CornishX vs Red Ranger

Well I've been a bad blogger. We finished processing the last of the meat birds a little while ago. Maybe two weeks or so. I even had The Boy take pictures, but his idea of what was interesting and mine were different. Who wants to see the inside of a trash bag full of chicken guts? lol.

Scott and Connie plucking

Connie and Pat plucking

I manned the dispatch station. I caught the chicken and did the killing, and bleeding out. Then I took it to the boiling water pot and did the swishing. Pat, Connie, and Scott did all the plucking while I went after another bird. Then over to Larry for the gutting. Andrea was in charge of cleaning off, cooling, and bagging. We did 15 chickens in not too much time. I parted out 8 of them and froze 7 of them whole.

I've made a few dishes out of the cornish and the rangers now. The cornish (creepy meats) had much larger breasts and smaller legs and wings. The rangers were more proportionate as a whole bird. The leg quarters on the rangers were a lot bigger and leaner looking. They were great for the barbeque or roasted in the oven. I did both birds in the crockpot and then broiled in the oven to crisp up the skin. They tasted just like the rotisserie chickens you get at the grocery store. The rangers were more forgiving of being over cooked. They didn't get as mushy. Over all I'm very pleased with the birds we raised. They don't taste more intensely chicken, but do make the store bought birds taste a bit watered down. I know my birds were raised humanely, were dispatched humanely, and I know what they ate. No antibiotics, no soy, no growth hormones. I know they free ranged and were happy birds. I'l definitely raise meat birds again in the spring. I'll order a set of cornish x's for the breast meat and the tenders. They were more plump and just overall bigger, and the rangers more for whole birds. The cornish were better before it got too hot outside too. I don't want to stress them. 

Creepy Meats in Mah Freezer (warning, graphic pic alert)

Sunday was the big day to finish off the rest of the Creepy Meats. We did four of them earlier in the week. We just skinned them and parted them out. The other ten got the whole works. We set up the killing station, the camp stove with the big pot for scalding, the butcher island for plucking and gutting.

I went out and picked up the birds one at a time. We actually had some volunteers wander into the garage here and there so I didn't have to go looking for them. Flipped the birds upside down to relax it, slip it into the milk jug tucking in wings and feet. Then I reached up and pulled the head out the bottom. We didn't wack off the heads, just a quick slice where the head and neck me under the ear. They did flap and jerk as the blood drained into a bin full of shavings, but most of it was contained in the jug.

After a quick dunk in boiling water at the camp stove, Scott and Pat made really quick work if pulling the feathers. The was we did it was bringing the water to a boil, then backing off the heat to a simmer, somewhere around 157 degrees. Too hot, and in the water too long and the skin starts to cook. Too cold and the feathers won't pull out. 

After they were featherless, Larry made all their insides be on the outsides, the legs and neck came off, and into a cooler full of ice water to cool down. We rested them in the fridge over night, then I parted out some and froze others whole. We barbecued Tuesday evening and had wings, legs, and thighs. 

                               

My thoughts on how the meat turned out was it wasn't exactly tough. It was hard to explain. It was like the difference in Al detente  noodles that are just barely done, and the mushy soft mess that Macaroni and Cheese gets to be. Store birds spend their whole life laying about as they grow. The get up, go to the feeder, walk over to the water, and then laze about again. My birds ran, jumped over things, they free ranged and actually used their muscles some. I didn't let them gorge and eat as much as they wanted.  I believe it made a healthier bird. 

Today I'm going to try a whole bird in the crock pot. 

Broody chickens 0 for 2, Chicks, Tractoring

So I didn't get anything to hatch. Again. The first time last year the roo was a dud. All the eggs had turned into liquid yellow water on the inside. None of them developed anything. This year we got a little further than that. I finally did eggtopsies Wednesday. That was day 25. They should have started hatching out Friday night or Saturday morning if they were going to.

I won't post pictures of all the gory insides. First off, ick, and second, my hands were covered in liquid chicken bits and no way I was going to be able to take pictures like that. Out of the 10 eggs we started with, and the 4 more she stole, 5 actually had something in them, besides yellow water. Four chicks looked like they made it to about day 17-ish I'm guessing. They still had large egg sacks attached to their bellies. All four of them were about the same size. Day 17-ish was also the day the broody hen stole a thin shelled egg and it broke over the others in the nest.

The last developing chick had actually pipped, or broken through, the inner membrane of the egg into the air cell in the top. From there it should have hatched, but again, eggs got broken over the nest. This time I think it was a squabble with someone wanting to lay in the box the broody was in. Now that the creepy meats are free ranging I haven't been banning the older hens from the chicken house. They had been laying under an overturned feed bin. I'm just guessing, but either the broken eggs coated the outside of the developing eggs and suffocated them, or there was some sort of bacterial or other ick transfer into the eggs.

I've been throwing the broody hen, Crooked Toes, out of the nest box trying to break her of her broodiness. No eggs, but she still wants to set in there. They don't leave the nest or lay eggs when they are setting and she's getting skinny. Once a day they run out, eat as much as they can hold, drink deeply, take the biggest broody poop you ever saw, and maybe sneak in a dust bath before returning to set and zone out. It's time for her to start eating and laying again.

Instead of wanting to set, today she decided to adopt all the older chicks out in the yard.

The older hens just chase them around like big bullies when they come in the feed. Not her, she bullies everything but them. This morning she fluffed all up, spread her wings like a strutting turkey and went after Bastard, the cat, when he got too close to the chicks. When I got home this afternoon she was laying out with them. I could see them darting nervous looks at her, just waiting to get pecked on the head like the other hens do. After I fed she got closer and closer as they ate. When they realized she wasn't going to chase them off, they all gathered around her. She kept setting down and spreading her wings trying to cover any chick that got near enough, never mind that at five weeks old, the creepy meats are almost her size. That one white one in front of her is a White Rock pullet, and the rest are creepy meats. 

She's actually making cooing noises at the White Rock chick as it preens it's feathers. All around I guess they're all happy now. Next time I get a broody, I'll put her, her eggs, and some shavings in a dog carrier, move the whole shebang into the brooder, and make sure she only has good sturdy eggs. It's gonna be a little while, since we put Kato in the freezer, and the new little pecker head is only five weeks old.

And now for shots of the newest chicks. No, I didn't get any more. I promised Scott I wouldn't bring home anything else that eats. Pete at Valley Co-op sure tried his hardest to get me to buy a turkey chick or two the last time I was in there though. It was hard to say no, but I did.

Growing by leaps and bounds they are. They just started using the branches as perches. Some of the them are really getting very pretty feather colors. Almost makes me want to keep one or two of the pullets as egg layers and see what I get for chicks with a cross with the Sagittas. The little Banty pullets is still tiny. The Easter Eggers are changing color as their feathers come in. I'm excited to see if they lay blue or green eggs. 

Scott borrowed Uncle Mike's tractor again this year. He tilled and corrugated the garden for me. It's been hard to not rush right out and plant anything, but a good rule of thumb around here is to not put anything in the ground until Memorial Day. Good thing too, cause we got frost last night. 

 The garden before, and full of weeds. 

Scott working working some tractor magic. 

Yay, irrigation season has begun, Pickled asparagus, Chicks outside full time

South Central Idaho is basically a desert. High desert, but still desert. Looking at Google Maps you see little green circles all over the place. All those green circles are from the irrigation pivot sprinklers. We grow a lot of alfalfa, corn, beans, and yes potatoes. Idaho is one of the top dairy producers in the US. Those cows eat a lot of alfalfa, and corn to make all that milk. There is a huge system of canals and deep water wells to make all those fields green. The big farmers use pivots sprinklers. Those are huge sprinklers on an arm that rotate around in a circle.

We don't have enough acreage to have to worry about that. What we do have is gated pipe. The water comes down the canal and fills a head gate. It's a big culvert pipe that sticks out of the ground. The head gate needs to be taller than any point down the pipe that it waters. It uses gravity to build up pressure to move the water down the pipe and out the gate. Water starts on Dave's acreage out back, then on to Andrea's, us, and then over to Rebecca. 

Those orange plastic thingies are the gates. We get our water every nine days in the evening. I go out and make sure the valve to Rebecca's is closed so all my water doesn't run out over her property. Then I make sure I don't hear any of my gates with water pouring out of them. It takes a little bit for the pressure in the pipes to build. With my big silly boots on I go through and open about every third or fourth gate about half way. The front pasture to the west gets watered overnight first. In the morning I have to tromp back out and close those gates while opening the ones to the short pasture to the north. By the time I get home from work it's all good and flooded and I close those gates and open the ones that run to the ditches under the trees and let that run over night. In the morning again I go out and close those and open the gates to the east pasture and it runs all day. In the evening I go open the valve at the end of the pipe and let all that water run to the neighbors, and walk my pipe and make sure all my gates are closed. Here's the result. A couple acres of green lush grass for the ponies and the calves.

This whole flood irrigating business will run through the first week or two in October usually. Every nine days. 

Asparagus season is here too. It grows wild on the ditch banks and at the edges of the fields around here. I never had it before I moved here. It looked weird and I wasn't about to taste it growing up. Scotty made me try a piece. Holy crap was it good. Even raw, right out of the ground I like it. I drive slowly up and down the back roads looking for either the orange mass of dead fronds from the year before, or the new bright green fronds that seem to shoot up 12 inches over night. It doesn't last long so I pick as much as I can find. This year I tried pickling it.
The neighbor down the road gave us a few jars last year that she had made, and oh man it's so good. I couldn't get a hold of her so I went exploring on the internet. Cause that's where I find every thing dontcha know? I ended up trying the recipe from this site.  

Spicy Pickled Asparagus
     4 pounds asparagus, trimmed to fit your jars
     3 cups vinegar (half apple cider vinegar, half white vinegar)
     3 cups water
     2 tablespoons pickling salt
     4 tablespoons pickling spice
     1 tablespoon red hot chili flakes
     4 garlic cloves, peeled
     4 slices of lemon (I didn't have any lemons so I used a few splashes of lemon juice)
   
Instructions

1. Sterilize your jars in boiling water for 5 minuets
2. Put the lemon slices in the bottom and pack the trimmed asparagus into the jars. Tuck a garlic clove                down into the spears. 
3. Bring the vinegar, water, and spices to a boil. Pour into jars on top of asparagus leaving at least 1/2 inch of head space.
4. Put lids and rings on the jars and process in hot water bath for 20 minuets for quarts. (You can skip this last part if you plan on just putting your pickled asparagus in the fridge).
5. Wait at least 24 hours before eating, to give the asparagus spears a chance to get sufficiently pickly.

The chicks are officially outside chicks now. They have enough feathers, and it's warm enough that they don't need a heat lamp. The big hens have been kicked out of the run and they're pretty damned miffed about it. I didn't want them picking on the chicks, and the broody keeps stealing their eggs. They keep laying in the other boxes, (Duh) but the broody hen keeps stealing the eggs before I can get in there. This is bad because A) I'm hungry at breakfast time, and B) she'll only set for a day or two after the chicks hatch, if they do.

The old hens keep looking it at the interlopers to their run like, "Hey, why are they always eating and I can't get some too?"

So I opened the door to the run and let the little buggers out and the old biddies in. The older hens were not impressed with the grower crumbles the chicks were eating and with a few pecks to the little ones to show their displeasure everyone hunted bugs. 

I still have one pullet the is smaller than the rest, and very much smaller then the creepy meats. 

I totally understand why Carolyn's daughter won't go in the pen with the freaky little feathered mutants. They're hopping up on my feet, pecking at my legs and trying to trip me to make the food get in the bowls faster when I go in there now. I do this weird shuffle slide with my feet so none of them can get under foot and get squashed. I look like the pied piper of ugly, half feathered, huge legged little chickens when I walk out in the yard when they're out. They're all jumping along behind me begging for food. 

Processing chickens, Kato goes to Freezer Camp, Norman the bucket head

Having a mean rooster was kinda funny in the beginning. Did he really just jump at me? It was cold and most of the time I was out doing chores in my carhart overalls. Scott found it rather amusing as well. Six pounds of rooster was attacking 220 pounds, of 6'2" biker turned homesteader. He'd wait till you weren't looking and then come running up behind you and pounce.

The weather got warmer and it started getting annoying. I'd go in to feed the girls and he jump me. The first time he did it without the overalls on It HURT! I wasn't sure if it was the claws he was hitting me with first, or the wings he was beating me with, but that just wasn't going to fly around here. I chased his feathered ass around the chicken run till I pinned him in the corner. I snatched him up and held him by a wing and his legs and gave him a good shake or three. Then I carried him around upside down while I did the rest of my chores, and threw him back in the chicken run.

 I only had to stomp at him to get him to knock his crap off. Once I turned him out to free range with the girls  he'd get a wild hair up his butt and think about coming after me. I'd throw my hands up of my head, growl, and run at him. That was enough to make him back off. It was getting to be a bit of a pain to always be on the look out for Kato.

Scott called me at work one day dismayed that he killed my rooster. Kato jumped him from behind while he was feeding the horses and out of reflex Scott snap kicked him to the head. He called me back 15 minuets later to tell me Kato was up and pecking again. He was starting to go after Scott every time Scott was out in the yard and had his back turned.

Life is too short to put up with a mean rooster, but I really wanted some chicks from him and my Jersey Giant girls. Then it dawned on me. I have a hen sitting on 14 eggs. (yes she's stolen two more eggs from the other hens.) I don't need that mean old bastaige any more. That and I'm pretty positive one of the new chicks is a roo. Off with his head.

Actually I was helping the neighbor process her three creepy meats today. We didn't off with anyone's head till they were already dead. I found a very good video on youtube. They addressed the problem of the creepy meats having shoulder too wide and necks too short for the cones most people use/make for non creepy meats. They used an empty milk jug. Cut off the bottom and cut out around the pour spout. It worked perfectly. We did mount ours to a saw horse instead of one person holding it.

The question came up between Scott and I on whether to take their heads and then let them bleed out, or cut their throats. I liked the thought process in this video and we did it the same way they did. Pull down the head to stretch the neck, a quick slice against the side of the neck where it meets the head and bleed out into a tote filled with the shavings I pulled out of the brooder pen. Later it's emptied into the compost heap. They still jerked and flapped as their last nervous response took over, but it wasn't the running around flapping with your head cut off that every one imagines. A quick dip in a pot of boiling water and the feathers came out ever so easily. All in all it was a relatively easy process.  Kato met his end today and with a quick prayer of thanks, he's now sitting in my fridge to chill over night, and then into the freezer he goes.

And for Carolyn at Krazo Acres Norman the Bucket Head.

It's not stuck on his head this time, but he still flips it up over his head. I really need to get one of those one that hang on the fence. I only had it tied to the fence with one piece of twine and he could get his head through under the handle. I tied it with a second piece so he couldn't get his head stuck through. Silly calf.