Harvesting Chickens

WARNING! This blog is not for the faint-hearted. Vegetarians will not understand. If, however, you enjoy a good spicy chicken wing...or you crave chicken and dumplings...if you have a soft spot in your heart for teriyaki chicken on the grill...AND if you understand that chicken (what you buy in the store) and chicken (that says bok, bok) is the same thing...go ahead and check out this blog entry... :-)

What we didn't expect is the many partially formed "baby eggs" that one chicken might have (up to 7 or 8) of varying sizes waiting to be ready to lay!

We felt very farmer-ish, harvesting some meat for the winter. Our process was planned out in advance (thanks to good advice on the internet and in a book on homesteading we had at home). It went very smoothly, although it took pretty much the whole day to butcher 14 of our chickens!

It was a good learning experience and we were glad we did it. The chickens went right into the freezer, except one which waited in the fridge to be dinner the next day. I was pleased at how humanely and kindly we treated the chickens. Bret made fun of me for singing to them so they would be happy up till the last moment. But, I think it helped them--and me--remain calm and peaceful! :-) We don't know if we would do this again. But, I think it gave me new respect (as a meat-eater) of the process of how food gets to the supermarket. (The kids were away at school--although they did know what we were doing.)

Sorry about the pictures--I entered them backwards for some reason! Wasn't sure how to switch them around and since I'm sooo behind on my blog entries, I'm hurrying! :-)