shared with the chickens. He's been getting along very well with the chickens and is just the right size for them. Tilly continues to be enthusiastic about seeing him, though she seems to be calming down a bit, slowly.

While waiting for more space in the chicken coop, Oliver and his barn-within-a-barn and his heat lamp spread out in the main section of the barn. Even with the run open, he seemed to enjoy curling up in his shavings for a good nap. But, it's hard to get the barn set up for goats with a pig in the way, so off we went to off the roosters and make room for the pig.

Friday night we took one last look at the whole flock together, then took away the food and locked the flock in the coop.

Saturday morning, I spent some time sorting the hens from the roosters so those girls could get some food and have some free time, plus sorting is one less thing to have to do late at night when it's chicken killing time. Separating the chickens and chasing them through the proper doors out of the runs without any mix-ups was a bit of a process, but eventually all the roosters were locked in the house and the girls (with their faithful stud of a rooster) had free range of the big yard.

 With that done, we could enjoy the day of farmers markets and sunshine with our dog and our truck. I found an excellent dresser at the Habitat for Humanity store to add to my weaving/sewing/art room which is beginning to resemble a pleasant place to be. Really, those fiber arts and such are best done in the winter when there is less to do outside on the farm and being outside is a little less appealing. For now, it's mostly managing the animals and vegetables and thinking about jobs.

Tim and I stopped by a farm down the road to milk a pair of goats while the owners are gone for the weekend, then brought our half gallon of fresh whole milk over to Nancy's for dinner. Hopefully the goat milking will be perhaps a weekly thing to give the owners a break and give us some excellent milk and milking practice. 

With everything set and the crew briefed, we were ready to start the chicken killing. Our friend Zac, son of Nancy, is visiting for the weekend and turned out to be a huge help with the process. We took a picture before spilling any blood to help with an explanation of the process without setting anyone ill at ease. 

We waited until dark to start partly because we had a busy day, partly so it would be cool and help cool the meat, but mostly so the chickens would be subdued and easy to catch. Grandpa had planned to watch, but it kept getting later and later as he asked if we were ready to start yet and we kept saying, 'Just a few more things to do! Almost there!' and finally he gave up and went to bed as he didn't want nightmares from watching the inexperienced attempt to butcher. 

The description of the gentle process:

I led the procession of Tim and Zac down to the chicken house and opened the door to find Lavender Chicken, number 22, perched on the partition sleeping and waiting for us. I picked him up and carried him to our work station and he continued to be nearly asleep in my arms. Gently, I wrapped him in the lower part of my apron, forming a cone with his head poking out by my knees and his feet pointing towards my body. I held him with my legs and stroked his neck as he relaxed, still nearly asleep, and let me poke around for the vein in his neck. 

After working up to it for a while, I cut the vein and let him bleed out into a bucket at my feet, still holding him and talking to him. He was the model chicken for us and stayed calm and relaxed throughout the process. Once the blood slowed and he was nearly gone, I broke his neck and Tim helped me cut off his head and Zac put it into a covered separate bucket. 

Once the nerves in the body stopped firing, and the movements stopped, we took a moment to look at each other and take a deep breath at what we had done. It wasn't so hard or so foreign as we feared. I have held many chickens in my arms, lovingly stroking them as they went through the throws of death before. We have all watched the way fish continue to have reflexes after their heads are off and they are long gone. 

The next step was to swish the body about in 160f water for about 30 seconds until the feathers loosened up, then hang him by a foot and brush all the feathers off into buckets. We found even working together with all three of this, it was a time consuming step. A few feathers required pliers, but most could be wiped, pulled, or squeezed out easily until all that remained was the fine hair-like feathers which we used the torch to remove and sanitize the skin. We also took the opportunity to peel the outer skin and nails off his feet. 

The bird quickly transformed from looking like a chicken to looking like familiar food. We took him to the table and I set about trying to separate the trachea from neck meat and cut around the vent without puncturing the intestines. No luck. Indeed, animals are better built than I was up for disassembling. Tim stepped in and set about perfecting his process of cleaning out the bird; separating the trachea, lungs, heart, liver, and gizzards from the rest of the intestines, and rinsing out the carcass. 

We moved the meat over to the far end of the table and stared. Zac jumped in with his professional chef experienced and pieced out the drumsticks, wings, and breasts from the rest of the bones and meat. The first wishbone he pulled out as well and broke with me, granting me the best wishes for all my good chickens giving themselves for our food. 

The process continued like that, with me catching, killing, and bleeding; Tim heating water, cutting necks, helping me pluck, and cleaning the innards; and Zac piecing out the meat. Once the many labeled bowls were filled with edible pieces, I took a break from my chicken catching and killing to vacuum pack and label bags of meat for the freezer. The labeled freezer bags then went in labeled brown paper bags and once the last chicken was finished, all the bags went into the freezer except the last beautiful breast piece which was kept out in the fridge for today's lunch. 

Tim killed his favorite chicken, 'Big Chicken', and the last two which were the black and gold Maran (#25) and good ole' Dicky (#13). After putting Big Chicken in the kill cone briefly and finding it unsatisfactory, Big Chicken and the others went the way of the rest of the chickens, being held in Tim's lap and wrapped in my apron while they bled. Zac took Number Two (#2) to try his hand at the killing. After trying to wrap Number Two in the apron with little success, and having me wrap and help hold Number Two, also with little success, we decided to give the cone another try and Number Two relaxed right into it, much happier with it than the lap and much happier with the cone than Big Chicken had been. 

We finally finished the process around 4:30 am, and heard #24 - one of our two remaining roosters - start crowing just as we were crawling into bed. Today has been a sleepy pajama day to recover with watermelon on Nancy's porch in the sun and a trip to the Langley movie theater. 

Shiny, beautiful, smooth, round, hard, full of 'hens teeth' gizzard in top left bowl

I know holding the chickens in our laps and talking to them while we did the killing might seem unusual and difficult, and naming most of the chickens while waiting to kill them might also seem like it would make it harder, but this is the process that worked for us. Today, we had Dicky sandwiches for lunch and appreciated what a good chicken he was and is. I had a chicken sandwich for the first time since I gave up chicken in about third grade and found that after all this time, it's just another food, and it is a wonderful food that my birds can give to me. Like the woman in our chicken killing instructional video says: a carrot and a chicken are both living things we kill to eat because that is the way the world seems to work and it is our vertebrate bias that can make the later more difficult. It feels really good to be beginning to eat the things we grow. I saw Grandpa coming out of the garden today with pockets full of kale leaves.