Yeah. I plucked chickens.
This was not my plan. My plan was to do some of the work I'm actually paid cash money for (freelance editing, that is). But around six o'clock last night, Cubby and I were out in the old milk barn watching A. playing around* with the free weights and the weight bench he threw in there, when A. and I started talking about the chicks. Because we were right next to the chick cottage, you see. Except they're not so much chicks anymore, but more chickens and a WHOLE LOT of roosters. The last time I had a chance to see a bunch of them together, there were 17 total that I counted, and 12 of those were roosters. Nasty, chuffy roosters that have started fighting and spurring and crowing and generally announcing that their date with destiny had arrived.
Forty-five minutes later, Cubby was in bed, four roosters were shut in the coop, and I started heating a pot of water on the stove for the scalding.
A. did the throat cutting, the dunking in the scalding water, and the rough plucking. I did the detail work, pulling out the little bits left in the skin and making sure the birds were as clean as possible. I'm assuming these will be the ones we'll be roasting whole, since they will be the youngest, so we really want to leave the skin on them and get the skin as free of feathers as possible.
After they were plucked, I held them by the feet while A. singed them with burning newspaper to get the little bits of feather that remained. Then he eviscerated them and cut off the heads and feet. After that they just needed to be rinsed with the hose and put in the refrigerator to chill.
From the first fatal cut to the pan of chicken in the refrigerator was just over an hour. That's probably a pathetically long time to people accustomed to dressing chickens, but since we've only done one at a time in the past, we were pretty pleased with how quickly four went. A. killed and dressed one a few weeks ago for dinner, just so we could try one, so counting that one we have now disposed of five of what I suspect will end up being about 16 roosters.
Not a bad night's work. Fried chicken, here we come.
* By "playing around" I mean dead lifting over 300 pounds before stopping because he didn't have enough weight to put on the bar. Crazy man.
Sounds like you made very good time to me.
ReplyDeletePractice makes perfect...I bet the last one went faster than the first one. Beth
When will you let Cubby see where fried chicken comes from? I think we've already waited too long with the girls. Jenn is afraid seeing it would turn them into vegetarians.
ReplyDeleteWord verification: zinand -- A new line of adult beverages combining white wine and various mixers.
It wasn't so much that I didn't want Cubby to see the slaughter as it was the fact he would be totally in the way--falling into the bucket full of feathers, trying to eat the gizzard, that sort of thing. He'll be old enough to help next year, I think, and as soon as he can pluck feathers (actually, he could probably do it now, but again, probably not in a consistently helpful fashion), he'll be right there with us.
ReplyDeleteOf course, he's a particularly insensitive child, so I certainly don't need to worry about it adversely affecting him. That may not be true for all kids, though.
Mmmm - fried chicken, as fresh as it can be!
ReplyDeleteThis post has me laughing so hard!
ReplyDeleteIf people really knew how much work went into having roast chicken, they'd eat more veggies! I think an hour is making crazy good time on the whole chicken killing/plucking/eviscerating thing.
So, um, how DO you break into freelance editing???
It's funny how life in the country can be so unexpected. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. Good work on the chickens!
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