Butcher day

My husband and I raise chickens in our backyard for eggs - and this year we added in Cornish roasters for meat as well. We raised the roasters for ten weeks and today was slaughtering day. We also slaughtered our two remaining laying hens (ISA Browns) because they pecked our new laying chicks (Ameraucanas) to death earlier this summer when we tried to mix them in together... so we need to have hens that are good with families AND other birds, which we did not know ISA Browns were not good with other birds until we tried to add to the flock. I digress.

Anyway, today was butchering day. My husband had his brother over and they handled the work while I watched the children and "supervised" the butchering to kind of see how to do it and yet not have to be directly involved. ;) My husband had a friend from work come over and help, and he took home a cleaned and processed Cornish for his efforts. We have my brother-in-law three Cornish, and we are keeping the rest - save for eight Cornish that we plan to sell to some people we know.

It was pretty neat. The coolest thing, I thought, was seeing yolks formed inside the ISA Browns that had yet to become eggs.

The chicken "gallows" to hold the feet once the bird has drained and been dunked into 180 degree water to loosen the feathers from the skin so the feathers can be easily removed.

The butchering station.

Yolks inside an ISA Brown that have yet to become eggs.

Last of the Cornish and the ISA Browns after processing.

Cleaned, processed, rinsed, bagged, and into the freezer!