Processing Your Chickens

I am not a vegetarian, but I am an animal lover. I do not believe those two things are mutually exclusive. My husband and I have several pets and we love each and every one of them and believe they deserve a loving home. I also believe that animals we eat should be treated humanely until that point where it's time for dinner. So, following this belief system, I thought having birds that we raise for meat would be something that would be fine. I love the idea of really knowing where my food comes from and being a chicken person now, I thought, I eat chicken, so I can kill a chicken. But the reality in my head turned out to be much different than the reality of having chickens in my backyard. 

I have, after much research, googling, and an acceptance of my heebie-jeebies, am finally owning that I will not ever have meat chickens that I kill or eat myself. My chickens will always have names and lives as long as they would like in my backyard. The local grocery co-op sells birds that are packaged by a local Amish farm that are both affordable and delicious, so that's what I'll be going with when I want some good chicken.

In doing research on this topic, one thing I discovered is that it's not really easy to find people who will process small numbers of birds for you and this is important if you are not able or willing to do it yourself. There is this Directory provided by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, but it appears that not all places are listed. So, for the rest of you (I'm a little jealous), here's a list of additional places in Kentucky that I have seen recommended for processing birds.

1. David Miller at Hamilton Valley Poultry Processing on Hamilton Valley Rd in Garrard County. (859) 925-9871 From Lancaster take 52 towards Paint Lick ..look for hwy 954 turn on to it go about 3 miles you will pass a blue bldg as soon as you pass it make a right turn and follow that road you will come to a Y turn left and follow that road for about 4 miles or so you will see a sign that says Hamilton Valley Poultry Processing on your left. They charge 3.50 per chicken. FDA inspected.  leave him a message and he is really good at calling back. They process on Tuesday's and Thursday's.

2. The Meat Shop - (606) 365-3800 - 95 White Oak Rd., Lancaster, KY - http://www.themeatshopinc.com/ We can process you home grown beef or hog. For those Deer Hunters process deer, make summer sausage and jerky. We also sell retail meat.

3. Taylorsville Butcher's Block - (502) 354-0168 - 226 Taylorsville Rd, Taylorsville, KY. http://www.faulknermeats.com/ We at Taylorsville Butcher Block thrive on customer satisfaction! We will do anything to make the customer happy! We offer custom and USDA processing, along with retail sales to the public! All of our Meat is fresh never frozen, and top quality. We also offer deer processing! If we dont have something in stock, we will do our best to find it for you and offer it in our store!

This is just a few so far. Please, if you know of any others that are not in the KYAgr directory or above, let me know!

Chicken Learning Experience #1,387

**Warning: There are some Graphic Images below of my pecked chickens.

 So, the last couple of weeks has been an interesting learning experience in chicken keeping. I had my first heartbreak and it was completely my fault.

Of the chicks I inherited, I have four that are white. I mentioned before that I believed that they were leghorns, one female and three males (I now believe I white plymouth rocks, but that's another post). The males were getting mighty big and I'd had the chicks outside with my full grown orpingtons a few times and everyone seemed fine, so I made the huge mistake of putting the rocks in with the orpingtons in the run for a few hours and not watching them like I clearly should have been.

When I went back out the pecking had been brutal. All three of the rocks had been hit hard and the orpingtons were quickly shooed away. Two of them were hit on the back and wings and were walking about eating and drinking like normal, but the third one was seriously injured and did not survive.

So needless to say, I wrapped the two in towels and brought them into the house to be cared for and heal. I got some wound spray to help with the healing, added electrolytes to their water and started giving them medicated feed. I am unsure which worked well or if they really needed any of these, but they are doing just fine now and back in the run - properly and with protection from the orpingtons. 

This shows a portion of the current set up keeping the injured rocks from everyone, the remaining other chicks are in the setup under the coop, locked away and one of my orpingtons is in the walkway area, wondering why she can't get to them.

Below and to the left is what they looked like when I found them and got them inside. Seeing the blood was shocking for me, but they continued chowing down like normal and were drinking as well.

Below is a picture of them today. Their feathers are growing in nicely. Their behavior has not changed a bit. Excellent.

So, the point to my story is that this was quite a learning experience for me.

1. Apparently, even though I am not a vegetarian and I had considered harvesting these very chicks when they were older, I was devastated that they were picked on so badly and that one was picked to death. It bothered me tremendously knowing they were put in an environment where they were badly treated and I put them there.

2. Chickens are tough and despite looking quite plucked and smelling terrible with the injuries, they have healed quickly and nicely. They also didn't even slow down with eating and drinking.

3. 8 month old orpingtons can be jerks, but I love them. Even though I was irrationally mad at them for the evening, I am completely over it. The monsters.

4. Follow steps for introducing to your flock! This is so important! All of the chicks are in the run now, but kept from each other while they adjust to each others' presence. When the chicks get big enough, I'll start letting everyone take a closer look at each other - but with supervision.

5. I kept them in the house at first, while treating them, and that was fine for a small period of time. But as they are rocks, they are getting very large, fast, and I really wanted to get them out of the brooder, which would mean them being outside or wandering my home. So I looked into hen saddles and chicken diapers. After some sewing and trial and error, I have come to the conclusion that in this situation, they are not necessary. They have done just fine with the temperature outside and it did get down to 30 one night. The run is winterized and it's all good.

6. And as for chicken diapers - no. Just no.