Yes, we finally did it. On Monday, after our company had left, we gathered up a big pot, some bleach, a cutting board, good scissors and a knife, and a dull razor blade to rid our hen house of the dreaded Diablo. DH put up a killing cone made of metal sheeting and grabbed our largest fish net. He stood outside the chicken barn standing in wait with net in hand while I went into the barn to shoo out the chickens. "Now!" I shouted as the Barred Rock rooster stepped out of the barn and into the waiting net.
He was big! As DH reached into the net to try to get his feet to grab him to pull him out, one of his treacherously sharp talons got his hand. It was amazing how long and razor sharp his talons were. About 2 inches and sharp as a knife. I tried to take pictures of this whole affair but my camera is not cooperating and may be dead. I tried recharged batteries and all, but it would not turn on. So, I am sorry to say, I have no pictures of this momentous day.
We got him out of the net and upside down into the killing cone. I think he realized he was in for it and a goner. It was difficult pulling his head through the bottom because his comb and wattle were so large. Then DH set about with the razor to cut his throat and bleed him out. This is the preferred method, as you don't want to just lop off their head. Bleeding them out is less painful for them, more humane, and the heart pumps out their blood ensuring good meat to eat. The razor was so dull, it just scraped over his skin again and again. He finally had to pull out his knife and use it.
Next, it was into scalding water at 135 degrees. If it is hotter, the meat tends to toughen up and since he was 2 1/2 years old, we did not want to ruin good meat. Unfortunately, this was not hot enough because when we turned on the chicken plucker, which is a contraption hubby built, it would not pull off the feathers. The plucker is a drum that spins. It has rubber fingers on it that pull off the feathers. All you do is hold the chicken over the fingers while it is spinning and the feathers fly off. Well, at least they fly off when plucking young Cornish Cross chickens, but our older chicken proved to be a tough case. It was not working. Rather than heat the water to a higher temp. we decided to hand pluck. Yuck!
This was tedious and hard to do. The feathers just did not want to come out. Although we managed to get most of them, we decided to go ahead and eviscerate him, then skin him. So I cut into him and I either had the dullest knife and scissors in the world, or he was just tough. The membranes were hard to cut through. I finally got it done and started pulling out all the guts. We could not believe how huge his testicles were! Each was as big as a large egg. No wonder he was all pumped up all the time.
Then it was on to skinning. This was fairly easy and we got him skinned and into ice water with a drop of bleach to chill him quickly. He is in the freezer and my plan is to make Coq au Vin in the near future. I have found I much prefer the ease and quickness of plucking and eviscerating young chickens. It is just so much easier and goes quickly. I think this whole event took us an hour and fifteen minutes for one chicken. In the past, we've butchered 20 chickens in about two hours time. Of course, there was four of us and we just kind of had an assembly line going. We haven't done this in a while and we may have also been a little rusty.
The young Buff Orpington cock is settling in quite nicely and our yellow hen that was serviced to death is laying and her feathers are filling in. It is much more pleasant going out to feed and collect eggs. DH does not carry a golf club, I don't use the lid from the feed bin as a shield, and DD does not run around throwing feed through the screen in the door anymore.
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Labor Day Weekend and Updates
Labor Day weekend is like the official end of summer weekend. Summer doesn't technically end until around September 22 or so, and we still can have hot and humid days. But it is back to school time and children are swarming the store with their parents buying back to school items. It is also the last time for many families to have an outing, go camping or be with friends and family for a while. Memorial Day weekend starts off the summer season, and Labor Day winds things down.
I don't know about you, but I am happy for this transition time. It is very hectic and busy in our household with back to school, and county wide events in our town that draw in thousands of people over the weekend. My sister-in-law and her family are coming to visit, a rare occasion, and we are going to have a nice visit, hang around the house and go to events and activities in town.
My garden is going ballistic all of a sudden. We had a week of warm (80-90 degrees) weather, and suddenly the weeds and our crops are growing like crazy! I have never even had butternut squash, but I planted 3 of them and they have grown so long, and now there are baby squashes growing all along the vines. My tomatoes are loaded, and potatoes are coming coming along as well. Does anyone need some rhubarb? I planted it last year and I have made rhubarb bread, rhubarb pudding, strawberry-rhubarb jam, and frozen some rhubarb. I still have stalk after stalk of this plant growing. I have even given some away to my rhubarb lover friends. It is like zucchini. It just keeps on coming. You always know who doesn't have any friends when you go to the grocery store in August and September and see someone actually paying money to buy zucchini. Really?
A friend offered for me to pick some plums at her house and I have made some plum jam. It is very light and refreshing as jams go. Don't you just love it when friends share their bounty? I am so blessed to have friends like that. Last year a friend gave me a bunch of strawberry starts that were creeping all over her garden. This year, I had enough strawberries to have some fresh for eating, making strawberry jam, and I have 4 quarts in the freezer. Give and it will be given back to you.
Creature update: Well, we haven't heard any noises in the garage, and we didn't trap anything but ants, so .. not sure what it was. But, today while I was watering our garden, Cooper, our golden retriever was chasing something all over the place. I didn't think much about it because he is a great mouser and is always catching mice, voles, and birds. Sometimes cute bunnies and he even caught and killed a marmot on Mother's Day this year. After watering I walked up to the front porch and there on the walkway was a weasel. Yikes! My husband has seen them in the shop on rare occasions, and we have seen one or two dead ones over the years, but we have never had Cooper catch one. Now, weasels are not a rodent (are they considered rodents?) you want around. Well, they are good at keeping the mouse population under control, but they are notorious for getting into things and can be very destructive. You don't want them taking up residence in or near your house. Our shop has not seen any destruction (that we have found up to this point), but my thought came back to our garage. I know we have had mice in there before because we have found them, but I do not want a weasel in my house! Has anyone dealt with weasels before?
Chickens: Our Barred Rock is as arrogant as ever. We isolated the one hen he kept servicing to the point that she wasn't laying and was bald on her back. She finally laid an egg today and I put her back in with the rest of the flock. Mistake. He didn't give her a break and she promptly went up on a roost out of his reach. The Buff Orpington is not being bothered by the rooster and continues to sow his oats. We got 3 "new" eggs this week from our pullets. One was in a box and two were on the ground. We haven't found any since. Cooper,though, did bring 3 eggs up to the front porch that he helped himself to. The shells were cracked so not usable. I'm not sure how to break him of this habit. He is just doing what retrievers do. I keep saying I'm going to stew that rooster but we just haven't got to it yet. I will let you know when his day has come.
That's about all that's going on here. I love my new job and hope to have a great year. Have a safe and fun weekend, my friends.
Blessings
I don't know about you, but I am happy for this transition time. It is very hectic and busy in our household with back to school, and county wide events in our town that draw in thousands of people over the weekend. My sister-in-law and her family are coming to visit, a rare occasion, and we are going to have a nice visit, hang around the house and go to events and activities in town.
My garden is going ballistic all of a sudden. We had a week of warm (80-90 degrees) weather, and suddenly the weeds and our crops are growing like crazy! I have never even had butternut squash, but I planted 3 of them and they have grown so long, and now there are baby squashes growing all along the vines. My tomatoes are loaded, and potatoes are coming coming along as well. Does anyone need some rhubarb? I planted it last year and I have made rhubarb bread, rhubarb pudding, strawberry-rhubarb jam, and frozen some rhubarb. I still have stalk after stalk of this plant growing. I have even given some away to my rhubarb lover friends. It is like zucchini. It just keeps on coming. You always know who doesn't have any friends when you go to the grocery store in August and September and see someone actually paying money to buy zucchini. Really?
A friend offered for me to pick some plums at her house and I have made some plum jam. It is very light and refreshing as jams go. Don't you just love it when friends share their bounty? I am so blessed to have friends like that. Last year a friend gave me a bunch of strawberry starts that were creeping all over her garden. This year, I had enough strawberries to have some fresh for eating, making strawberry jam, and I have 4 quarts in the freezer. Give and it will be given back to you.
Creature update: Well, we haven't heard any noises in the garage, and we didn't trap anything but ants, so .. not sure what it was. But, today while I was watering our garden, Cooper, our golden retriever was chasing something all over the place. I didn't think much about it because he is a great mouser and is always catching mice, voles, and birds. Sometimes cute bunnies and he even caught and killed a marmot on Mother's Day this year. After watering I walked up to the front porch and there on the walkway was a weasel. Yikes! My husband has seen them in the shop on rare occasions, and we have seen one or two dead ones over the years, but we have never had Cooper catch one. Now, weasels are not a rodent (are they considered rodents?) you want around. Well, they are good at keeping the mouse population under control, but they are notorious for getting into things and can be very destructive. You don't want them taking up residence in or near your house. Our shop has not seen any destruction (that we have found up to this point), but my thought came back to our garage. I know we have had mice in there before because we have found them, but I do not want a weasel in my house! Has anyone dealt with weasels before?
Chickens: Our Barred Rock is as arrogant as ever. We isolated the one hen he kept servicing to the point that she wasn't laying and was bald on her back. She finally laid an egg today and I put her back in with the rest of the flock. Mistake. He didn't give her a break and she promptly went up on a roost out of his reach. The Buff Orpington is not being bothered by the rooster and continues to sow his oats. We got 3 "new" eggs this week from our pullets. One was in a box and two were on the ground. We haven't found any since. Cooper,though, did bring 3 eggs up to the front porch that he helped himself to. The shells were cracked so not usable. I'm not sure how to break him of this habit. He is just doing what retrievers do. I keep saying I'm going to stew that rooster but we just haven't got to it yet. I will let you know when his day has come.
That's about all that's going on here. I love my new job and hope to have a great year. Have a safe and fun weekend, my friends.
Blessings
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Happenings Around Our Homestead
Creature in the garage update:
Caught- an army of ants eating the peanut butter, they cleaned it to a polish, and didn't set off the trap.
Other traps- moldy peanut butter
Plan C- re-bait all traps with cheese
Chickens:
Our rooster is favoring one hen out of four, to the point that she was terrified of him and would not come down off her roost in the morning. The second she did, she was in submission stance and the rooster servicing her. He has tread on her back so much that her back is bald and her downy white feathers are coming out. There is risk that his talons can cut her back and wound her. This continued for several days (or more), until on Thursday. She actually hid in the weeds. All chickens come home to roost, so finally, she made her appearance. We got her in and isolated her in the adjacent pen so she could have a break from him, and have time to heal. He went ballistic! The second her saw her in the pen, he paced and crowed and flapped his wings, and made cackling noises, and paced some more. He wanted her! Too bad, buddy. Maybe he should be in the time-out pen.
He is a barred rock and he is BIG. He has also gotten very aggressive since we put the pullets in with the main flock of 5. He flaps his wings, crows, and will come after you when you go out to feed. In our flock of up and coming pullets, who should start laying late next month, there appears to be one Buff Orpington that is larger than the rest, with a slightly larger comb, and some inkling of tail feathers appearing. Buff Orpington's are a gentle breed, or at least supposed to be. My only concern is that you should have a ratio of about 10 hens per rooster, and we will have 21 hens. But, I think you know what I'm thinking. Dinner!
Oh, by the way, we had oysters on our trip to Oregon. We saved the shells and smashed them up to give to the chickens. They have calcium and help keep the egg shells firm. No point in paying for oyster shell when you can make your own.
Looming House Projects:
We have a never ending list of projects to get done.
Here is our list:
Peel and paint trim on house
caulk around door frames
re-caulk bathtub
clean out office, put in more shelves, and TV
measure for tin on roof so it can be ordered, repair skylight- skylight in kitchen to be salvaged, skylight in bathroom to be boarded over
stain fence railing
stain deck (doubtful this will happen)
fix the barn door
Cooper:
Cooper is our 4 year old golden retriever. Over the last 2 years he has matured and developed into an outstanding member of the family. He is a great mouser, a sounding alarm when someone is venturing down our driveway, a help with chicken herding, a protector against aggressive roosters, and an egg collector. Let me explain the last one. Once we moved the pullets in with the older chickens, the enclosed outside pen didn't allow ample free range for 22 chickens. So, I started keeping the gate ajar against a rock so there was enough room for the chickens to get in and out, but not enough for the horses to get in. I had noticed recently that Cooper had brought an egg or two up onto the front porch and left it there, unbroken. I figured since I was leaving the gate open for the chickens to get out and forage, that they were laying eggs on the ground in the barn and not in their boxes that are in the pen. One day I was in the outside pen with the gate closed and Cooper with me. I turned around and Cooper wasn't there, but for some reason I didn't pay attention to where he could possibly be, since the only opening is the gate, which was closed. The next thing I know, here Cooper is next to me with an egg in his mouth. He had somehow managed to squeeze himself through the little chicken door (we're talking 6"x 8") that goes into the chicken barn! That's where the boxes are and where the hens lay their eggs. Yeah, he is retrieving eggs now, true to his breed. He just stands there and waits for me to take the egg. It was so funny! Well, now I catch him retrieving eggs all the time, so I had to close up the gate a little more so he couldn't get through. What a great dog!
Trees:
Our wind break trees have been ravaged by scale the last couple of years. This year we have sprayed malathion 3 times, but we are still losing trees and branches. The nurseries around here have been of little help. Has anyone else battled scale and how did you resolve it?
Our Garden:
It has been a peculiar year. Very cool with an extended wet spring. Our 70 potato plants are down to 69, due to some insects and blight, I think. Or some other potato disease. But they are hanging in there. Last year our zucchini foliage was so large I was ready to order some Agent Orange to combat the jungle that it created. Seriously, it was all you could do to try and work your way through the leaves and stems to find the zucchini. And then, when you thought you had them all, there was that one GINORMOUS zucchini of all zucchini. This year, another story. The leaves are so small, there is no shade for the plants at all and I have harvested 1 zucchini. I have a couple 3-4 more total on 3 plants. Can't figure that one out.
Tomatoes are finally starting to flower, but no fruit yet. Peppers are just starting to show signs of flowering, maybe this week. I have harvested one cabbage, and have enough broccoli to have with dinner this week. I hope to harvest enough pea pods to serve peas as well this week. Got some pickling cukes, and the butternut squash hasn't flowered yet. My spinach is, um, I'm not sure. My romaine has bolted. That's about it for my garden. Strawberries are harvested and got 3 qts. in the freezer and made jam. Our raspberry plants we planted last year have a total of 5 berries between the 2 plants. We are hoping they are putting energy into growing this year and will produce next year.
Prep:
Just trying to maintain and keep supplies built up. Need to go out and get some target practice in, hopefully this week.
That's about all that's going on around here for right now. How are things in your neck of the woods?
Caught- an army of ants eating the peanut butter, they cleaned it to a polish, and didn't set off the trap.
Other traps- moldy peanut butter
Plan C- re-bait all traps with cheese
Chickens:
Our rooster is favoring one hen out of four, to the point that she was terrified of him and would not come down off her roost in the morning. The second she did, she was in submission stance and the rooster servicing her. He has tread on her back so much that her back is bald and her downy white feathers are coming out. There is risk that his talons can cut her back and wound her. This continued for several days (or more), until on Thursday. She actually hid in the weeds. All chickens come home to roost, so finally, she made her appearance. We got her in and isolated her in the adjacent pen so she could have a break from him, and have time to heal. He went ballistic! The second her saw her in the pen, he paced and crowed and flapped his wings, and made cackling noises, and paced some more. He wanted her! Too bad, buddy. Maybe he should be in the time-out pen.
He is a barred rock and he is BIG. He has also gotten very aggressive since we put the pullets in with the main flock of 5. He flaps his wings, crows, and will come after you when you go out to feed. In our flock of up and coming pullets, who should start laying late next month, there appears to be one Buff Orpington that is larger than the rest, with a slightly larger comb, and some inkling of tail feathers appearing. Buff Orpington's are a gentle breed, or at least supposed to be. My only concern is that you should have a ratio of about 10 hens per rooster, and we will have 21 hens. But, I think you know what I'm thinking. Dinner!
Oh, by the way, we had oysters on our trip to Oregon. We saved the shells and smashed them up to give to the chickens. They have calcium and help keep the egg shells firm. No point in paying for oyster shell when you can make your own.
Looming House Projects:
We have a never ending list of projects to get done.
Here is our list:
Peel and paint trim on house
caulk around door frames
re-caulk bathtub
clean out office, put in more shelves, and TV
measure for tin on roof so it can be ordered, repair skylight- skylight in kitchen to be salvaged, skylight in bathroom to be boarded over
stain fence railing
stain deck (doubtful this will happen)
fix the barn door
Cooper:
Cooper is our 4 year old golden retriever. Over the last 2 years he has matured and developed into an outstanding member of the family. He is a great mouser, a sounding alarm when someone is venturing down our driveway, a help with chicken herding, a protector against aggressive roosters, and an egg collector. Let me explain the last one. Once we moved the pullets in with the older chickens, the enclosed outside pen didn't allow ample free range for 22 chickens. So, I started keeping the gate ajar against a rock so there was enough room for the chickens to get in and out, but not enough for the horses to get in. I had noticed recently that Cooper had brought an egg or two up onto the front porch and left it there, unbroken. I figured since I was leaving the gate open for the chickens to get out and forage, that they were laying eggs on the ground in the barn and not in their boxes that are in the pen. One day I was in the outside pen with the gate closed and Cooper with me. I turned around and Cooper wasn't there, but for some reason I didn't pay attention to where he could possibly be, since the only opening is the gate, which was closed. The next thing I know, here Cooper is next to me with an egg in his mouth. He had somehow managed to squeeze himself through the little chicken door (we're talking 6"x 8") that goes into the chicken barn! That's where the boxes are and where the hens lay their eggs. Yeah, he is retrieving eggs now, true to his breed. He just stands there and waits for me to take the egg. It was so funny! Well, now I catch him retrieving eggs all the time, so I had to close up the gate a little more so he couldn't get through. What a great dog!
Trees:
Our wind break trees have been ravaged by scale the last couple of years. This year we have sprayed malathion 3 times, but we are still losing trees and branches. The nurseries around here have been of little help. Has anyone else battled scale and how did you resolve it?
Our Garden:
It has been a peculiar year. Very cool with an extended wet spring. Our 70 potato plants are down to 69, due to some insects and blight, I think. Or some other potato disease. But they are hanging in there. Last year our zucchini foliage was so large I was ready to order some Agent Orange to combat the jungle that it created. Seriously, it was all you could do to try and work your way through the leaves and stems to find the zucchini. And then, when you thought you had them all, there was that one GINORMOUS zucchini of all zucchini. This year, another story. The leaves are so small, there is no shade for the plants at all and I have harvested 1 zucchini. I have a couple 3-4 more total on 3 plants. Can't figure that one out.
Tomatoes are finally starting to flower, but no fruit yet. Peppers are just starting to show signs of flowering, maybe this week. I have harvested one cabbage, and have enough broccoli to have with dinner this week. I hope to harvest enough pea pods to serve peas as well this week. Got some pickling cukes, and the butternut squash hasn't flowered yet. My spinach is, um, I'm not sure. My romaine has bolted. That's about it for my garden. Strawberries are harvested and got 3 qts. in the freezer and made jam. Our raspberry plants we planted last year have a total of 5 berries between the 2 plants. We are hoping they are putting energy into growing this year and will produce next year.
Prep:
Just trying to maintain and keep supplies built up. Need to go out and get some target practice in, hopefully this week.
That's about all that's going on around here for right now. How are things in your neck of the woods?
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Chickens
Two years ago our neighbor decided he wanted to get some laying hens, so he ordered 24 for he and his wife. He then felt that he had gotten too many so we bought some pullets from him to expand our flock that had been decimated 2 years prior (so 4 years ago)to a predator. We had only 3 hens left so the chicks were a welcome addition to our flock.
We bought 10 from him and set them up in our barn (actually a loafing shed with an enclosed indoor area with two sections that we set up) and eagerly cared for them knowing that in about 5 1/2 months we would have fresh eggs. No more buying pale yolked eggs from the supermarket for us. Well, about 3 weeks later, I went out one morning to find that I had 1 pullet running around wildly and evidence of a creature that had gotten into the barn and dug under the partition and pulled out 9 of the pullets for a tasty meal! I was heartbroken. It is hard to lose livestock to predators. It was most likely a skunk who didn't get skunked. We call our neighbor and he took back the lone pullet to raise. When the chickens were about 3 months old, he gave us her back along with a chicken who was a he that was supposed to be a she. So now I had 4 layers and a soon to be rooster.
Fast forward to 2011. Our neighbor was very generous supplying us with eggs last summer, but then his hens went on hiatus so it was back to store bought eggs again. So this spring we decided we would creature proof our barn so nothing could dig under and deprive us of our egg layers. We stapled chicken wire around the bottom of the barn and it lays on the ground so if something does try to dig under, it will run into chicken wire. The dirt and shavings on the floor of the barn cover the wire so the chicks don't even know it's there. We ordered 18 chicks. 6 Rhode Island Red, 6 Black Sex Links, and 6 Buff Orpingtons. We lost 1 Black Sex Link, so we are left with 17 pullets.
The chicks are 2 1/2 months old now and this week we put them in with the older chickens. I don't know if there is a right or wrong way to introduce chickens to each other or not, but we just shooed the younger ones into the older ones side of the barn and let nature take its course. The rooster does not bother them at all. I have a yellow chicken that blends in with them and a very old black chicken that survived the massacre a few years ago that stays to herself. I don't think she will last much longer. Now 1 hen is an absolute bully and the pullets are terrified of her. We are trying to decide what to do with her. I'm thinking things will calm down soon, but if not should we put her in the stew pot? What have other readers done in this situation?
We bought 10 from him and set them up in our barn (actually a loafing shed with an enclosed indoor area with two sections that we set up) and eagerly cared for them knowing that in about 5 1/2 months we would have fresh eggs. No more buying pale yolked eggs from the supermarket for us. Well, about 3 weeks later, I went out one morning to find that I had 1 pullet running around wildly and evidence of a creature that had gotten into the barn and dug under the partition and pulled out 9 of the pullets for a tasty meal! I was heartbroken. It is hard to lose livestock to predators. It was most likely a skunk who didn't get skunked. We call our neighbor and he took back the lone pullet to raise. When the chickens were about 3 months old, he gave us her back along with a chicken who was a he that was supposed to be a she. So now I had 4 layers and a soon to be rooster.
Fast forward to 2011. Our neighbor was very generous supplying us with eggs last summer, but then his hens went on hiatus so it was back to store bought eggs again. So this spring we decided we would creature proof our barn so nothing could dig under and deprive us of our egg layers. We stapled chicken wire around the bottom of the barn and it lays on the ground so if something does try to dig under, it will run into chicken wire. The dirt and shavings on the floor of the barn cover the wire so the chicks don't even know it's there. We ordered 18 chicks. 6 Rhode Island Red, 6 Black Sex Links, and 6 Buff Orpingtons. We lost 1 Black Sex Link, so we are left with 17 pullets.
The chicks are 2 1/2 months old now and this week we put them in with the older chickens. I don't know if there is a right or wrong way to introduce chickens to each other or not, but we just shooed the younger ones into the older ones side of the barn and let nature take its course. The rooster does not bother them at all. I have a yellow chicken that blends in with them and a very old black chicken that survived the massacre a few years ago that stays to herself. I don't think she will last much longer. Now 1 hen is an absolute bully and the pullets are terrified of her. We are trying to decide what to do with her. I'm thinking things will calm down soon, but if not should we put her in the stew pot? What have other readers done in this situation?
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