chickens...

We butchered 19 chickens out at the bro's and SiL's place today, including "Mr. Lucky" their 3-4 year old original rooster (which we weren't supposed to do but was misidentified--hard to believe with 2 inch spurs-twice, oh well luck runs out for everything sooner or later). Nice day for it, in the 60s, a bit breezy, no rain.

I wouldn't describe the system as "redneck" because they might insult rednecks but I would call it "ad hoc". Bro made a home-made feather plucker from some youtube vid. It worked pretty good but running the drill on fairly high rpm was too much for it and the bearings started to burn out about half way through the birds. Had to finish up manually.

A friend of the family's boys, a friend of theirs, and visiting teacher from Columbia all got to help out. The boys all got to cut at least one chicken in what the mom called a "rite of passage." I got to explain how to gut a bird, how to clean a gizzard, and other associated facts of turning live birds into meat. I don't think the 8th grader (who was a bit squeamish) will eat chicken in the next day or two. But sooner or later I'm sure he will and maybe appreciate it a bit more...

Mr. Lucky. Oh the irony.
I might have a hard time doing that but I'll bet they tasted a lot better than store bought chicken.

miked- Yeah, I think the plucking machine has merit. Either need to get a 1) newer drill, 2) a different power source, or 3) use it with a drill but at lower rpms and/or with bursts of higher rpms.

I tend to let the wife do all the chicken plucking and associated tasks but I DO hope to buy her an electric plucker this next Saturday on a sale. Wondering if you could hook up an orbital motor or electric motor to your setup. Ingenious idea there on that home-made apparatus.....it's going to shorten the life of that poor drill though.

I found a chicken wandering on my property. So I found a drum and some mesh and caged it, then put up a 'found chicken' sign in the supermarket.
No one claimed it.
So I got some proper chicken food and intend to make a proper coop for it.
So far its laid 5 eggs. Neat. The things berzerk, its soo docile, clucks when I cluck to it. Actually cute.
I never thought I'd have a chicken(s). We are allowed to have them here in a town area. Others around here have them too.
The cats OK with it, now he's relised he's not expected to hunt it down and such.
An interesting and unexpected addition to my menagre and maybe another string to my bow. Oh, and some eggs too.

Confession time...............

I actually look forward to going out to the coop and picking up my pet hens and talking to them each morning.

Okay, that just blew my Macho Image !!!

Real men of Genius talk to their chickens, Yunkman.... its when you DON'T have a chicken and you talk to your chicken that it becomes a problem.

Yeah, I think the chickens are a de-stresser for my bro too after a day as a doc in an extra deep bureaucracy.

Foghorn Leghorn Sayings

Love that dog … love that dog”
“That’s a joke, I say that’s a joke son”
“Go, I say go away boy, you bother me”