Chicken Butchering

August 18, 2014 - We headed down to a friend’s farm to help them butcher their chickens.  Despite a late night friends (almost) everybody was up and ready to go when we arrived.

Hustle and bustle ensued as prepared the butchering area and loaded the first batch of chickens.

 

This is one of those rare candid shots that actually turns out being awesome.

Yes, that’s a cell phone in Matthew’s mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time to pick up the chickens

 

 

Surfing?  Cue: “Wipeout”

 

[YouTube Link]

 

Chickens are picked indiscriminately and with eyes closed

 

 

They’re not always happy to go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think that they’re planning an escape…Chicken Run style:

[YouTube link]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reinforcements arrive

 

 

Time to prep the butchering area

 

 

 

Reminiscent of drawings I’ve seen from the inquisition era

 

 

Readying the apron

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everybody was placed at different “stations’' so we could get organized, otherwise we’d be running around like chickens with their…wait, bad metaphor.

 

 

Crash course lesson on chicken preparation

 

 

 

 

No wonder she’s nicknamed “The Beast!”

 

 

 

“Heyyyyyy…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

United Chicken Butchers Association Local #386

 

 

 

 

 

Melanie wanted to try butchering the chickens, and the proof can be found in these GRAPHIC images:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwB8zq1bnaK1dGp4tnJJZ8IK1KX6V_GlSl15rOOhWVEK74UrteZT9KIN1nlSzry6Tcw2i4MsxY3T313BQLRvlr87B4gP9dOrXJ0eaHlxJ19wV_j3iRQGvk7HV_5_B-dcDiqXP7Clbokjk/s1600/IMG_1915.JPG

 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHoWMkhpX-HAPA4y0sJfOanY2qN4u2ODsI1Q_Yui1f1tjzQ0qYS0rtO4Qv6_ZmoNlzpp2wvbz1gpoWisj4yut0VQcbkzmg6ym2zzt6uIxoDnumcdUGgLNbdyxaWzMJJC0ljx0tXX9z6k/s1600/IMG_1916.JPG

 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLfGy-g9P7meiKsH-66CaelM1L47S_pWNEgGR38sBRBzOOSbBYGaYRFSn7NRSFZjBMNLGIUGEXvAOt9iSGMbLd5hR3Kx0D3hMMjYmKQWlD9mS6XaGR-E6qFoK-ICuusHj91Phq9vLsrFk/s1600/IMG_1922.JPG

 

 

 

 

Weighing and bagging the chickens:

 

 

 

 

Looks like someone found my camera!

Yes, even though you rarely see me, I’m usually present at the events that I take photos of.

 

 

 

Because it’s not every day that you have a saw mill in the background:

 

 

 

 

Before you ask…yes, my family and I had chicken for dinner.

Ben Shoots a Deer

Benjamin shot a little button-buck this today – which happens to be the last day of the rifle season!

He’s been hunting throughout the season and took some shots at a few deer, but never downed one.  Today he wasn’t planning on hunting, but decided to do a little hunting in the woods nearby before the sun set.

He carried the deer across the field on his back after field dressing him and then we put him in the trailer for a quick drive back home.  The deer will be placed in a freezer until Ben can process it later this week.

Good Eatin’!

Two Hours, Two Shots, Two Turkeys

Today is the first day of the Fall Turkey Firearms Season in Missouri!
Turkey hunting is much harder in the fall because turkeys won't be intereseted in calls until next spring. Turkeys also have excellent sight, so it can be hard to bring one down.
Last night Benjamin patterned his shotgun and tried using the high-power turkey shells that he bought. They literally blew him away!
Early this morning we headed down to Kate's Grandparent's Farm ("The Farm.")
Kate's Dad ("Grandpa Dave") had been staying at the farm and had given us "Game Reports" every day. He had spotted deer, coyote, fox and a dozen turkeys. The turkey's daily routine was to walk (or strut) around the house, walk across the field and into the woods. They usually did this at about 9-10AM. However, it had drizzled during the night, so we thought it would probably distrupt the turkeys' schedule.
Benjamin and I walked quietly through woods bordering the field and stopped at about 50 yards from the house. It was about 8:00 when Benjamin and I propped ourselves up against some trees.
Almost two hours later we were ready to go inside. It was chilly, windy, wet, and cloudy. Mom, Grandpa Dave and Noah took a last glance at the field from the window of the house before calling us in. They saw at least 18 turkeys that had taken a different route that day. Benjamin and I could not see them because of a small ridge in the field that hid them from our view. The turkey spotters in the house called Benjamin on the cell phone and told him about the birds.
We should have waited for the birds to come up to us, but Benjamin wanted to get closer. He and I walked quietly through the woods until we came up onto a hill that was only a few yards from the turkeys. Benjamin quickly fired a shot into the head of a bird and killed it. We obviously thought that the birds would immediately run or fly away, but they seemed shocked. Benjamin ran up a few feet and fired again into the neck of a running turkey. We only had two turkey tags, so we ran down the hill and tagged the turkeys' legs.
The folks still in the house drove down in the truck and we loaded the turkeys into the bed. We weighed them and examined them before telechecking them and found Benjamin had shot one adult hen and one juvenile hen. The young one weighed 7 1/2 pounds and the adult weighed 9 1/2 pounds.
Because we were all amateurs it took four hours to pluck, gut, wash and skin the two turkeys, but at this moment they're sitting in our freezer!
-J. Andrew Wong


P.S. I (of course) had my video camera and the entire shooting adventure is on video, so I'll try to edit it together as soon as possible.