Not for the faint at heart… be warned.

A few weeks/months ago we bought some baby chickens.  Yesterday was time to say good bye to the ones that we bought for meat.  We bought fifteen of them, only eight survived the first few days.  So we brought our eight to my dad’s to add to their 70 +/-.  We showed up at 9ish and left a little before 3.  They had started before we got there, but when we were leaving they were done.  Here are a few pictures from our day.  Please be warned that there are pictures of dead chickens in this post.  Only look if that is ok with you!   This is how they “bleed” them out.  The buckets are nailed to a board and there is a whole in the bottom.  The neck comes out and then off… Normally they stay in the bucket, but every once in a while… 

Then from the bucket to the boiling water, then to the “plucker”  This is a motorized machine.  turn it on and it spins and takes the majority of the feathers off.T Most of the chickens weighed between 4 and 6 pounds.  They sell some of them for 3$ a pound, so if anyone is interested let me know… My baby brother hauling the chickens to the buckets. The kids were at my mom’s for a while, she brought them over on her way to Al Hermiston’s funeral.  I thought they would be grossed out, or something but they were very interested.  Nevaeh even carried one from the bucket to John!  Wyatte got a couple turns turning the plucker on and off.  Watching the chickens flop around in the bucket. Wyatte got to see what was going on when the machine was on.

Kirk, Dad, John and Mike cleaning chickens.  When the kids showed up I got cleaned up and quit helping.  Was too scary to have Aubrie running around.  She likes to put stuff in her mouth… gross.Wyatte checking out the turkeys.  Dad said last year when the butchered these guys they were around 50 pounds…  HUGE!!!