Chickens went to freezer camp today

Today was the day.  12 birds into the freezer. This was my first time raising meatbirds. I used a tractor in my front yard, in town, they were 9 weeks old. Nobody complained, being in town, though we did have lots of lookers.

Good job! Meat birds are not my favourite as they need much more "supervising" than our layer chickens, which is actually understandable when you consider that we get them at Day and harvest at 8 weeks. However, I always feel a sense of relief when the go to freezer camp.

Great job and great looking yield.

Do you have a any advice now that you have gone through it your first time you would give to someone who is about to do the same?

It's important to remember that they're just babies even though they're huge. I would scald on the low side first before trying hotter if the feathers don't detach easily, as the skin is delicate for the size.

Similarly, be careful not to break bones as you're detaching bits, as both the bones and ligaments are weaker than an older bird.

Personally, the instructions often say to remove the feet early on in the process. Because they're heavy and I'm a wimp, I've started removing the feet after the bird is neck first in the bag - the feet make secure handles! The feet also make awesome well gelatinized broth, so I don't waste them.

I have some about 4 kg plastic buckets. I put the bag in the bucket, so that as soon as the bird is rinsed for the final time, I can drop the bird into the bag.

Since you're in town, how do you handle the giblets and offal?

They were actually fairly easy to deal with, I found. Really not even much work. Just move the tractor, water and feed every day. I gave them free feed for 12 hours on/12 hours off up to 6 weeks, then 3 1/2 pounds (1/4lb per bird plus an extra 1/2 pound) per day once a day after that. I had one die as a chick a couple days after I got them, but other than that they were pretty healthy.

A couple weeks ago, one of them got their foot ran over while moving the tractor, and then it wouldn't walk or even stand. But  it recovered within a couple days, which kind of surprised me, I figured it was a goner. I found the trick to moving the tractor is to take their feeder out and fill it, show it to them, and then set it down about 10 feet away where I'm going to move the tractor. Then they'll all just happily walk along with the tractor in an attempt to get to their feed. Otherwise they all crowd at the back of it and have to get scootched along by the back wall of the tractor.

The skin definitely was delicate, a few of them tore after scalding. I ended up saving the necks and feet in one bag for stock, and the hearts, livers, and gizzards in another bag. All birds looked healthy internally, not much internal fat. Guts went into the garbage. I bled them out in a homemade kill cone over my compost pile, and put the feathers in there too, and stirred it all in to prevent flies.

One thing I found interesting is that there is now a definite trail in my yard from the tractor where their poop improved the grass, shown in the pic.

Timothy Norton wrote:Great job and great looking yield.

Do you have a any advice now that you have gone through it your first time you would give to someone who is about to do the same?

Find people raw feeding their dogs.
Now some are super picky but a down and dirty raw feeder can feed it all to their dogs. I do or would if I raised meat chickens.
I do it with rabbits. Also pigs and cow offal though the large intestines of the large animals we have to bury.

Also could be fed to pigs - And I mean don't get in between the pigs and that or you'll be run over. lol

Also can go into a good long term compost pile but that would likely be harder to find than people
with dogs or pigs. Oh or cats of course.

I wouldn't feed back to chickens even though they would totes eat it.

Our current German Shepherds are the healthiest dogs we have ever had.
Mostly raw food, a little grainfree (or only rice or potato included) kibble, and very few shots.
White teeth, fresh breath and very little coat odor even though they are outside dogs
that are infrequently brushed and never bathed.