Final Word on Butchering AND The NUMBERS

This will be our final post on chicken butchering.  You can read the two previous posts HERE and HERE.  Before we wrap it up, we'll talk about organ meats, cutting up the chickens, freezing them and then finally, final numbers.  Here goes...

Once we're finished butchering, we clean up all the livers and bag them up in quart sized ziploc bags.  We'll wrap with bacon and broil in the oven OR pan fry in butter in a cast iron skillet.  We love chicken livers!  Now for the gizzards.  We cut them in half.  I wanted to show you what's inside - GRASS!  That's a very good sign.  The birds were healthy.  Yes, they ate feed (non-medicated), but they also ate grass and bugs and worms like normal birds are supposed to.  Once the gizzards are cleaned, we bag them up as well.  We eat gizzards and rice - a mighty fine meal. 

Now, we clean the hearts.  Fifty of them.  We cut them in half and wash out the clots that are in the ventricles.

It's a muscle and thus, meat.  We mix them in with the gizzard bags.

We'll take a coffee break and wash up.  A well-needed break.  Chicken Processing is quite a task.  Our work isn't done, though.  After coffee, I sharpen the knives one more time.  They'll be used in a heavy duty purpose now.  It's time to cut the whole chickens up.  After the chickens have chilled all morning and into the late afternoon, they've gone through rigor mortis.

We like to do an eight piece cut-up (with a couple of alterations).  Two drumsticks, two wings, two thighs, and two breasts.  Then we cut each breast in half AND we cut the neck off the backbone and ribs.  We save that for making broth.  We've found that when you cook rice, instead of using water, if you cook rice in broth, it steps up the flavor and richness of your rice and gravy.

Each of those birds gets put in a gallon-sized ziploc bag, labeled and frozen.

We number the bag, notate whether the bag contains a whole chicken or a half chicken, and then put the weight of the carcass.  We stack them in the freezer and we have meat to last us for a whole year, especially since Tricia and I are 'empty-nesters.'

Here's the interesting part - our analysis of the boucherie.

We killed 50 birds.  The total carcass weight of all butchered birds was 227.25 pounds.  That yields an average of 4.545 pounds per bird.  Our heaviest carcass was 5.5 pounds and our lightest was 3.25 pounds.  We're pleased with the health and size of the birds.

Here is detailed analysis of expenses to raise 50 birds from one day old chicks to their slaughter at 8 weeks old:

Chicks:

50 ordered        12/8    $139 or $2.78 per bird (Highest we've ever paid for chicks)

51 arrived

(1) fatality

------------

50 total

Feed:

We purchased 875 pounds of feed at a total cost of $292.33

Supplies:

Heat lamps/bulbs    $18.67

Ziploc bags             $  5.00

Bulb                        $  4.50

Propane                   $20.00

                                --------

                                $43.17

Total Costs:

Birds             $139

Feed              $292.33

Supplies        $43.17

                      ---------

Total            $474.50 / 50 birds =    $9.49 per bird COST / 4.55 lbs/bird = $2.09 per pound

For comparative purposes:

Whole foods Organic whole chicken            $3.99 per pound (our bird isn't organic)

Whole foods Heirloom chicken                    $3.99 per pound (our birds aren't heirloom)

Whole foods whole chicken                          $2.99 per pound (probably a good comparison)

Of course we didn't factor in our labor, but feeding them, pushing the chicken tractor to fresh grass each day, watering them, and butchering probably kept me gainfully occupied and out of trouble, so there's that!

We have a freezer full of chicken now and we'll do this all again in 2023 if the Good Lord's willing.

The Boucherie (Butchering) - Chicken Edition 2020

In Yesterday's Post we went over the fact that a sharp knife is critical and crucial for butchering.  In French, butchering is called the "boucherie" (BOO - SHREE) and on a beautiful Saturday morning, it was the thing on our agenda to get done.  We'll show you the process we've perfected over the years.  We're always looking for more efficient ways and improve every year.

WARNING: IF YOU DON'T LIKE TO SEE BLOOD AND ANIMALS DYING, DON'T PROCEED FURTHER INTO THIS POST.

Saturday morning it was 27 degrees.  Chilly, for sure.  The evening before I had set up all of our "stations" in the butchering process.  Tricia, Russ and Benjamin and me were the Slaughterhouse four, and we started the process after morning chores at approximately 9AM. In the photo below (from right to left) you can see:

1. The Killing Cones Station,
2. The Scalding Station,
3. The Plucking Station,
4. Decapitation (Defooting) Station,
5. Evisceration Station,
6. The Chilling Station.

We'll go through each one in detail further below:

The chickens in the chicken tractor have been rolled right up to the butchering spot.  The chicken tractor has kept them safe from predators and weather over the last 8 weeks.  Each day it is rolled one length forward so they are on fresh grass.  Now, they've rolled to their final stop.

1. The Killing Cones:  We have some roadside cones that we've re-purposed into killing cones.  The bird is placed head-first into the cone.  The neck is pulled through the hole in the bottom, and the jugular vein in the neck is cut.  The chicken's heart will pump all of the blood out of the chicken.  We capture all the blood in buckets in order to compost in the garden.  The rubber cones squeeze the birds and hold them firmly during this process.  In a few minutes, the birds have bled out and are pronounced dead.  The boys normally do the killing.

We have four cones mounted between two 2x4's and this enables us to kill four at a time.

2. The Scalding Station:    We have a butane burner with a crawfish boiling pot on top that is full of water.  We have a thermometer attached that we constantly monitor.  It must be at 145 degrees.  Any cooler and the feathers won't come off.  Any warmer and you'll cook the bird.  I have a bit of dishwashing liquid added to the water, and I dunk the birds 20 dunks, completely submerging the bird up to the feet.  When I pull it out the twentieth time, I pull out a wing feather.  If is comes out easily, it's ready for plucking.  If not, I dunk a few more times.  The boys normally do all the scalding.

3.    The Plucking Station:    Some friends and I built this plucker years ago.  It really makes this job easier.  You simply turn it on.  There is a plate at the bottom that rotates.  Numerous rubber fingers pull the feathers off the bird as I spray it with water.  I count to 25 and then cut off the plucker.  If you don't leave it in long enough, there will be feathers remaining.  If you leave it in for too long, you will break the legs and/or wings.  I usually do the plucking.

4. Decapitation / De-footing Station: I pull the head off rather than cutting it.  Cutting the head off exposes sharp bones which puncture the ziploc bag you store them in.  Most times I handle the decapitation and de-footing.

Then I cut the feet off.  Heads and feet go in a bucket for garden compost.

Then I begin lining up the birds at the evisceration station.  I'll make a cut in the abdomen from which the guts will be pulled and I'll make a cut in the neck and loosen the crop.  I'll also cut two glands off of the tail.  They are certainly some nice looking birds!

5.    Evisceration Station:    Tricia is the expert eviscerator.  With surgical precision, she guts the bird.  From the lower left you can see the crop, the heart, the liver, the gallbladder, the gizzard and intestines all pulled out.

The gallbladder is carefully cut off of the liver so as not to burst the gallbladder.  We save the livers, hearts, and gizzards for eating.

6.    The Chilling Station:   The birds are then submerged into a tub of clean water.  Normally, we have ice in it, but it was right at freezing.  The water tubs chill the birds as they are hot.  The birds go through rigor mortis.  Submerging them also keeps flies at bay.  We allow them to chill for about four hours.

Here are the hard workers at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  From left to right, Benjamin, Russ, and Patricia.  They are all carrying knives.  This crew gets it done.  Teamwork personified.  We got it all done.

Fifty Cornish Cross Meat Birds butchered.  We started at 9 and finished at noon.  We are tired!  Tomorrow, join us again.  We'll show you some more including gizzard, heart and liver processing, as well as the cut up and freezing process.  We'll even share our total pounds, average weight per bird, and cost data (total and per bird).

A Sharp Knife Is Essential

“If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.” – Abraham Lincoln.

That is a doggone good quote about preparing!  I assume the same logic holds with knives.  As we get ready for chicken butchering, I always take time the night before to ensure that our arsenal of butcher knives are very sharp.  A dull knife is dangerous as it requires more effort to cut through muscle, cartilage and bone.  A dull knife makes your job much harder and will tire you out faster due to that additional effort expended.  Sharpening my knives always makes me think about my grandfather.  He kept a pocketknife in his pocket and always kept it sharp.  He had a (regular house) brick in the bed of his truck that he'd use in place of a whetstone.  He would spit on the brick and sharpen his knife that way.  It really worked.  He always had a sharp knife.

We use Chicago Cutlery knives.  It is a quality knife with rigid construction, wood handles, and they tend to keep a good edge.  If you take care of them, they'll last a lifetime.  They are affordable, too.  I have a smallish Rubbermaid container that I keep an old towel, a piece of some old blue jeans, my whetstones and a bottle of honing oil.  I get that container down and unroll the towel on the counter.

A couple or three drops of honing oil on both whetstones, and we're ready to go.  I begin to run the knife against the whetstone with the coarsest texture at a gentle angle.  I do that motion for a while and then switch to the other side of the knife.  Then I switch to the finer texture whetstone and repeat the process.  After I've done that for a while, I rub my thumb (carefully) on the knife's edge.  If it feels sharp, I test it on the hair on my arm.  

If it is sharp to my liking, I then use the sharpening steel to smooth out any rough edges.  That knife is then ready for the chickens.  I repeat for all the other knives.

Once done, we are ready.  The knives will get a lot of use.  The small knife is used to cut the neck so that the bird bleeds out.  That involves cutting through some feathers.  The other knife is used to cut the feet off as well as eviscerate the bird.  I'll keep the sharpening steel with me during that process to keep it sharp.

Once that is done, I know we still will be cutting up the chickens into parts (2 breasts, 2 wings, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, and the neck and back and ribs.  That involves a lot of heavy duty cutting so the knives must be extra sharp.  I'll re-sharpen them so they are up to the task.  Tomorrow, we butcher.  We'll show you the whole process!

2021 Egg Production - By the Numbers

Let's finish up our look at Egg Production for the year of 2021 before it is time to show totals for 2022, shall we?  We are a small homestead farm that operates on the "Blue Bell ice cream" principle.  We eat all we can and sell (and give away) the rest.  We do eat a lot of eggs.  Each afternoon around 4 - 5 pm, we do our evening chores.  One of those tasks is collecting eggs from the nesting boxes and also searching around favorite nesting hiding places where rogue hens like to secretly lay their eggs.

We collect the eggs in a wire basket like below:

We bring the eggs back to the house and package them in egg cartons.  We very seldom have to purchase egg cartons because people bring empty cartons to us.  Upon going into the house, we record the number of eggs collected.  We have nine years of history, but have had laying hens for longer than that.  In 2013, we started tracking egg production and I'm glad we did.  It's interesting to see the history and observe seasonal trends.

Here is the cumulative record:

A couple of interesting observations.  First, March repeated its 2020 trend of being the month with the most egg production.  In March the spring grass is lush and there are more bugs and worms for eating.  The temperature is perfect.  A happy, unstressed hen lays more eggs.  November was our month with the fewest egg production.  The days are beginning to be shorter and foraged bugs, worms, grass is not as easy to get.

In our Nine Year history, you can see that overall April is our biggest production month and December our lowest.  Overall, we average 8,420 eggs per year or 702 dozen.  Amazing to think that on our little farm our hens have produced 75,784 eggs, or 6,315 dozen.  Of course that all depends on how many hens you have, their age, and a dozen other variables.  You can see that data below:

We had about 45 birds in 2021.  We have lost a lot of birds over the last year due to predation.  I've caught a lot of possums, but there are always hawks and owls on patrol.  You can't legally trap or shoot those.  Belle, our livestock guardian dog, needs to step up her game!  We average picking up 12 eggs per day.  The annual eggs per bird is 123.  That figure is WAY below the production for the type of hens we have (Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock, Aracauna).  They appear to lay an egg every 3 days.

We just purchased 15 birds from a neighbor to replace those lost to predators.  These hens are 1 year old and are a cross between a Rhode Island Red and a White Leghorn.  They lay brown eggs and are prolific.  They are supposed to lay between 250-300 eggs per year.  We'll see...

The City is Moving to the Country

Today's post is certainly not meant to offend anyone.  We all have various and sundry ideas, preferences and opinions, and that is okay.  Somehow, in modern society, we've devolved into thinking that we must have opinions that are homogenous, that any speech that you don't believe in is "misinformation."  I don't subscribe to that line of rigid thinking.  We all have differences.  We all have different likes and dislikes.  How boring would it be if we were all exactly the same?  

Way back in Genesis 13 Abram and Lot were journeying.  They had many flocks and herds and the land could not sustain them.  Right there in the beginning of the Bible, we learn the agricultural concept of NOT over-grazing your pasture.  It's not good for the animals, and (as we learn) not good for people, either!  There was strife between their herdsmen and Abram told Lot that he wanted things to be peaceful.  He recommended they separate to ease the tension that had developed.  Blessed are the peacemakers!

Abram gave Lot the first pick of the land.  You pick first.  Lot looked out and chose the lush valley of the Jordan.  Abram, by default, settled in the land of Canaan while Lot "settled in the cities of the valley."  Later, in verse 18, the LORD tells Abraham that "the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave."  The LORD was going to judge the city.  Abraham was concerned about the people in the city (Lot being one of them) and pleaded with the LORD for mercy.  Angels went to Lot and urged him and his family to evacuate the city prior to judgment.  They specifically told him, "Escape for your life!  Don't look back." 

That pretty much sums up my view on city life.  I fully realize there is sin and immorality in small towns.  I fully realize there are good people in cities.  I just have no need or desire to go there.  I am a country guy.  Statistically, the three largest cities in Louisiana, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport, are seeing record homicide rates and an explosion in violent crime.  Thomas Jefferson had a few memorable quotes about cities:

Are we not seeing this?

That's my choice, too, Mr. Jefferson.  We live in the country.  It is close enough to town (population 12,000) to be able to enjoy shopping, restaurants, and access to anything else we need.  But it is far enough away from town to enjoy clean country living, elbow room, raise animals, watch the sunset and have wide open spaces.  Some of that is about to change.  Below is the field in front of the house.  It was formerly cultivated land for soybeans but has been fallow for years.  It has grown a mighty fine crop of Goldenrod (Ah Choo!)  and we used to pick dewberries out there for jelly making.  Now it is all plowed up.  Not for crops, either.

It is a sizeable piece of property.  It is all being developed into subdivisions.  People from the cities and towns are all moving to the country.  I don't blame them.  We did too! 

Zooming in, you can see the neighboring subdivision they are constructing.  Nice homes!  Nice people living in them.  88 homes will be built on 18 acres.

Who am I to stand in the way of progress and development, but I wish this field would stay classified agricultural and we could stay in the county.  I've always had an affinity for rural America.  The city is moving to the country.

2021 Meat Birds - Week Eight

Well, we are at the end of the road for the meat birds.  Today marks eight weeks.  We got them delivered when they were one day old baby chicks.  In eight short weeks, they have grown into monsters.  I have sores on my hands from them pecking me when I feed them each day.  They are ravenous and fly around when I bring feed, pecking at my hands and scratching my legs with their claws.

The goal, as I've communicated, is to have a 6 pound bird on butcher day as that yields a 4 pound carcass.  We have 50 birds that we'll be butchering.  We've only lost one bird over the eight week period.  We will butcher on Saturday and will show you the process we use.  We've perfected it over the years.  We still have lots to learn and try to improve the process each year.

As you can see below, the birds have grown such that they've filled the tractor. 

On this final 'weigh day,' I wanted to look at it a little differently.  In previous weeks, we've grabbed a bird and weighed it to get a good idea of growth rates.  Last week the bird we weighed was 4 pounds 15 ounces.  This week I picked out the biggest bird and the smallest bird to see where we are.

Here is the biggest:

He weighs 6 pounds 6 ounces.  He is a nice specimen!  He'll exceed our target weight when we butcher on Saturday (day after tomorrow).

Let's look at the smallest bird.  He is an anomaly.  There are no other birds as small as he is.  The runt of the litter, I guess.

And he weighs 4 pounds 10 ounces.  He misses our target weight by quite a lot, but I'm thinking our average weight by bird will exceed 6 pounds and pull our overall average up.  We shall see.

In the meantime before Saturday, we will be sharpening knives, purchasing zip loc bags and setting up the killing cones, scalder, plucker, eviscerating tables and tubs of water so we can get a good start on Saturday.  It's supposed to be cold (in the upper 20's!).  We may not need to buy ice!

Nothing's Cozier Than A Fireplace

There is a silver lining to every dark cloud, right?  That's the way I'm trying to look at things anyway.  The two Hurricanes in 2020 that affected us were Laura and Delta, and although we personally (Russ did) didn't have any property damage to speak of, we did have a number of trees on our property that 'got a haircut.'  Some lost some pretty large limbs, specifically one of the pecan trees up front.  So, the destruction of the hurricanes at least gave us some firewood.  And we were out!

It was sawed up and stacked in the back, but still needed to be split.  I generally like to wait for cold days to split wood.  Last week we had weather in the 30's during the day and in the 20's at night.  I figured that was perfect log splitting weather.  I got out the trusty ax and began swinging.  I warmed up fast.  The chickens always congregate as the split firewood exposes huge white worms that the chickens love to eat.  Sometimes, they'll get a little too close for comfort, and I have to watch my swinging.

Since the logs are a year and four months old, some of them are easy to split with the ax.  Others are full of knots and the wood grains are twisted.  The ax bounces off of it.  In these cases I have to go to Plan B.  I have a wedge and a sledge hammer.  This is very effective in getting the stubborn logs split.

In no time at all, I've got a wagon-load of firewood split.  It's all pecan wood.  I'll keep splitting since it is cool, and I have momentum now.  I split three more wagon-loads after this one just to keep ahead.  On cold days, I'll get a fire roaring in the fireplace and we'll sit in front of it, shell pecans or read and relax.

Here is one of those fires I'm talking about right here.  After it is burning for a little while, I like to step outside and smell.  Pecan smoke is a nice, soothing fragrance.  Special note to self: I need to reserve some pecan chips to use on my smoker.  Pecan-smoked meat is a real treat!

Here is my wife enjoying the fire.

Nice, glowing coals in the fireplace CHECK
Feet up on the hearth                        CHECK

Comfortable chair                             CHECK

Cup of coffee                                    CHECK

Reading material                               CHECK
Afghan quilt, if needed                     CHECK

Looks like the checklist for a nice day!  There's nothing cozier than a fireplace!