The Chickening

No gross pictures. But 34 chickens are harmed in the making of this post.

Photos: scenic photos from a trip to Lake Placid, NY earlier this summer. Too busy working and too dirty to touch my phone on butchering day. Not that I think you even want to see process photos.

Chicken butchering day came early this year - partly because we got our chicks a few weeks early than usual. We usually get them in July, when the chicks can survive outside at only 2 weeks old, and then butcher in October, when the when the weather turns cold. Cold weather is kind of crucial for butchering in your backyard because otherwise flies are everywhere, carnivorous wasps cover your workspace, and there is this little known thing called bacteria that love the warmth. 

This past weekend we had a high of 82 degrees - great weather for flies, wasps and bacterial growth. But with a low of 52 degrees, we aimed to start as early as we could and finish before the heat set in. We began processing at 8 AM, after about an hour of set up. The chicken plucker, a big purchase last year, was again the star of the day. Also amazing, a 20-something neighbor who was interested in learning the process and worked with us from 8:30 until noon.

Our friends joined us with their 19 meat birds, and we butchered 15 of our own. Beginning at 8 AM, we finished phase one (processing a live chicken to a roasting bird) by 11:30. 34 birds used to take us the whole day - even with 4 sets of hands - so this is still astonishing.

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Does that mean we call it a day at noon? Nope! My neighbor and I spend another hour breaking down my 15 birds into breasts, thighs, wings and “scrap.” We freeze the breasts and thighs in ziplock bags, easy meal fixings and quick to defrost.

The wings got frozen in bags of 24, plus some set aside for a family birthday party this week, we cooked them in the smoker. The scrap pile - smaller bits of meat that we cut off the carcass - were ground up for Maple Sage Chicken Sausage. This is our first time adding that to the butchering day repertoire, and I am pretty excited to eat it over the coming months.

By the time I was finished grinding the sausage (with testing and seasoning adjustments), Jim was done with most of the dishes and had gotten the stock pots on the stove. We had roasted the carcasses (leftover when we broke down the birds into thighs, breasts, and wings), as well as all the other bits that we save for stock - necks, gizzards, hearts, and feet. Both stock pots are very full.

We cooked the stock for a day, and then strained it, and then it went back on the stove to cook down for another day - reducing by about 75%. Now I am freezing the stock in ice cube trays so they are like homemade bouillon cubes that can be tossed in a soup pot or a sauce pan with no defrosting (I just add about 1/2 to 1 cup of water per cube). I have to empty last night’s cubes and pour the next batch into the ice cube trays - it’s takes a while to get through it all.

We still have another 11 meat birds “on the hoof” as we say - they are too small to butcher now, so we’ll keep them for 3 weeks to bulk up. Our friends are heading out on vacation and had a hard deadline (uh, pun not intended), but we are happy to get some birds in the freezer, because now I don’t have to worry about our whole flock being wiped out by a weasel, raccoons, or the fox that has been grabbing a lot of our birds over the course of the summer. I could still lose the last 12 birds, but at least I have food in the freezer now. Since chickening day, I have literally slept better at night - for the last month I have been sleeping lightly and waking at any sound that could be a ‘chicken distress call.’ There have been a few nighttime sprints out to the coop.

Butchering day comes with a lot of stress - its a lot of work, and we find out how well our birds grew, and the stress of taking a life. I used to think that a ‘real’ homesteader/farmer wouldn’t feel anything on butchering day - that if I felt anxious or guilty or the unnerving proximity to death (this is the hard one, life and death are split by a very fine line) then I was too soft. But a few years ago, I realized that I AM a real homesteader and it’s ok if this work seeps into my heart. I hug my kids close, I give thanks to these birds, and I marvel at what a miracle it is that I am here, sharing this day and this food with people I love.

Also… the very polite missionaries that stopped by midmorning are going to have a really wild story to tell to their friends. We didn’t even hear them drive up. Maybe this gets us cut from their list of houses to visit?