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backyard chickens

What to Expect When Raising Meat Birds and the Lessons I Learned From Mine

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It is exciting to see backyard chickens so in vogue across the country. This is the time of year when many chicken-rearing households assess their flock and plot and plan for springtime chicks. In true gateway fashion raising hens has lead some of us to contemplate raising livestock for an additional food source. Meat birds seem like the next logical step. Knowing that an animal has been treated humanely and was raised without hormones and antibiotics is certainly appealing, but what does raising them really entail? This past spring The Husband and I decided to find out.

chickhands

In March we bought our first half dozen Cornish Rock chicks. With two years experience keeping laying hens under our belt we approached this new endeavor confidently. We did our homework. We had lengthy discussions with our chicken Sensei at October Rose Farm. We strove to tilt karmic forces in our favor by building a mobile chicken pen out of an old Ikea bed frame. We researched tried-and-true chicken pasturing methods from experts on YouTube. We felt as ready as we’d ever be.

But a worry kept gnawing at the back of my mind. What about the end game? The dispatchment. Did I have it in me to see this thing through and do what ultimately needed to be done? Turns out I was right to suspect there was more to meat bird rearing than meets the eye: it has some undeniable, long term implications that a pursuer of this endeavor is wise to consider. Here is how it went down for us and, of course, my opinion about the whole matter.

Meat Birds Are Not like Egg Layers
Just after we got our Cornish chicks I had to be out of town for a few days and left bird-rearing tasks to The Husband. When I returned and peeked inside the chick corral expecting to see the usual fuzzy peeps dozing under the heat lamp I nearly had a heart attack: the chicks had doubled in size in three days and crowded the food dish like Walking Dead poultry zombies on the hunt for chick chow. The rapid growth of the Cornish breed was unsettling to folks like us who are used to the gentler growth curve of the egg layer. Egg layers progress slowly through their life stages until about the six month mark when eggs appear like magic in the box, and happiness and joy abounds; in contrast, meat birds reach butcher weight in six weeks (that’s weeks with a ‘w’). For over a hundred years this variety of bird has been selectively bred for one purpose: to put on weight as rapidly as possible. They are endlessly hungry, as evidenced by our entire adult Cornish flock regularly napping in the shade on summer afternoons with their heads propped in the food dish.

henyard

Let’s talk poop. Anyone who has ever mucked out a chicken coop is all too familiar with the stink chickens are capable of producing, but egg layer droppings are dainty and fragrant compared to the vast quantities of evacuant Cornish Rocks generate. These birds are poop machines. Our schedule for transporting them from the chick coral in the garage to the outdoor pen took an accelerated track due to them reeking up the joint. Once on pasture the situation was managed by moving them daily to fresh, absorbent grass, but it became clear that this daily move was not optional.  Cornish make a mess of the place fast. On the upside, our garden plot this spring will be smack dab in the middle of the spot the birds fertilized last summer. We anticipate one heck of a harvest.

Once on pasture the birds were easy to keep. We dragged their pen over fresh grass daily, fed them in the morning and evening, and kept an abundance of fresh water available. I observed no pecking order issues and no stress over their confinement – they didn’t pace the fence like my layers do when they’re caged. Heck, the Cornish birds

nap

Naptime!

didn’t even seem to realize they were in a pen. They didn’t scratch or pursue bugs like our layers, and the one time I tossed a tomato into their food dish thinking they’d wolf it down like candy they ran away in terror and refused to come out of the corner until I had removed the offending produce. For goodness sake. They only showed interested in feeding, drinking, pooping, and napping. In terms of maintenance and care, the Cornish mix birds were, well, boring. My free range layers on the other hand seemed to know a chicken when they saw one and napped beside the meat bird pen every afternoon as if showing solidarity with their former flat mates. It made me a bit sad.

The Process
We’ve come to the part where I talk about dispatching the birds. Please skip ahead to My Two Cents if this does not suit your sensibilities.

scalding

Scalding the feathers off.

 Our backyard setup included a homemade killing cone made out of hardware cloth attached to a deck post with a bucket of sawdust at its base, a large pot of 130 degree water on a grill, a plucking table, a [razor sharp] utility knife, a large container of ice for giblets, and a camping cooler packed with ice and water.

To dispatch the birds The Husband positioned the chicken in the kill cone and, with the utility knife, severed the jugular vein and carotid artery in a swift motion. He held the head to the side to allow the bird bleed out into the sawdust bucket (decapitating the bird entirely could cause the nervous system to seize and impede this bleeding-out process, resulting in tough meat). Once the blood drained he removed the head and carefully submerged the bird, neck first, into the pot of hot water just until the feathers dislodged easily from the carcass, about a minute. He then handed the bird off to me at the table where I dried my eyes on my tee shirt sleeve and got to plucking. In my opinion plucking chicken feathers is a miserable job. But it is preferable to the one The Husband took on so I kept my trap shut and pulled my weight. After the feathers were plucked we dressed the bird by removing the preening gland, organs and entrails. We retained the giblets, heads, and feet in a container of ice for stock. We rinsed each bird inside and out under a garden hose and put it in the cooler for an hour. Afterwards we pat dried the bird with a clean towel and vacuum sealed it for freezer storage.

plucking

My favorite kind of plucking: when someone else is doing it.

Immediately following the slaughter I rinsed the giblets, heads and feet under running water and put them in a large stockpot with raw vegetables, fresh herbs, and water. I brought the pot to a boil then reduced to low for about 12 hours. From these parts we garnered 10 quarts of chicken stock that we pressure canned the following morning.

My Two Cents: Why We Do It.
We embarked on this endeavor because we wanted to reclaim the responsibility of feeding ourselves to the greatest extent possible. In the process we discovered that there is solemnity in the act of taking livestock for food, and it has made us far more conscientious consumers. Because we are so invested in this food source we are loathed to waste any part of the animal; nothing goes unused. Would we do it again? Absolutely. In fact, a few weeks after processing our first batch we started a second, and plan to repeat the cycle this spring. The quality and flavor of the meat is superior by far to the mass produced meat from the grocery store.

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How Do They Sell It So Cheap?
The big grocery store in my area regularly sell frozen chicken for .99 cents per pound, sometimes sixty-nine cents when a sale is running. As a raiser of meat birds this dumbfounds me. It costs roughly $1.50 per pound to raise and harvest our pasture-raised birds, and we do not have to pay employees to process the meat or buy fuel to transport it to market the way confinement factories do. Theenvironmental, dietary, and pharmaceutical conditions under which dollar-per-pound chicken is possible should be cause for alarm, not celebration. Raising our own birds has informed my conscience, turned us off to mass-produced chicken, and given us renewed respect for our local farms who do things right.

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We Need To Do More Than Complain.
Most modern omnivores are so far removed from the reality and nature of their food that any knowledge of the production or slaughter, even the most humane, is upsetting. But the shrink wrapped poultry in the grocery store and Fast Food 10-piece Nugget Meals did not spring forth like flora independent of requisite death; somebody had to do the difficult work. Every time we spend a dollar on our food, be it on food processed on intensive animal farms, or on local organic farms, or to raise and grown on our own land, a vote is cast for how we want our future food system to look.

meatbirds

It behooves us therefore to understand what we’re buying into, and to pony up and learn how to do as much of it ourselves within our local community as we possibly can.Cornish Birds Don’t Act Like Chickens.
There is no breed of chicken on the planet that matures as fast and produces the amount of quality meat as the Cornish cross, but a factor that I continue to struggle with is the fact that modern humans have created, with Frankensteinian hubris, a breed for our consumption that grows so quickly it can be a danger to itself and is incapable of propagating on its own. Cornish crosses just don’t act like chickens; it is as if we’ve bred the chickenness out of the chicken. I’m still trying to decide whether the good life we provide for our birds compensates for contributing to the perpetuation of this Cornish cross breed in the first place.
restinginthefood

The bird at center has elected to nap inside the food dish on top of the chicken crumble.

We will raise meat birds again, no question, but the jury is still out on which breed we’ll choose this time around.

What about you? Have you raised meat birds? What breed did you choose?

Chicken Treat Recipe

Homemade Chicken Treats Homemade Treats for Chickens

Oh words, how they matter. Example: when you type “homemade chicken treats” into a search engine you’ll get an altogether different result than when you type “Homemade treats for chickens.”  In one case the chicken is the treat and in the other it is the recipient of one. An important distinction, particularly from the fowl’s perspective. Or is that foul? This recipe speaks to the latter: a winter treat for your backyard hens involving categorically non-chicken ingredients.

Madison County Open Farm Day

bannerYesterday The Husband and I traveled an hour south-east to take part in Madison County Agriculture’s 6th Annual Open Farm Day. The schedule of events showed thirty-six farms participating – 36! – offering free samples, educational interactions, door prizes, and fresh food. We trekked out across some of the most beautiful territory in New York determined to experience as much as we could take in.
Fruit of the Fungi

 On their farm in Lebanon, Fruit of the Fungi owners Kristi and KC Mangine chatted with visitors, answered questions about the mushroom-growing process, and took us on a walk-and-talk through the woods to see their inoculated logs curing in stacks. We bought fresh-picked shiitakes and a bottle of mushroom power that purports to “add a swift and intense wild mushroom flavor to your dish” which curiously possesses the distinct aroma of dark chocolate. Let the possibility-pondering commence…

 

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Fruit of the Fungi Shiitake

 

Fruit of the Fungi Open House, July 27, 2013

Fruit of the Fungi Open House, July 27, 2013

Follow Fruit of the Fungi on Facebook.

 

Pewter Spoon Café & Eatery

Jasmin honey tea

Jasmin honey tea

Road Trip Food is an ordeal for us on account of our aversion to places that serve prefabricated-food-like-products — which is most of them — but hunger drove us into Cazenovia. Turns out the village is home to a dumbfounding number of eateries. Eventually The Husband spotted a noteworthy sign: Pewter Spoon Café. A place, maybe, to grab a sandwich for the road. 

Once inside our plan to eat on the fly was forgotten. We were hooked by the jazz on the stereo, the list of nicely thought-out lunch specials written on butcher paper, and the engaging young woman behind the counter. The place was nearly at capacity but we found a fortuitous table by the window overlooking the main drag. We people-watched and sipped iced jasmine and honey tea while we waited. Our order was a pair of paninis, mine a pear, arugula, caramelized onion and brie affair, The Husband’s stuffed with caprese salad. 

Pewter Spoon Cafe & Eatery

Pewter Spoon Cafe & Eatery

A single bite. That was all it took to transform the place from an unknown dot on the map into a destination. Our food was fresh, inventive, delicious. I began assembling a mental list of friends I’d bring with me the next time I visited. When one accidentally stumbles upon the rare gem of an eating establishment the only appropriate thing to do is sing its praises: the Pewter Spoon Café & Eatery is charming and delicious. A MUST if you find yourself in the vicinity.  The Husband and I, quite possibly two of the fussiest fresh-food snobs in all the kingdom, left full and happy.

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Follow Pewter Spoon on Facebook.

 

Meadowood Farms

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sheep
We’ve greatly missed Meadowood Farms at our Skaneateles Farmer’s Market. We haven’t found a replacement for the wonderful meats we used to get from them but also can’t argue with the inconvenience of distance. It was a treat to tour the farm and get our hands on delicious lamb sausage again.

Plus also there were baby lambs.

 

Thorp Apiary

 
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It probably will surprise no one that my favorite part of the day was the fresh food samples. The best and most surprising sample came from Thorp Apiary in the form of their basswood honey which contains a rich, lemon flavor. Upon returning home we drizzled copious amounts of Thorp Apiary Basswood Honey over The Husbands fluffy, golden biscuits.  Enough said.

 

Lucky Moon Farm

 
We spent more than our fair allotment of time at Lucky MoonFarm. I mean we freaking lingered. I fell in love and would have moved in had it not been for The Husband’s gentle reminder that we have lives requiring our attentions. Plus a child.
 

The family-owned farm produces vegetables, maple syrup, eggs, garlic and hay, and they employ a philosophy of land stewardship using sustainable farming practices … Oh never mind, I’ll just show you:

Moonbarrel

MoonchickenyardMoondog

 

 

 

Moongarlic

 

Moonchickenwindow

Moondoor

Moonshack

Chicken Feet


chicken-feet

When Susan Underwood of October Rose Farms gifted me a bag of chicken feet at the farmer’s market on Saturday I wondered what I could possibly have done to offend her. The feet of chickens?  Did she really dislike me so much?  “Trust me,” she said, “these make the most delicious broth. Google it if you don’t believe me.”
I took a deep breath. I accepted her gift. And I Googled the heck out of it.
Chicken feet, I’ve learned, have an ironic presence in our world: they are regarded as a delicacy in some parts, discarded offal in others, and serve as a standard, everyday ingredient in too many ethnic culinary circles to count. The American food culture, me included, seems to have forgotten our long-standing relationship with the lowly chicken foot. Pre-WWII Americans were probably unaware of the unique micronutrients found only in that part of the bird but clearly understood that the collagen, gelatin and high flavor profile made this an essential ingredient for every-day cooking.

chicken-feet-rinse

In “the olden days” chicken feet were the standard thickener and flavor enhancer of American soups, stews, and gravies; just after the Second World War the food industry figured out how to hydrolyze proteins to a base containing free glutamic acids, and MSG was born. With the resulting explosion of the convenience-food industry along with the disappearance of back-yard chickens, chicken feet as a matter of daily life were forgotten. Americans began gorging on hotdogs and pre-packaged chicken patties made from chemical infused this-and-that pieces-parts and turned our noses up at the very idea of cooking with something so gruesome.

chicken-feet-stockpot

The stock we made from October Rose Farms’ chicken feet was rich in body and flavor, worlds better by far than any store-bought product, mercy yes, and superior even to our carcass and vegetable stock-making method which, until now, has been our gold standard.
This week we learned to connect with a culinary tradition that goes back hundreds of years: utilizing all the parts of the animal, evenespecially the highly nutritious and flavorful feet.

chicken-feet-gravy

CHICKEN FEET STOCK
Ingredients:
2 pounds of chicken feet
1 bay leaf
Thyme
Vegetables: Tomatoes, carrots, onions, celery, garlic, etc: use the vegetables you have on hand, course chopped and thrown into a large stockpot.
Water (enough to cover all ingredients in the pot)
Directions:
1) Rinse the chicken feet under running water to wash away any surface debris.
2) Scald the chicken feet for 15-20 seconds in a pot of salted boiling water, then immediately quench in a bowl of ice water to cool.
3) Peel the yellow membrane entirely from each foot.
4) Chop off the tops of the claws at the first knuckle using a sharp knife.
5) Place the feet in a large stockpot and add vegetables and herbs as desired. We used: tomatoes, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaf and thyme
6) Cover stockpot contents completely with water.
7) Bring to a boil, then reduce to a very low simmer.
8) Simmer for at least 4 hours.
9) Allow liquid to cool completely, then strain.
10) Freeze or can. Yield: approximately 1.5 gallons.

Home-grown

This weekend was all about homesteading rhythms and rotations.  We moved our third batch of chicks out of a heated corral and into an out door coop; we transferred Cornish Rocks into a new on-pasture paddock; we planted the garden; and after weeks of YouTube how-to videos we harvested our first meat birds. By “we” I mean The Husband and the Mother In Law (MIL); I operated the water nozzle, the most important task in chicken harvesting, ask anyone.
Best laid plans
After spending our winter planning the precise layout and content of our first ‘real’ garden we decided last second to plant elsewhere and give the larger space to our chickens. Call us nuts, but either the trees around the new garden grew exponentially over the winter or the Earth’s orbit around the sun is slightly askew this spring because we definitely remember there being more sunlight in that area. I admit it would have been handier had we made this shade-related observation prior to planting all the full-sun seeds. Eager to find a fix I scoured the web for vegetable varieties willing to thrive in not-exactly-tons-of-sun-like-we-remembered situations and it turns out turnips and beans would be well suited. Thank goodness for that on account of me hankering for a plate of those two things practically on a daily basis.

Plucking
As for the poultry dispatchment and evisceration I will say I took considerable comfort in the predictability of anatomy. Everything was situated exactly where YouTube said they would be and nothing unexpected occurred during the course of harvesting. The tasks I worried most about were accomplished quickly and then the mechanics of the process kicked in. Plus the MIL has an uncanny knack for defusing tense, possibly gross moments with sly and unpredictable humor. 
Dressed, our birds weighed in at four and a half pounds apiece. The Husband stuffed one with boquet garni from his herb garden and slid it in the oven. Delicious. We’ve been customers of October Rose Farm long enough to know pastures and sunshine and fresh air make better baked chicken than antibiotics and growth hormones and steroids. Go figure. Unanticipated was our increased sense of independence, security and satisfaction. Home-grown is a powerful liberty. Even when you screw up the garden.
The new hen yard.
Dinner


October Rose Farm and our Chicken Sensei

Bottom’s up at the water cooler.

Now that the summer is indisputably over and we’ve a mere month to partake in the bounty and friendship that is the Farmer’sMarket, The Husband and I did what we’ve promised ourselves we would do for a long time: we visited our favorite chicken farmstead people in all of Upstate New York: Susan and Brian Underwood of October Rose Farm.
One Lucky Rooster.
Some people venture into farming with well-defined master plans, others with an inherited knack (and/or land) from familial roots. Susan and Brian Underwood of October Rose accidentally stumbled into chicken-raising when their teenage son reared a flock of egg-layers to pay for a trip to the Boy Scout Jamboree and, upon his return, surrendered custody of his 25 hens to Mom and Dad. Since then, Susan and Brian have painstakingly gathered knowledge and know-how to expand their farmstead into a beautiful, orderly, and sustainable spread at the tip of Skaneateles Lake.
Evening chores.
Rotation method.
Since product quality is necessarily tied to quality of life, and October Rose chicken and eggs are delicious, we were not at all surprised when we visited Susan and Brian to find hundreds of beautiful meat and egg-laying birds on pasture in the fresh air overlooking the Skaneateles valley. The Underwoods utilize a rotation grazing method that promotes pasture health and animal happiness. Broiler birds in pasture pens are moved to fresh grass every day; the Eggmobiles, which run a daily average of 50 pounds of eggs apiece, are moved to new pasture every week. Unlike the cringe-worthy living conditions and pollution of industrial farms, October Rose’s animals serve as the Cleanup and Renew Crew: the birds break down and scratch insect larva out of the manure left behind by grazing animals and then enrich the quality of the pasture with their own droppings. This revitalized soil enhances the grassland for grazing animals, and the cycle begins anew.
Turkeys.
It has been widely reported that October Rose turkeys are the best tasting in all of CNY, but should you wish to partake be prepared to plan ahead: orders for the Thanksgiving birds are typically sold out by June. Regularly available are plump, fresh chicken (whole, half and quarters) and fresh-laid eggs at the Skaneateles Farmers market every Thursday and Saturday, or by contacting the farm directly. I wouldn’t dream of making my chicken soup with anything but an October Rose broiler.
Eggmobile.
We’ve been customers of October Rose Farms for years. As a matter of fact, Susan Underwood – with her calm, hands-in-pocket patience – has become our Chicken Sensei. Without our weekly consultations with her at the Skaneateles Farmer’s Market we would not have dared foray into chicken-rearing ourselves. Susan has guided us through pasty-butt and broodiness and when we showed up to market a bit bummed after the unexpected death of one of our hens assured us that sometimes this just happens and, yeah, she knows what its like to regard a farm animal as member of the family.
Try having thatconversation with an industrial factory farmer.
October Rose Farm, twilight.
Watch this very fun and cool video of chicken-life on October Rose Farm.

Chicken Haircuts

 Feather Blind.
Carefulness.

Experience has taught me any odd noise from the hen yard is a bad thing, something to investigate right away. So when late yesterday I heard an unfamiliar commotion I rushed out to see about the ensuing mayhem. Sure enough Noodle Bonaparte was inexplicably inside the hen yard and being pecked mercilessly by a trio of hens; furthermore, she’d gotten herself stuck half way through a little lattice hole which any sighted creature would have realized was far too small to pass through.

Sight.

It only took a moment for The Husband to reach her but by then little Noodle was a motionless pile of fuzz. Oh no, I thought. We lost one.

Not dead, just frozen in terror; the instant he scooped her up Noodle began flapping in fright.

We decided then and there to liberate our silkies from the plume that simultaneously served as their most prized feature and source of blindness.

A Delicate Procedure.

The Husband and The Girl performed the delicate procedure. Once the feathers began to fall away the birds went uncharacteristically still. Chickens, it turns out, enjoy seeing. I’ve decided those fuzzy feathers are a hazard, not to mention pure meanness. We’ll keep the girls trimmed from now on.

Because there is nothing ridiculous at all about chicken haircuts. Good Grief.

She sees her shadow.

Freedom…and Molting.

BP would appreciate it if we’d stop
bringing up the ‘broody’ incident.

The broody hen saga has come to a peaceful end. BP was emancipated after four days in confinement. She emerged a bit loopy which probably accounted for her wandering too close to the hen house and earning herself a swift and decisive reaction from her sisters as the accompanying video shows. By her second day of freedom she was far more interested in scratching for beetles than sitting in the stuffy henhouse and for one full week we enjoyed six daily eggs.
Then, The Molting.
Act normal, no one will notice. 
One of the more innocuous sisters – a little red hen so drama-free we haven’t even named her properly – has suddenly begun to molt. Molting is the embarrassing phase in the feather-rejuvenation process; while we do not speak of it in her earshot we can hardly fail to notice the feathers all over the yard or the thinning of her wings. The web says laying hens usually molt in the fall but prolonged heat can trigger it early. Until her new feathers come in we’ll politely ignore her suspended egg laying and severely declined state of attractiveness.
In the meantime, there has been much activity in the pallet garden:
Basil
Arugula blossom
Little ink caps
Leaf hopper

Emancipation Video: