chicken butchering day 2010

Not our favorite day, but once again it was time for chicken butchering. We did half of our flock (the big ones) and will do the other half in a couple weeks, after they’ve grown a bit. Warning, there are photos with this post that some people might not want to see. I’m going to post them, though, because… this is a farm blog. Don’t read further if you don’t want to see blood and guts.

We put the chickens in killing cones, and they become much calmer when they are upside down. We slice their jugular vein and they bleed to death. This is slightly less traumatic than chopping their heads off, but killing chickens is no fun no-matter what technique we use.

Next we scald them. We dunk them in 140 degree water for about 2 or 3 minutes, or until their wing feathers pull out easily when tugged on. Now they are ready to go in the chicken plucker.

Always our favorite part of the event, the Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker does its magic in 20 seconds. Not your grandmother’s chicken plucker, this state of the art contraption whirls the chickens around and rubber fingers pull all the feathers off the bird. Ain’t technology great.

Our super awesome crew: Trevor, Caitlin and James demonstrate the Whiz Bang’s wondrous result. We’ll pull the few remaining pin feathers off by hand.

Dad showed us the finer points of gutting a chicken.

We all gave it a try. It gets a lot easier with practice. There’s actually a lot of finesse in gutting a chicken, we discovered. Rule number 1: don’t bust the gall bladder or gross green stuff goes everywhere (we all did at least once though).

We buried all the guts and feathers in the garden, where they will become fertilizer. Then Dad took the chickens inside where he cleaned and washed them. We will keep the birds in the refrigerator for a couple days to allow them to tenderize before we freeze them. There will be enough for us to have a chicken a week for close to an entire year. Of course we won’t need to start using them up right away because the idea of roast chicken is somehow unsavory just now.

ball bustin’

There are some farm activities that are not any fun at all. One of them is butchering chickens, and another of them is castrating young bulls. NBC will be butchered in fall 2011. His name is short for “New Bull Calf”. We chose this imaginative moniker because we didn’t want to get attached to him. Yeah right. Now NBC stands for “No Balls Calf”, though. If young bulls aren’t castrated the manly hormones degrade the quality of the meat. So the vet came out and used the device above to put a rubber band around NBC’s man stuff. It does just want you think it does, and they will drop off after about 2 weeks. Apparently it hurts moderately for about an hour  and then goes numb, so NBC won’t be spending too much time worrying about it, we hope, but how do we know. Sometimes farm life is a bummer. Especially if you’re a bull calf.

metal veggies

Most farmers’ markets have a dude playing fiddle or something. But not in Enterprise! There’s an outdoor concert program that runs all summer here, and it coincides with the Thursday farmers’ market so that people can go hear some tunes and get their veggies at the same time. The first band booked for the season was Stone Orchard, our local metal band. Picture me trying to explain the health benefits of kale to little old ladies while these guys played 10 feet away. And also bear in mind that the venue is a gazebo in the middle of town next to the courthouse on a perfectly manicured lawn. Kinda incongruous. But kinda awesome.

magical multiplying cows

Holly the cow had her baby without much fuss or drama.  One minute she was walking around eating and the next there was a baby calf in the pen with her. We haven’t gotten to close to them because holly’s horns are a bit fearsome but from a distance at least the new calf looks quite healthy, and furry as hell.

killing day

My favorite holiday of the year right behind all other festive days (including Administrative Assistants Day) is of course Killing Day.  We processed 45 chickens (the festivities took up two days actually) all the way through from clucking to the freezer.  The Whiz Bang Plucker preformed flawlessly as you can see from the video.  After we finished killing, scalding, plucking, and gutting we weren’t able to eat chicken for a week,  I  still get a bit queasy at the smell of chicken noodle soup.

nature in action: fake deer!

Wallowa lake park has some frighteningly tame mule deer.  Technically they are wild, but you would never know it, they approach you the second you sit down at a picnic table.  The deer stay in the park, mostly because people feed them, there are no predators, and no hunting pressure.  The occasional encounter with a tourist,s lap dog is a small price to pay for what amounts to a gated deer retirement village.  It is well worth the drive up to the lake just see them.  The park doesn’t recommend approaching wildlife, and feeding them will get you a fine but if you want close-up  pictures of  some huge deer then this is your place.

views of wallowa county

on the road to hat point coming up out of Imnaha