Second batch of meat chickens, August 2012

Brian the Chicken Guy, brought his chicken processing operation to the house and processed the second round of meat chickens. He has a small trailer that he loads with his killing cones, propane tank, water dunk tank, table, and defeathering tumbler. Quite the operation. He was able to humanely dispatch, defeather, and process the 25 birds in a little less than two hours. Amazing considering it would have taken Bob and I at least 6 hours to do the same job. His feather remover tumbler thing is pretty slick, removing all the feathers in mere seconds. That probably was the worst job when we did our own chickens, removing the feathers. Feathers seemed to be everywhere, the birds never were completely defeathered, and the question always was if they had been dunked long enough in the hot water. Too hot, the skin tore. To cool, too many feathers remained. Arghh! Did I forget to mention the smell of warm feathers and chicken manure? As Brian was processing the chickens I made a single cut down the back bone, opening the carcass so it could lay flat. I then vacuum sealed the chickens. Sandi was unable to assume her duties as chief carcass cutter, something about being out of town for her mother's birthday. What some people will do to get out of a little honest work. At any rate, her knife wielding skills were sorely missed. Brian did have miserable weather to work in. It rained the entire time he was processing the chickens. How nice to have him come to the house though. The stress on the chickens is nonexistent and we don't have to scramble to get them to him and then pick them up. I can say this as I watched him work in the rain through the front room window of the house. Nice and dry. I think I'll make a pot of coffee while I wait for Bob to bring me another batch to seal and freeze. Carmen