I have to admit that after the turmoil during fair week, I was very ready for butchering day.  Out of the 15 birds that we bought, we had 13 make it to butchering day.  The five my parents raised and eight out of ten that we raised.

If you would like to read about the first seven weeks (with lots of pictures) here they are: Week 1 – Week 2 – Week 3 – Week 4 – Week 5 – Week 6 – Week 7

The evening before we butchered it POURED down rain while we were packing up at the fair.  By the time we got home they were soaking wet out in their little chicken tractor.  So we brought them in the shop to dry off.  They quickly dried and we kept them in for the night in case of another down pour.

We took the feed out 12 hours before butchering time; this is so the crop and intestinal tract has time to clear.

I weighed a few of them that morning and they were all around 7 pounds.

We put them in a couple of kennels and headed to my parents house.  They have raised turkeys in the past and have a better set up for butchering than we do.

We don’t have any killing cones so the guys used a chopping block and an axe.  I think next year we will buy or make some cones.  Especially if we have more than 13 chickens.

For scalding we kept the temperature between 145°and 150° F. and scalded them for 1 minute.  It worked great!  I couldn’t believe how easy they were to pluck!

This is me, my mom, and one of my sisters plucking.

Digger skinned a few of them to see if it was faster than plucking.  Skinning was definitely faster.  Here are a couple pics of a skinned chicken, this was before it was gutted and cleaned.  Check out all that meat!!!

This is the gutting, cleaning, and wrapping station.  After they were cleaned we wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in zip lock bags.  They were all around 5 pounds. 🙂

The whole process only took about 2 hours for 13 chickens despite the fact everyone was exhausted from the fair.  I was surprised at how smoothly it went and that it didn’t bother me at all.  I was very pleased with the sizes of the dressed out birds.  My parents were pleased too and have decided to stick with chickens instead of turkeys from now on.  Mom already said she wants 20 more next year!  I’m sure we will get more next year too.  I’m thinking I’d like to try some freedom rangers, just so I can compare.

All said and done they cost right at $9.00 each. Not to bad for five pound, pastured chickens!