Backyard Broilers -- Round 2: Week 9

The first batch of birds went in the freezer last Saturday. 

The broilers are enjoying some time in the yard.

I used the same setup that I used last year.  I used a cone over a bucket for dispatching the birds. 

Then I scalded them in hot water that I kept between 140-150*.  I bought a two burner hot plate to keep the water at the right temperature. 

Plucking the feathers is still the most time consuming part of the process.  I didn't time how long it took each bird, but I time one at 42 minutes.  

After the birds were plucked and gutted they went into a cooler of ice water. 

I processed 6 of my birds and a buddy brought 7 of his birds.  It took us about 8.5 hours to process all 13 birds.  It was a long day.

The remaining birds have a lot more room around the feeder now.

On Monday night I went out to check on the birds.  I found one sitting 10 ft. away from their tractor.  So I picked it up and put it inside.  When I let them out Tuesday morning that bird didn't move.  Then I noticed feathers everywhere.  The other birds must have been picking on her.

She appeared to be lame.  I don't know what was wrong, but she wouldn't walk or even stand.  I took her out of the tractor, sat the waterer in front of her and left for work.

When I got home that night I found her about 4 ft from where I had left her.  She still wouldn't stand or walk.  Otherwise she seemed fine.  I picked her and examined her.  He legs looked fine.  They didn't appear to be broken.  I really don't know what was wrong.

Rather than see her suffer I decided to put her in the freezer.  During the process I found something that I don't remember seeing before.  It was a clear-ish jelly like sack.  It looked like the beginning of an egg.  I thought it took 20 weeks or so before a chicken will lay.  Although I don't know for certain that it actually was an egg...

I've been impressed with the size of these birds.  The smallest one was 4 lbs. 5 oz and the biggest was 4 lbs. 15 oz.  The rest were right around 4.5 lbs.

Backyard Broilers -- Final Graduation: Round 2

The last of the broilers went in the freezer this morning.  I took care of 3 birds and it took me 3 hours (including clean up time).  I put processed two birds last night and left the garage set up afterwards.  I didn't have to set up anything this morning.  I just had to heat water and catch the birds.

They look nice and professional.  Those heat shrink bags are great.

4 lb. 6.0 oz

4 lb. 6.3 oz

3 lb. 11.4 oz

At some point I need to figure out how many pounds of chicken I ended up with. 

Backyard Broilers -- Final Graduation: Round 1

The last of the birds are 11 weeks old now.  They've reach maturity so it's time to put them in the freezer.  I took care of two tonight and plan on taking care of the other three tomorrow.

It's getting harder with these last few.  I'm getting attached.  They've been wandering the yard and getting along with the layers great.  The ducks have moved into the tractor with them at night and today they even found the coop.  It was the first time they've ventured into that corner of the yard.

After dinner I set up the garage and put a pot of water on to boil.  Then I went out and grabbed a bird.  The first few ran away from me, so I had to get the one that was laying down minding her own business.  That didn't help me feel better about what I had to do next. 

The processing went really well.  I guess it's all of the practice that I've had.  In the past I've averaged about an hour per bird.  Tonight I was able to get two birds done in less than 90 minutes.  I did one thing differently and I think it helped a lot.  I used a much larger pot of water to scald the birds before plucking them.  The greater volume of water meant that it didn't cool down as fast.  That made the plucking go so much faster. 

The first bird was huge!  It was 5 lb. 0.1 oz.  I didn't know chickens got that big.  Seeing this made me feel a lot less bad about putting them in the freezer. 

It also made it easier to get the next bird.  She ran and made me put forth some effort to catch her.

She ended up being a healthy 4 lb. 1.3 oz.  It makes me wonder how big the next 3 are going to be.

There's another bird in the freezer.

I hadn't planned on processing any birds this weekend.  That plan changed when I realized I had another male bird.  I thought I got all of them last weekend.

I don't remember him having that comb last weekend. Anyway, sometime during the week I noticed the comb, and that he was much bigger than the other birds in the tractor.  I also noticed his attempts at crowing in the morning.  That was a problem.  I was ready to take care of him after work, but my wife said that he was fine during the day and that I could wait.

No comb means she gets to stick around for another week or two.

I shouldn't have been surprised that I had another male.  I ordered a straight run.  So the odds are that half would be male and half female.  With 11 birds, 5 males is just what I should expect.

I set up the garage like before and moved him from the yard to the garage in a box.  Then I let the rest of the birds into the yard.  Until now I've only been letting them out for a few hours in the evening.  They got to spend the entire day in the yard today.  The layers didn't even have a problem with them.  The broilers pretty much stayed right around their tractor while the layers meandered around the entire yard. 

Processing the bird went fine.  I did change one thing this time though.  The previous birds went into zip top bags.  That was OK, but it's not a great for long term storage.  I guess freezer burn can be a problem.  The solution?  I found heat shrink bags.  (Actually, I didn't even know freezer burn was a problem until I found this site.)

4 lbs. 8.8 oz.  The biggest so far.

The heat shrink bags are so easy to use.  You put the bird in and twist the top shut.  Then you use a zip tie to keep it shut.  You have to poke a small home somewhere in the bag for air to escape.  Then you dunk the thing in a pot of boiling water for a few seconds.  That's it!  The plastic shrinks and seals the bird up real nice.

I thought that since I had the water boiling anyway, that I might as well re-bag the birds from last weekend. 

I don't think these bags were meant to be used on frozen birds.  The bag shrunk, but it wasn't able to squeeze tight to the bird.  So the hole got real big. 

My solution?  Put it in another bag and double it up.

I ended up double bagging all of the frozen birds.

The shrink bag worked a lot better on the fresh bird.  It turned out great.

The bag shrunk and squeezed it tight.

Here it is from another angle.

Two of the frozen birds double bagged and ready to go back in the freezer.

I'm real pleased with the heat shrink bags.  They were $15 for 25 of them and they got cheaper if you ordered more.  I'll be using them when I process the rest of my birds.

Backyard Broilers Graduation Round 1

The birds are now eight and a half weeks old and real close to reaching maturity.  According to the hatchery web site, "The males usually start trying to crow at around 8 weeks old or possibly earlier."

Out of the 10 I had left, three of them were males.  Since I got some experience processing a chicken last weekend and since I had some time this weekend, I decided that they should go in the freezer.  I really didn't want to take the chance of having them crow.

I set up the garage as I did before.  I discovered last time that the worst part of the process is removing the feathers.  I thought that I might be able to get around that step by just skinning the whole bird.  So that's what I did with the first one.  The result?  It was no easier.  It certainly didn't save me any time.

Skinless bird #1.

So for the second bird I had a pot of nearly boiling water.  That worked very well.  I'm wondering if I didn't have the water hot enough last week.  The feathers came right off.  I used the same water for the third bird.  Unfortunately the water had cooled off too much.  I was able to get some of the feathers off, but it was difficult.  I had to get another pot of boiling water to finish it.

So the lesson I learned for next time is to keep a pot of hot water handy for each bird.

I also found that things got better with each bird.  I didn't really have any problems with the first two, but the third one just seemed to go so much better.  I didn't time how long it took me to process each bird, but from start until I cleaned everything up was about 3 hours.  I'd really like it to take less time than that, but I'm not sure how to speed things up.  That's still one hour per bird.

What was most remarkable this time was the weight of the birds.  They were all within 1 oz. of each other.  It'll be interesting to see how much the rest of the birds weigh when they are processed. 

3 lbs. 8.3 oz.

3 lbs. 7.5 oz.

3 lbs. 7.9 oz.

I can say for certain that this isn't something that I want to do on a regular basis.  It's not the most pleasant thing.  At the same time I realize that if I'm going to eat meat, an animal's life is going to be taken.  At least these birds got to live outside in the fresh air.  They got to eat bugs and grass.  They weren't kept in the dark sitting in their own waste and eating antibiotics and grain for 6 weeks until their demise. 

Backyard broilers -- Early Graduation.

I went out this morning to check on the birds like I do every morning.  One of the birds, the very rooster-y looking bird was squawking loudly and fighting with the other birds.  I wouldn't call what he was doing crowing.  It wasn't the standard cock-a-doodle-do, but it was loud.  I couldn't have that.  I have neighbors.  I didn't want him to be making a lot of noise for the next week or two.  So, it was time for him to go.  This decision was probably influenced by the fact that I'm impatient and wanted to know what I was in for.  I like to test things out on a small scale before going into production (that's basically what I do at work, only with computers which aren't nearly as messy).

After church I went out and grabbed the chicken out of the tractor, put him in a box and took him into the garage.  Then I had to get things set up.

Out of the 11 broilers he had the biggest comb by far.

From what I read, a killing cone is the most humane way to dispatch a chicken.  I didn't want to pay for a fancy aluminum cone, so I bought an orange 18 inch traffic cone at Home Depot.

18 inch traffic cone.

I cut the top off so the chicken's head would fit through.

I turned the cone upside-down and clamped it to two balusters that I had left over from building the second chicken tractor.  The balusters got clamped to saw horses and a bucket of pine shavings was placed underneath.

Newspapers still have a use after all.

I put a pot of water on the stove to boil.  While that was happening I did some reading to find out how to butcher a chicken.  It's amazing how much information is on the Internet.

Once the water was hot I set up the processing station.  I put up a table and covered it with newspaper.  I had various knives and scissors as well as gloves and a spray bottle with some bleach solution. Before starting, I cleaned all of my utensils and work surfaces (including the sink) with the bleach solution.

I stalled for 10 minutes or so before starting.  I had a cup of coffee and wandered the yard.  Then it was time to go.  I put the chicken in the cone and wouldn't you know it, it was too long and his head didn't come out the bottom.  I had to not once, but twice, cut more off of the cone and make it shorter.  I probably should have bought the 12" one instead.

The next part wasn't too fun, but it really wasn't that bad.  I had to slit his throat.  For that I used one of those breakaway razor knives available at Home Depot.  Supposedly if you use a sharp enough knife they don't even feel the cut.  Then they bleed out in about a minute.  Towards the end right before their heart stops they spasm.  That freaked me out a bit.

I waited a little while longer to make sure he was done and then washed him off in the sink.  From there he went to the pot of hot water.  That loosened up the feathers.  Pulling the feathers was a very time consuming task.  I had gloves on when I started, but they were too much of a hindrance so they came off.  Pulling the feathers on the table didn't work so well either.  I found that it was easier to do in the sink.  That way I could keep washing off the bird to find the ones that I missed.  I'm not entirely convinced that I got them all, but it was good enough to move on to the next step.

Then it was back to the cutting board.  I'm not going into a lot of detail here.  I basically followed the instructions on this site.  It wasn't that bad really.  I did put a glove back on when it was time to pull the organs out.  I saved the liver and gave it to my dog.  She sniffed it, looked at me, sniffed it again, and walked away.  I thought for sure she'd eat it.  Oh well.  It along with all of the internal parts and feathers went into a plastic bag and into the freezer.  They'll go in the trash next week.

I weighed the final product.  It came in at 3 lbs. 6 oz.  At $6.50/lb. (like at the farmers market) that works out to $21.94.

The whole process took about an hour.  I think most of that time was spent pulling feathers.  I've read that some people just skin the bird.  I might try that next time.