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!

The Heebie Jeebies

I have had a variety of pets over my lifetime; my Elly, various cats, fish, mice(blech), hermit crabs, a snake, a gecko, fish...and now my chickens. It's mostly very entertaining and wonderful to love something that adores you back, much like your kids used to before they realized you are imperfect. One thing having pets provide you is grossness. I don't mean threw-up-on-the-floor gross. I raised two kids who are very prone to car sickness, puke is a breeze. I'm talking about having a dead bird brought in as a gift or trying to keep the dog from eating the chicken poop or (and this is my favorite) a cat that pees where She thinks is best, regularly, no matter what you do to convince her otherwise. Never would I have imagined that I would have to change my clothes (more than once, folks) because I realized I smelled of cat pee. 

Having chickens has escalated me into another realm entirely; taking care of dead pets. In my head, I knew this would happen more often with chickens as they can be tough and very fragile, at the same time. Their life spans tend to be shorter and if I'm going to hatch, I'm going to be dealing with babies with issues. I'm also not a vegetarian and had this idea that maybe getting chickens we would use as meat would be great. So, in my head, this was fine and I was going to take a deep breath and take care of business. I wasn't going to call my husband and ask him to handle all the dead things. 

I can do this! Roar!

Ok, so the first loss was Rufus, my sweet Jersey Giant cockerel, at about three months. I came home and he was obviously sick and keeping away from everyone. I climbed into the coop and sat with him, trying to figure things out. I isolated him and did some healthcare type things, but it was too late. 

So, the next morning, I go out to the coop to check on him and the very second I realized he was dead, my sweet Rufus that I carried around and adored, became a dead chicken. It was the heebie jeebies, big time. I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. That feeling that comes over you and you want to run in circles while desperately shaking your hands and the rest of you like something is attached to your skin and you are desperate to get it off. Just, get it off! Yeah, that was me. I wasn't feeling sad at that second, I felt grossed out, which immediately fed into the guilt I already had wondering how I had lost him. 

I ran inside and asked my 17-year-old son if he could help. He's been hunting with his dad and is a guy (yes, I unabashedly played the gender card here), so this should be a cinch. He said, "absolutely, mom" and got up and went outside. He's a good kid. But the second he stuck his head in the coop, it was the heebie jeebies for him too. We looked at each other and knew immediately we had to wait for my husband and he would have to take care of Rufus for me. He did this willingly and with ease, then we buried him (Rufus, not my husband) in the back of the yard with a sweet moment, while I stood back from the dead chicken.

I was kind of ashamed, but at the same time, we agreed that I would continue to take care of the puke and my husband would do dead things. 

At the same time we got Rufus, we also were given a chick that I thought was a white Plymouth Rock and we named her Amelia. Amelia turned out to be a meat bird, a Cornish X. By the time we realized it, we had named her and found her interesting, so when people asked why we had a 15 pound chicken waddling around, that was my excuse; we'd named her. Truthfully though, I just couldn't do it. I googled putting down chickens, read all the ways I could do this, but I truly just couldn't. She grew to seven months old and was in the summer heat when I realized that she wasn't just big, she was struggling to breath. I had given her a quality of life and she'd been a hoot to have around, but keeping her alive at this point was cruel. 

I once again turned to Google for ways I could put Amelia down myself, but I knew deep down there was no way it was happening. So I called a neighbor that I knew sometimes bought live chickens for dinner and gave her to them. I know she was killed quickly and used as dinner, that is a good thing. 

So, in between these moments, I have lost a few chicks as well. The first one I  

asked my husband to do something with and he did. The second one I cared for until it died with me and found I had no issues with it at all. I carried it's little body to a bag and was able to dispose of it. It was sad, but it was rescued from poor care, so I suspected there would be a couple of losses. 

We've lost a chick to hen pecking once (that was a super sad lesson for me on integrating chicks with chickens) and I was able to actually put this one down. It was injured in a permanent and bad way and I was able to do it quickly with a hatchet. I felt so horrible for the pain it had to be in that I didn't struggle, but that was as far as I could go. The second it was down, the heebie jeebies kicked in and I ran for it while calling my husband to take care of the dead baby.

And we get to today. I went home for my lunch break and found an older chick of

mine dead with it's insides not inside it anymore. We can't quite figure out what happened, but I suspect a couple of cats that wander my neighborhood. They haven't bothered the chickens before, but this pullet was a bantam, very small and with a small injury already. I was able to use the shovel and put it in a plastic tub that was then set in the trash. I was very proud of myself and I managed it with minimum grossed out feeling, but I was sad.

So, the point of all these little stories is to share a couple of theories I have about the heebie jeebies:

1. There's nothing wrong with them. There are folks that don't have them and can pick up the dead whatever, scoop up the entrails and call it a day. That's fine for them, but I think Not being like that is a good thing. We're not yet in a zombie apocalypse, so until then, I choose acceptance over change.
2. I think the heebie jeebies help me grieve. Losing an animal (even a chicken for those of you who've never had one) can be profoundly sad and heartbreaking. Having a moment in that grief to be grossed out gives me a little emotional break, which I appreciate.

For me, taking care of a creature is something I take seriously and I want to do it well. My husband and I name every creature we have, including most of the fish. We find them all unique and interesting and if we lose one, for whatever reason, it just sucks. Because of this, instead of fighting the heebie jeebies, as of today, I've decided to be okay with them. I'm not going to feel ashamed that my chicken I hatched and babied is now a dead thing and I'm feeling all 'ew'. I'm going to be glad that I'm feeling that instead of overwhelmed by sadness that another creature has left my home. 

Let's Talk Egg Storage Options

One of my learning experiences with backyard chickens has been the challenge of egg storage. When I had four layers, it was fairly easy, but now I have seven and three more are almost there as well. I have also noticed this seems to be a hot topic with my fellow chicken keepers.

Here were my questions:

1. Do you refrigerate or store on the counter?

2. How do you know which ones are the most or least fresh?

3. How many eggs will I have at once?

Fairly simple.

In my case, I store in the fridge. Storing on the counter is just fine for eggs. My choice is personal and based on these three reasons: I have very little space in my kitchen and counter space is precious, I have two evil cats who think knocking things to the floor is entertaining, I do like the eggs lasting a little longer, although they seem to be gone much more quickly now.

I also mark each egg with a pencil or sharpie with the lay date. This is super handy and I feel more confident on the freshness of the eggs as a result. The small amount of eggs I get, this is not difficult.

So, far, the largest amount of eggs I've had in the fridge at one time was a little over 30. Not bad. I have a neighbor that buys two dozen at a time, so I can be wiped out quickly. If they have purchased recently and it starts to add up, I either post on Facebook that I have extras or make a delicious quiche for dinner. Either way, I have had no problems with eggs sitting around. 

However, I do have issues with storing them and keeping the dated ones together. Here were the dilemmas: I hate the door thingy that is supposed to hold eggs (horrible design), egg cartons are a pain and have to be removed each time I need an egg, egg flats are too fragile and wear out quickly. I wanted something easy to lay the eggs in and easy to grab one quickly, while keeping them in the fridge and the oldest eggs roll to the front so they're are the first to go.

Skelters are pretty popular, like this one on the left. But they are round and kind of tall, leaving them either taking up quite a bit counter space or not fitting in the fridge well. I'm also a sucker for symmetry. It just doesn't seem like the optimal design.

I found some designs that really seemed to fit what I need, but they are challenging to find in the US. Since we, as a nation, tend to refrigerate our eggs, people don't think about egg storage much.

So, I made my own. Necessity really is the mother of invention.

I wanted something that fit easily on a shelf in the fridge and was sloped enough the eggs would roll towards the front. It also needed to be not incredibly deep so I could reach into the back of it and place the newest eggs as I collected them. I went to Home Depot and walked around, staring at various sizes of wood and screws and nails, to see what might work. 

This is what I came up with:

I like it. It's pretty and the dark stain looks nice. It's clearly too small for the amount of eggs I get and plan to keep. It would be excellent for the single person who grabs the half a dozen eggs a week. I have one person who buys that many eggs at a time from me.

Also, the sides are too wide. I'm going to need multiple rows in the same unit and a 1" block of wood between them is a bit much. However, the slope is perfect and I really do love that stain.

Then I made this one:

I like it as well. The thinner sides are clearly much better and the blue paint is so fun. I can see people liking this one quite a bit. It's still too small for the amount of eggs I get and plan to keep. I went ahead and posted this on a Facebook group to get folks opinions and the chorus agreed; it's too small. I did realize that you can stack the eggs on top of other eggs here and it works nicely. The only issue is the eggs don't roll easily. 

So, then, I went all out and made this one:

This is the one. I really love it and I love this new choice of stain as well. I immediately put this one in my fridge and started using it. I grabbed a couple of pencils and put them in the left row (I constantly lose them)  and used it for the next week, with tremendous success. 

Here it is in my fridge:

Since i took this picture, I also slide empty egg cartons behind this so I can grab them  quickly when someone drops by to buy some eggs. There's the perfect amount of room.

I have tried a few variations, wider rows for larger eggs, but then the regular and smaller size eggs don't roll well. I also tried just having a larger bottom without the row dividers as a whole and nope, just didn't work as well as a whole. I think the wider rows is still a win, particularly if you're like me and you have a chicken that tends to only lay the big eggs, it would be handy. 

Here's a teal version of the wider rows. The large egg is 3 1/2" long and turned out to be a triple yolker (the only one I've ever seen). However, it's really for the larger eggs only. The smaller eggs didn't really work with the slope. 

So there we have it. I have made a few different models and added them to the shop to see which ones people prefer. I have sold one, the blue oneabove with the regular size rows. I haven't gotten feedback yet, but I'm crossing my fingers it was a win. No news is good news, right?

Meanwhile, the large one works for me so well. I'm still looking for ways to tweak it; I had one person suggest chalk paint on the front so you can write dates on for tracking egg freshness. I like that idea very much and think it's going to be my next experiment.

I'll let you know how it goes.