This morning when I went out to feed, I felt compulsed to count the broiler chickens in the pen with the feeder pigs. I don't usually do this and I'm not sure what was different about today. Maybe I was just anticipating tomorrow's butcher. Maybe the flock looked smaller than I remembered. Anyway, I should've counted twelve and I kept coming up with eleven. As I scanned the pen, I noticed a strange thing in the pile of grain that George was chomping on. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a chicken foot. Hmmmm. While I don't think that the pigs were counting on a chicken dinner, the circumstances must've presented themselves and pigs, being the omnivores that they are, seized the moment. Needless to say, I decided to move all of the other broilers into a different pen for their last 24 hours.
J and I went to work catching and relocating the broilers. They are not nearly as difficult to catch as the layer hens are. Their heavy bodies make any attempt at escape more of a waddle than a run. Within 10 minutes we had moved everyone into the cage in the shed. But there was one problem. As J set the last hen down, it's body rolled over and something happened. It was flopping its legs around and gasping - definitely not healthy chicken behavior.
I decided that the best course of action would be to kill it and have it for dinner tonight. We could've waited until tomorrow and processed it with the others, but if it died in the interim, it might not be good to eat. Rather than risk another loss, I prepared for the job and got to work.
Having only done this once before, I quickly refreshed my memory by reading through the article on the backwoodshome.com website titled "How to Butcher a Chicken in 20 Minutes or Less" by Dr. Roger W. Grim (gotta love the last name). J collected my hatchet, a sharp paring knife, my rubber gloves, and a bucket. We set up next to the wood pile.
I first wrung the chicken's neck. I find it easier to do this first. Then I don't worry that the chicken will move when I chop the head off. I was a bit soft with the hatchet...but the head came off. Once beheaded, I began by gutting the chicken. If you make an incision from the vent to the breastbone, you can generally clean out most of the insides. Make sure to grip the esophagus and windpipe so that it comes out with everything else or you will fight with it later.
Once the chicken was gutted, I slit the skin around the knees and began pulling it down the chicken (J acted as a rack by holding the chicken up by its feet for me). Slowly cutting the skin away from the flesh and peeling down, around, and back, the chicken is skinned. I cut the wings off at the last joint to make it easier to skin the wings. There were a few feathers still stuck to the bird, but all in all, the skin came off easier than the last bird I processed.
I brought the bird inside, washed it out, patted it dry and weighed it. Surprisingly, it only weighed about three pounds when dressed out. It was certainly one of the lighter chickens in the bunch but it leads me to believe that most of the broilers will top out at five pounds. An average should be closer to seven pounds, but we allowed our birds a lot of space and I limited their feed. We will see what the taste is like. It may be that we give up a couple of pounds to allow the birds to grow in a more natural setting.
So the only stress left is the cooking. When you take the time to butcher your own chicken, you really want to make sure that you cook it right. I am simply going to roast it in a covered pan. I put a stick of butter in the center and some poulty seasoning on the meat. I want to experience the flavor, but I also need to protect it as we skinned rather than plucked. I'll let you know the verdict tomorrow.*UPDATE*
The chicken was very flavorful, but somewhat tough. I thought I might have ruined the meat by allowing the birds as much room to run as I did. Come to find out, you should let the meat "rest" for a couple of days in the fridge before cooking it so that it goes through the rigor mortis process and becomes tender again. So we'll have to wait for the next bird to see if the texture is good. The flavor is excellent!
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