Filling the Freezer

One of the projects that's been keeping us busy lately is our meat chickens. We got the day-old baby chicks at the end of May, and only lost four or five (out of 100). They grow quickly and were ready to be butchered just around the time that I got pneumonia. We butchered them over the course of a few weekends. Last weekend we did 48 of them, and were officially done. These are organic, free range chickens, and they are delicious! We've sold some, given some away, eaten some, and filled the freezer.

We found a great design for portable chicken coops online, built from very little wood and cattle panels which we already had from our goat days. My family came to visit one weekend in May and helped build the coops. We wouldn't have been ready in time if it weren't for their help. Here are the chicks gathered under the warm light the day we got them. They were quite tiny, as you can see -- perfect for little hands like Carter's to hold.

Here are the chickens two weeks ago. We had two of those handy chicken coops full. Twice a day we moved the coops to a fresh patch of grass. Myles is surprisingly good at catching the chickens. He is so persistent; once he grabs hold he won't let go, no matter how much the chicken squawks and flaps (and pecks!).

Carter always disappeared into the house at butchering time, but Myles, Merlyn, and Berkleigh loved to be right in the thick of things. Myles would help us catch five chickens. He could hold two at a time while Bryan and I killed the other three (I held the chickens while Bryan cut the heads off).

Merlyn wanted to help hold the chickens, too. This one is actually alive, even though it looks headless -- they stay quieter if they're held upside down. Once we got twenty chickens killed, the three helpers and Bryan and I would carry them to our processing place -- an antique metal table and a chicken plucker.

Some friends let us borrow their chicken plucking machine, which made our job so much easier than plucking the feathers by hand. After the chickens went through the plucker, I plucked any feathers that were left and then put the chicken in coolers full of ice and water. Once all twenty were plucked and chilled, we started cutting them up. Some we did whole (actually I did them, since Bryan won't gut them). Most were just cut into pieces. Bryan especially got very proficient at cutting off the thighs, breasts, and wings. Faye helped out a lot, too. She did her fair share of plucking, but most of her work was cleaning the chicken once we filled a bowl with pieces. Then we sealed all the chicken in foodsaver bags and froze them.

The process was very time-consuming, but just look at all that chicken in the freezer! We've also given some to my parents, Kelley, Faye, and Bryan's grandparents, and sold some to a few friends and Bryan's boss. There's also several packages in our other freezer that wouldn't fit in this one, plus we've eaten a few.

So, we have lots of chicken if you know anyone who wants organic, free-range pastured chicken! Next year I don't think we'll raise as many...