Author: Anna & Mark

Low tech chicken plucking assistants

June 8, 2012 Posts No Comments

Homemade chicken pluckerAs we get better and better
at processing chickens, it becomes more and more apparent that plucking
takes more time than all of the other stages in the butchering process
put together.  Last year, Mark built me the very simple, washboard-style
plucker shown here,
and the contraption sped us up so much that I was able to squeeze two
or three more birds into each three hour butchering episode.  But
was there an even better (but still low tech and cheap) solution?



While brainstorming with
Mark’s mom over the winter, we came up with the idea of repurposing a
cat grooming glove to expedite plucking even more.  The
washboard-style plucker did an awesome job when the bird came in
contact with the plucker, but birds have all kinds of nooks and
crannies that the plucking fingers seldom reached.  Could human
fingers, aided by a bit of technology, do it better?



Chicken plucker gloveThe first couple of grooming
gloves we tried weren’t very helpful, but the one shown here did indeed
speed matters up.  By the end of the experimental butchering
session, Mark and I had settled on pulling out the big wing and tail
feathers by hand (they’re easy and fast, and our technological plucking
assistants couldn’t get them), running the chicken through the
washboard (since the device is fastest at removing feathers), then
going back over the bird with the plucking glove, before finally
pulling out the last few ornery feathers by hand.



The plucking glove
worked much better when we turned the hose on the bird to wash away
loosened feathers.  I also quickly learned to run my hand over the
feathers in the reverse direction (roughing them up rather than laying
them flat), and to pull wings and legs this way and that to reach into
crevices.



We still have seven more
broilers to process in this round, so we’ll use those birds to figure
out how long it takes me to pluck a bird by hand vs. with our two
contraptions.  Stay tuned for more details.


Our chicken waterer is always POOP-free, perfect
for keeping healthy chickens of all ages.

Feed conversion rate with unlimited feed

June 6, 2012 Posts 2 Comments

Feed to meat ratio for chickensI was disappointed by the feed
conversion rate of
our first round of 2012 broilers.  I felt like I did everything
right — providing higher quality pasture and feed than ever before, and even carrying
jars of cicadas to the chicks now and then.  But the
feed to meat ratio was a disappointing 5.6, worse than 75% of last
year’s efforts.  What happened?



I have several
hypotheses, one being that our new method of providing unlimited
storebought feed tempted the broilers to sit around the trough rather
than foraging.  (The chickens did seem to be foraging a lot, but
they clearly ate more storebought feed too.)  Granted, this year’s
broilers also grew a lot bigger than ever before, as you can see in the
first graph in this post — that blue blob nearly Pulletspoking off the top of the
chart is the average weight of a 12 week old Black Australorp cockerel
in 2012, compared to the weights of Black Australorp, Cuckoo Marans,
and Light Sussex cockerels last year.



In a way, it’s worth
giving the chickens extra feed if you end up with larger broilers,
because there’s less butchering involved per pound of meat that
way.  It was also handy to be able to slide our three keepers (two
pullets and a cockerel) into the laying flock without the newcomers
being so small they were immediately beaten up.  And I had fewer
hard decisions to make since my chores simply consisted of topping off
the feeder so it was always full.  On the other hand, it’s
disappointing to still be feeding nearly twice the industry standard
per pound of meat. 



Percent maleAll of that said, I’m not
entirely sure that the unlimited feed was the cause of the lower feed
conversion rate this time around.  On a whim, I took a look at how
the proportion of male to female birds in the flock affected the feed
to meat ratio.  Although there’s not nearly enough data to come to
any conclusions, there is an interesting trend toward more males in the
flock meaning the birds eat a lot more per pound of meat they
produce.  Maybe those boy birds spend so much energy posturing
that they mess up my feed conversion rate?



I’m going to go ahead
and finish raising the second round of 2012 broilers with unlimited
feed this summer and will crunch some more numbers before deciding on a
game plan for our fall batch.


It’s easy to provide the
flock with unlimited clean water using our chicken waterer.

Parting out homegrown chickens

June 4, 2012 Posts No Comments
Pastured chicken broth

The first year we
raised meat chickens, I simply froze them all whole.  I was new to
cooking with real meat, and roasting a chicken was the only easy recipe
I knew that used up the entire bird.



However, I’ve started to
spread my culinary wings, and have also realized that I need lots of
chicken stock in July, August, and September to make harvest
catch-all
soup.  As a
result, this year I’m cutting up the first
batch of broilers (and maybe the second as well) and am making stock
out of the non-prime portions.  Here are the steps in my chicken
processing operation:

  • Cutting off a chicken thighCut off the legs. 
    Slit through the skin to release the legs (including the thighs) from
    the breast of the chicken, then bend the leg down until the bone snaps
    out of its socket.  Next, you can quickly sever the entire
    thigh with a sharp knife — no need to cut through any bones. 
    (My favorite recipe for this part of the bird is Garlic
    and Thyme Chicken Legs    .)
  • Slice off the breasts. 
    I leave the skin on the legs for culinary reasons, but I
    peel back the skin before removing the breast.  I carefully filet
    the
    breast meat off the bones, not worrying too much if I leave a few big
    gobs of
    meat behind.  (It won’t go to waste — I’ll get it in the a later
    step.)
  • Cook the carcasses. 
    What you have left after cutting off the legs and breast
    is a rather meaty carcass.  I simmer it in water for about half an
    hour to an hour, then pull the carcass out to cool (keeping the water
    as the beginning of my stock).  For this first cooking step, you
    don’t want to simmer the carcasses for too long or the connective
    tissue between the bones will dissolve, making it more likely that
    you’ll Chicken saladaccidentally pick out a small
    bone with the meat in the next step.
  • Pick the meat off the bones. 
    Once the carcass is cool, I carefully pick the remaining meat off the
    bones.  If you’re pretty good at picking meat off the bones (don’t
    forget those lumps at the base of the spine) and only so-so at slicing
    off the breast, you should expect to get about half a cup of meat per
    three month old, heirloom chicken.  Presumably, you’d get about
    twice that from a big supermarket bird (or homegrown Cornish
    Cross).  I ignore the feet during this
    process but do carefully pull a bit of meat off the neck.  This
    meat is perfect for turning into chicken salad or chicken pot pie.
  • Strain stockMake stock.  Throw
    the bones back in the water along with the feet and necks and simmer
    for at least three hours (longer is better) until the water has turned
    cloudy and yellowish.  (Non-pastured birds won’t produce yellow
    stock — it will instead look light brown.)  Pour the contents
    of your pot through a collander to remove the bones, then freeze or can
    the stock for later use.

Although this process
sounds a bit complex, I completed the whole thing
in about four hours for seven broilers, not counting the time the stock
spent simmering on its own.  As a result, we enjoyed four servings
of pesto chicken salad, put away two cups of cooked meat and three
quarts
of broth to turn into four gallons of summer soup, and have about two
meals worth of breasts and four meals worth of legs waiting for us in
the freezer.  Homegrown protein for 34 meals — not bad for a
morning’s work.


Our chicken waterer kept the broilers healthy
until butchering day.