Butchered 4 roosters; unexpected adventures

So, had some pretty interesting although catastrophic adventures yesterday.

It was a nice day, I thought "OK this one reader person has asked for photos of the butcher process, I'm feeling OK, & I need to stop putting this off... let's get this done."  Got all the stuff around for it, started boiling the water, and headed for the barn to catch the intended "victims".  I think they must have sensed that their time had come because although I was able to catch 2 of the 4, the other 2 evaded me to the very end, even after using my pistol to try to take them out.  Finally, I thought "Fine, I'll just do these two, maybe I can catch the other two later after I've gotten these done...", however in the meantime I handed my dad my pistol (because I got frustrated and fed up chasing birds..) and even my dad got fed up. 

While Dad was chasing down the other two, I got my gloves and went for the kill cage (an old dog crate used to isolate them until they are ready for death) to catch a roo.  There were two in there, both were larger than I normally like to butcher, both with long long spurs, but I thought this would be to my advantage for an easier time cleaning them.  It was not.  These two big roosters ganged up on me and rushed me at the door as I went for them, both flapping their wings, attacking my head and face.  I got spurred in the arms, chest and back as I ducked from their barrage attack.

After that, I was 100% done with messing around on a humane kill business.  And of course by not doing a humane kill it wouldn't be clean either, so I knew I wouldn't be able to get photos.  But regardless, I needed these birds gone, so I turned my husband, dad & brother loose on them.  Told them to take them out however they wanted as long as they were dead.  The three men thought this was an awesome idea, since they all hate my chickens, but specifically my roosters with a passion.

After locating them all, they were successful, but there was one rooster in particular that was very good at evading us, even though we shot at him he would keep running.  Once we finally did take him out and I took all his feathers off I realized that we had all hit him when we were shooting him, he just had like... 9 lives. lol  The other three roosters went down a lot easier.

However, interesting facts (to me anyway) was that when I tried to shoot the escape artist rooster several months ago, I thought I missed him, I did not.  I did indeed hit him, and not only that but I hit him exactly where I was supposed to to take him out.  I had just missed his internal organs by mere millimeters. When I finally opened him up, he had 5 bullet holes, (4, 9mm & 1, .22) plus the healed hole from my original 9mm several months back.  Tough old bird was way too good at staying alive!! 

After all of that, I ended up only getting one bird that was usable out of the 4, mainly because I was just so tired I couldn't finish.  My hands were shaking and I was close to collapsing, ended up nicking the gall bladder on the last one I attempted which means I had to throw it away.  Asked my brother to take care of all of the guts, feathers, carcasses etc. which he did, while I showered, then colapsed.  Mom even texted me that she needed me to help her, with my kids, and I didn't even hear my phone.  THAT showed me this morning just how utterly exhausted I was.  

First attempt at chicken mash of sorts

My husband has 4 roosters & a hen he intends me to butcher out.  They are all bantams, and since I have zero experience butchering chickens out as of yet, Daddy Frog is saying that working these out will be good experience for me, because even if it doesn't work out and I totally screw them up, that by the time I get through all 5 I should have some idea of how to do it correctly when I try to do it on the adults!  :-)

Anyway, these 5 bantams love to waste TONS of food.  I got sick & tired of it.  They are costing me money (because they are in a rabbit cage and keep beaking their food out of the feeder, allowing it to fall through the cage floor to the ground below.  The guineas clean up after them, but the whole purpose in keeping these birds alive in the first place was to fatten them up.. and all of the "fat food" (meat bird food) keeps getting kicked out and they're only getting part of it... so aggravating!!  So, I poured water all over it and crammed their feeder full!  It worked!!  :-D  Yay!!

It worked with them, so then I did the same thing with my beeplas, and it worked even better with them!  I think this may be the way I feed them from now on!  I am so stoked!!

I've been buying 50# of feed every two weeks (32 birds eat a lot...who'd have thought?), then combining it with the free cast off (straw, cracked wheat, buckwheat hulls, corn shells etc) from the mill, and the corn meal unsuitable for  human consumption, also from the mill.  The chickens love it, but there is a lot of waste when this mixture gets put into the feeders.  This mash idea... this could really work.  It is A LOT messier for me, because I don't have a system down yet, but so far there has been no waste, and the beeplas seemed to be able to eat it a lot easier.  What with the food having been partially softened with the water and so forth. :-)

Neighbor's needing help, Egg eater troubles & Beepla's are 3-weeks old

Even after clipping their wings and placing a hog panel covered in chicken wire over the mouth of the milk tank, the beepla's still are trying to fly out of it.  Rather annoying really... BUT they are growing growing growing at an unbelieveable rate!  Goodness gracious!  I think they are almost ready for the grow out pen!  I had thought perhaps they might make it to the 4-week mark, but at this rate, they will need to be moved before then!  I'm just glad they are healthy!

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In other news, we have an "egg eater" in the flock.  She is consuming between 2 & 3 eggs before I can get out to collect them for the last 3 days, and to say that I am unhappy is an understatement.  I have no idea which chicken it is, but if I catch her, that will be that.  I'm tired of these shenanigans!

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Also, in the course of my daily activities yesterday, I rode my bike up to deliver eggs to the neighbor and his wife.  She had facebooked that when I had extra eggs she would like to have at least 3-dozen.  Great.  Cool.  Problem is she has Huntington's Disease and doesn't leave her house some days (more days than not lately), so I end up delivering them, or having their son show up and take eggs, sometimes without asking.  Sometimes it's a big deal, sometimes it isn't.  I decided this week I would make sure she received them because there have been times when she's called asking where they are, after her son has already picked them up.  This tells me he is "snagging" them and sometimes forgets to give them to her.

All of that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, other than it came out in conversation that they are really struggling financially.  Apparently, they are so broke they don't have money for food, and are literally surviving on bread, milk & eggs.  Way to totally make me feel responsible for them to eat!

I came home, told mom, and we decided something must be done, because they need more nutrients than what can be had from just bread, milk & eggs.  So, taking some chicken stock she had just made, she threw together a big batch of chicken noodle soup for them and took it down.  I had planned to do something similar, she just beat me to it.

When chickens stop laying - what to do

When your chickens stop laying:  Do you prefer to butcher them and let them serve another use, or do you prefer to allow them to continue on as pets?

If you choose to butcher:  Do you prefer to do it yourself, pay someone else to do it?? 


Here in our family, it has never really become an issue of raising an animal and then having a case of "the guilts" and being unable to follow through.  However much of that has been due to the fact that our animals (cattle, sheep, pigs, rabbits) have always been taken to the meat packing plant to be processed out, or to someone else who would be willing to do it as in the case of the rabbits because it was too costly to take to the packing plant.

When it comes time for me to make the decision for our girls to either be put to another use or kept as pets, I will most likely choose to put them to another use.  I will need to learn to process them either way, and it seems like a shame to let good meat go to waste if they were to die of natural old age.

Mom & I were discussing all of this earlier today in fact, but I didn't know how to phrase things, and also didn't think anyone would actually hear me if I did put this out there.  I am currently considering the idea of learning to process chickens etc. well enough that I could potentially make money at it.  Traveling around to this farm or that in the area and helping to butcher out the birds as needed.

There are two problems with this idea though. 

• I have never butchered them out 100% start to finish. 

• I've helped Amish ladies do it from the beheading part on, using the scalding method, but never all the way through.

• I do not have a chicken plucker.  This is of course not a requirement but, it would be a lot easier to do the "dirty work" if we had one.  

• I've found plans for my husband to make one, pieces can be purchased through Amazon, or a step-by-step book on how to make your own, and all of the parts to do it with, can be ordered through the author of the book.

On Craigs List there was an advertisement for a man who travels around doing just this, but is from the Lansing area, so although there is someone in the 3-hour radius vicinity who already does it, if I did follow through with this idea, I don't think I would be too much competition for him.

The issue with doing things like he does:

• I don't want to copy him.  Copying always leads to problems.

• I believe he charges too much to do this service for people.  

• He charged a set fee ($85 to even just start his truck.  $5/mile after 10-miles, and $2/chicken 6-weeks & under, $3/chicken 6-weeks & over.) 

• I'm thinking more along the lines of $20 - $25 to start the truck, $5/mile after 10-miles, $2/chicken for standard 6-week old, $3/chicken for larger breeds, up to $5 per bird if they're especially difficult? I don't know.

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Thanks to Mindie Dittemore for helping me get over my "writers block" through her own post about this topic.