Chicken Cull: Part 1

Last weekend I attempted to cull my first couple of roosters. If I didn't do so soon the meat would get too tough for the frying pan and have to become chicken-noodle meat instead. My tools included a turkey stock pot for boiling water to singe the feathers for plucking, knives (that had to be sharpened because they were way too dull to cut where I wanted), ice water, freezer bags, and some wire to hang the chickens upside down.

I piled some wood in a concrete bunker and set up my stock pot for boiling. I figured I could kill the chickens and then start the fire so I fetched two roosters, one of which had a bad foot and was not eating and growing like he should because he couldn't stand to eat. I hung the chickens, stunned them, and then proceeded to cut the jugular of each chicken. Word of advice: buy "killing cones" as it holds the chickens in place; wire around the legs does not. Each chicken flopped out at some point and I had to re-hang them.

The fire had trouble starting and the breeze didn't help. I then had a wild-ish barn cat show up and start sniffin' around. I couldn't get the fire to start for some time and when it did finally start, the wind blew the heat away from the stock pot. Two dead chickens and an hour later, I had failed!

I packed up operations and headed to my house where my wife put the stock pot on the stove while I set everything else up outside. Forty minutes later the water was finally hot enough. Dunking and plucking took about an hour...for 1 bird! Trying to figure out how to clean it took another hour because I had no idea what I was doing and I was being way too careful. I put one chicken in the ice once it was fully dressed and took its remains and the chicken that had not grown too well to an area 1/4 of a mile from my house and dumped. It was all now coyote food.

Yesterday, Thanksgiving day, I met up with my father-in-law in the barn. We'd decided to skin the chickens instead of pluck them. And my father-in-law was not as cautious as I had been. He started cutting the skin and yanking on it to pull the feathers. He was breaking the bones where needed and once I carefully made the cuts to gain access to the chickens internal organs and my dad reached in and just had at it! He tugged and pulled and in a matter of 20 minutes or so, Dad had skinned and dressed the chicken. An hour-and-a-half later we had cleaned 3 chickens. Obviously this will be the game plan for the remaining chickens.

Fixin' Fences

With approximately 6 acres of graze-able pasture (10 acres with the pond), we think we have plenty for the goats to eat during the winter. But its been a few years since any livestock haunted the pasture. Fences had gone un-mended for quite some time. With beautiful early Winter weather, my father-in-law and I took advantage of our opportunity to put some woven wire up.

Long old fence row to fix...looking across the pond to the barns

Since the farm has been around a few years, we have plenty of materials tucked away. The older goats helped clear enough brush that we found rolls of forgotten woven wire. No need to buy new!

Wendell cut the wire to wrap around the corner post. It was tricky business but we got it done.



It's essential to get the wire tight before attempting to hammer metal staples into posts. Wendell wrapped one end of the woven wire around a small post, hooked log chain to it, and pulled it tight with the tractor. At times it was too tight and the staples would be repelled by the tension in the wire and send a sharp, double-pronged staples zinging towards our eyes. I got a small flesh wound on my cheek from one. We were able to use trees and tree stumps for wood posts along the fence line which allowed us to avoid having to put in new posts...awesome!

We took the fence line as far as we could but we have a new challenge: There's so much debris laying on the fence for the last 1000 feet or so and that part of the fence sits in a very marshy part of the pasture that there would be tremendous amount of re-working required to fix it. We decided to skip fixing this part of the fence and will instead reroute the fence line. We'll soon be driving metal posts to a fallen tree close to the pond, which will serve as a corner post, and run woven wire to it. From there we'll run it back toward the corner post of the original fence. It'll be a lot of work, but less than trying to fix the destroyed fence.

After a long day I followed Wendell and the tractor out of the field, but not before I took a few photos that depict why I country boy. What a great way to wrap up the day!