Fresh Chickens Old School.

[Walleyes]

I swore as a young man growing up I would never pluck another chicken as long as I lived,, funny how things change. This spring the wife and our oldest son talked me into us raising our own chickens. We built the coup at our sons place and he and his family fed and raised them. We bought a bred for meat bird at 4 weeks old, fed them 100% organic feed and 8 weeks old we have our home raised organic birds. Its amazing how fast these birds put on weight. They are not a genetically modified bird just a bird bred for fast growing. 8 weeks old and we averaged 5.5# a bird. very light feathered birds and easy plucking. We started out with 40 birds this year just to get our feet wet and see how it all goes. After losing a few and the kids trying a couple over the last 2 weeks we ended up with 27 birds today for the big butcher. Started at 10:00 a:m and had birds in freezer everything cleaned up and disinfected by 2:00 p:m. It was a little expensive this year as we had to start from scratch and build the coup and fence and buy all supplies. Next year we plan on going with 75 birds, get a plucker and get into it a little more. In a couple days we will try out our product but there's no doubt they will be a fine bird.

A few pics of our day.

Fresh farm raised chicken old school.

[sonny]

Oh man does that bring back memories of my childhood..Chicken killing day.

Back then I used to hate plucking them darn chickens but now I kinda miss those days.

Good job walleyes. 

[LeverAction]

Out of all the butchering we did, chickens was the most hated. But good to put up meat for the winter, and nice to have the family day no matter what the job.

[greylynx]

Old School no kidding.

You need a chicken plucker.  Someone in the neighborhood must have one to borrow.  I think the price of them have come down over the years.

[Walleyes]

Thx boys. You know it wasn't all that bad really. These birds are a lot different than when we were young and butchered. They are very light feathered birds and heavy birds holy cow. We plan in going with 75 birds next year and hope to buy a good plucker. We checked them out this year but didn't want to spend the money until we knew it was something we would want to do going ahead. They make some dandy pluckers this day and age. Around $600.00 gets you into a nice unit. We will get set up better for it as time goes.

[bigbore444]

Nice job Walleyes.

[unclebuck]

Brings back a lot of memories of when I was a kid on the farm.  We would butcher 75 roosters annually(I was the executioner).  No plucker, just armstrong!!!!

[bigbore444]

Yup and the farm cats used to fight for there heads.

[OL_JR]

          They do look like some hefty birds, that should be some really good eats good goin.  Nice to see the youngins getting involved and understanding how food comes about, to many kids these days think meat just comes from the store it seems.

[Sooner]

I remember watching my Opa do the deed and the headless chickens running around. And us kids job was to bring Opa the live bird, then take the modified bird(after the darn legs stopped twitching) to the aunts who boiled and plucked them. I remember a couple years later they had this new newfangled looking rotating drum and the aunts were much happier plucking the birds.

[Walleyes]

          They do look like some hefty birds, that should be some really good eats good goin.  Nice to see the youngins getting involved and understanding how food comes about, to many kids these days think meat just comes from the store it seems.

Yes indeed, no issues there with the little ones, they understood from day one what was going to happen. They hunt with their Dad often as well so there are no delusions with our young ones in regards to where food comes from.