Chicken Butcher

We started a batch of meat chickens back in January.  Every other year, we have raised the same old cornish cross drones that are so popular in the meat world.  They grow sickeningly fast and are not hardy at all.  This year, I decided we were going to grow a heritage breed called Le Poulet.  They are a breed developed in France.  They grow more quickly than the 16 week dual purpose birds, but they finish out beautifully.

We started with 100 chicks.  However, due to mishap at the feed store where the feed was switched out on accident, I lost 60 or so in a period of a few days.  We came down to the wire with 42 birds.  Of course, I decided to do right by them and feed organic and or locally grown food because I wanted to produce the best chickens I could produce.  Of course, in the middle of the grow period the feed store increased the price of the feed by $10 per 50 pounds!!!  In the end, I certainly learned a lot, but the chickens that came out were fantastic.

Of course, in the spirit of do-it-yourself, I decided that I was going to butcher all of the chickens myself, rather than take them to the processor.  The processor is not inexpensive (and very fast), but I was already very upside-down on the chickens because of the feed increase that I opted to try to reclaim some expenses.

So, I invited a friend over to butcher the chickens she was getting and we got to work, each with a baby on our backs.  Let me tell you, butchering chickens is emotionally and physically demanding work and at the end of the day, we had 16 done!  Add this to the 5 that I did last weekend and it seems that we are making progress here on finishing up the chicken project.

In the future, we will be doing chickens, perhaps in smaller batches.  Until then, I’ll be enjoying some good eats!