Chicken Processing Edit

A reader (pixilatedtoo) suggested that leaving the breast meat on the bone until rigor mortis had completed its cycle would result in more tender meat.  I did some reading and found THIS study confirming what she was saying.  I now suggest removing the entire breast on the bone and then chilling it for 24 hours before deboning.  I would use a set of kitchen shears to remove the entire structure.

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Home Chicken Processing Made Easy

Chicken!  It's what's for dinner.

Raising chickens for meat is not a huge money saving endeavor.  You aren't going to raise it much cheaper than a large-scale poultry producer.  What you gain is freshness, knowledge that the chickens were treated well and fed what you want them to eat, and meat without anything added during packaging.  The chicken pictured above was grown by me, never frozen, and went from the pen to the plate in less than 24 hours.

Here's a quick breakdown of my recent costs:

Item	Units	Cost per Unit	Total
Chicks	15	$2.00	$30.00
Bags of Feed	4	$9.00	$36.00
Bag of Pine Shavings	1	$5.00	$5.00
		Total	$71.00

That $71.00 raised 30 boneless-skinless breasts, 30 chicken tenders, 30 wings, 30 thighs, 30 drumsticks, 15 livers, 15 gizzards, and 15 hearts. This doesn't take into account my time (six weeks) or things I reused such as a feeder, waterers, and the space to raise them in.

So you've decided it's worth the effort to raise your own.  You've read my posts HERE and HERE and now after 6 weeks of raising birds you have full grown chickens.  How should you process them out?

The rest of this post contains pictures and descriptions of the humane killing and processing of chickens.  If this offends you, do not read further.

Processing accouterments 

The first step is to gather your supplies and set everything up.  Hang two pieces of twine 18" from each other from something like a horizontal tree branch.  Cut them off and tie a slip knot at the end of each one so that the chicken will hang at chest level.  You will also need a sharp, thin bladed knife, a box cutter with new blade, an ice chest or large bowl with ice, baggies, and a hose with sprayer nozzle.  I prefer to wear gloves while processing, but it's not necessary if you wash your hands well.

Two chickens hung for processing

My prefered method of humanly killing chickens is to hang them up and bleed them out.  It's relatively painfree and the easier on the butcher than cervical dislocation or a chopping block.  It removes the blood from the meat and keeps the bird calm.  A calm bird is the key to a good quality meat.

Neck feathers removed

To bleed a bird out, hang them by their legs and pluck a few feathers from the neck near the head as seen above.  Pull the skin tight between your fingers.  You will see the dark blue jugular vein running along side the trachea.  Sever that with a sharp knife (I prefer the point of a box cutter).  Be careful not to cut into the trachea as that will upset the bird and prevent a good, calm bleed.  Step back and wait for 3-4 minutes.  When no more blood drips from the bird and it is still, it is ready to process.  Be prepared for the bird to flap its wings for a few seconds at the very end.  This is normal and just a nerve reaction.

Skin pulled off of the breast

At this point the bird can either be plucked or skinned.  Plucking takes a lot of time and effort and we don't eat the skin anyway, so we skin the birds.  It's a much quicker process.  If you want to pluck, HERE is how to do it.

To skin the bird, start by making a small incision at the point of the breast bone.  Grab that incision and pull downward to peel the skin off and expose the breast as seen above.

One boneless, skinless breast removed

Using the sharp, thin bladed knife, slice along the sternum.  Then peel the breast off, cutting it loose close to the ribs as you go.  Rinse it off and put it on ice.  Repeat for the other side.

A reader (pixilatedtoo) suggested that leaving the breast meat on the bone until rigor mortis had completed its cycle would result in more tender meat.  I did some reading and found THIS study confirming what she was saying.  I now suggest removing the entire breast on the bone and then chilling it for 24 hours before deboning.  I would use a set of kitchen shears to remove the entire structure.

If you want the wings, remove them by dislocating and cutting through the joints.  Pluck as described in the link above.

Internal organs exposed

If you want the liver, gizzard, heart, etc., grab the top of the sternum and slowly pull down to expose the internal organs.  Even if you don't want these items, they make great fresh pet food so don't waste them if you have pets.

Busted gallbladder

The liver and heart can be pulled out with your fingers.  When removing the liver, be careful not to rupture the gallbladder as seen above.  If you do, keep the bile off of anything you plan to eat.  Once they are out, bag them up and put them on ice.

Gizzard pulled out

To remove the gizzard, cut the two tubes.  The contents are anything but sterile, so I suggest using a separate knife to do this cutting.  Put it in a baggie on ice for later.

Skin removed from leg quarter

All that's left are the leg quarters.  Run the knife just under the skin on the inside of the leg and cut up to the knee joint.  Pull the skin up and off of the leg as seen above.

Removing leg quarter

Sever the leg through the hip joint.

Removing foot

Remove the foot by cutting through the ankle joint.

One chicken on ice

Rinse and put it on ice.

Gizzard cut open

Because of the nature of a gizzard's contents, wait until you are done with all of the other meat to process these.  Cut along the edge of the gizzard until you are halfway around.

Gizzard contents

Remember the gizzard is full of rocks, so don't cut too deep or you will dull your knife.

Gizzard cleaned out

Rinse out the contents of the gizzard.

Removing the koilin membrane

The gizzard has a thick membrane inside to protect it from the rocks inside.  This is called the koilin membrane.  Peel it off and discard.  Rinse the gizzard well and bag it up

Ready to freeze

Once you've become proficient at it, a chicken can be completely disassembled into its parts in about 5 minutes.

Weekly Gardening Outlook: Parched

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Small Nanking cherry bush showing signs of drought stress

Large Nanking cherry bush

I planted six Nanking cherry bushes as dormant, bare-root stock last spring.  After a month, four had leafed out and two had not.  I called the nursery and they immediately replaced the two, but by the time I put the two new ones in the ground they were six weeks behind and were going into the ground in the middle of summer.  The pictures above show the importance of planting during the correct time of year.  The smaller plants have a less developed root system and aren't coping with the heat and drought nearly as well as the larger bushes.  I doubt they will make it through the summer.

Roma tomatoes

Ripening Roma tomatoes

Almost there!

Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato plant

The Romas are just about there.  I've never seen this many fruit on the vines.  The Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato vine is producing 3-4 cherry tomatoes a day.  I may need to plant two of them next year.  No evidence of blossom end rot despite the extreme heat and dryness.

Flowering basil

Still plenty of pollinator activity around the basil.  Some seeds are starting to form.

Bell peppers

Jalapeno peppers

Plenty of bounty from the peppers.  A couple of instances of blossom end rot on the bell peppers.

Young eggplant

Five or six little eggplants forming and the plants are both still flowering like crazy.

Okra

The okra are bushing out and soaking up every available drop of sunlight.

Potted blueberry bush

The blueberry harvest is over.  The bushes have more than doubled in size already.

Evergreen bunching onions

I planted these evergreen bunching onions from seed in the spring of 2010.  Since then they've provided a constant availability of green onions, even in the middle of winter.

Butternut squash vines on a cattle panel trellis  

Young butternut squash

The butternut squash vines have crested the top of the cattle panel arbor.  They want to go in every direction and I have to train them up the arbor every few days.  In the middle of the arbor in the picture above, you can see a vine I just retrained.  Its leaves hadn't reoriented to the sun yet, but they did within a few hours.  No sign of squash vine borer yet *crossing fingers*.  I've seen two squash bugs this week and I hand picked them both off.

Same old chard.  Easy.

Turnips

Turnip, ready to harvest

The turnips are all ready to pull.  I've pulled and eaten some, but I don't have a ton of experience eating turnips.  Anyone have a good recipe?

Purple-podded pole bean vines growing up a cattle panel trellis

Purple-podded pole bean flowers

Flower buds are forming on the green bean vines.  Japanese beetles continue to try to eat the foliage, requiring a periodic treatment with NeemII.

Calendula 

I planted a few calendula (pot marigold) where I had open space.  The petals are a colorful addition to salads and are said to have numerous health benefits.

Sand plum

The heat and drought have resulted in smaller sand plums this year.  They aren't quite ripe yet, but in the next few weeks I will turn them into jelly.  Here's a previous post where I show how it's done.

Chicken and Egg Report:

Chickens at 6 weeks old

While I was out of town last weekend, we lost three more of the new laying chicks.  They just disappeared, leaving us with four remaining egg laying chicks.  I put those four in the enclosure with the meat birds and they are still there today.  It's got to be hawks.  I've searched the yard and can find no sign of them.  The dogs don't eat them after they kill them.  After these meat chicks go into the freezer this weekend, I'm going to get another batch of chicks to raise as hens.  With the heat, we are only getting 1-2 eggs per day.

Weather Outlook:

Dry fescue lawn

-Hot.  Mid to upper 90s all week with little chance of rain.

-Water early and often.

-Ten day forecast

What's Being Harvested:

A few peppers and turnips from the garden

-Herbs

-Serrano, jalapeno, and bell peppers

-Green, yellow, and purple onions

-Cherry and Roma tomatoes
-Turnips

An Excellent Article

I was recently sent a link to this article about organic remedies for garden pests.  I found it to be a very easy read and will absolutely be trying some of Ms. Lovejoy's ideas in my garden.  Take a look and see if there are some solutions to your gardening problems in there.

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/thirty-five-pest-disease-remedies.aspx

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Weekly Gardening Outlook: Dog Days

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Chloe and chicks

Might as well get the bad news out of the way first.  After two years without harming a bird, the dogs killed two of my young hens.  They haven't bothered the full grown hens, but the little ones darting about apparently stimulated their inner carnivore.  I looked out the window and saw them bouncing around having a great time with one of the hens in Crash's (our male) mouth.  They were harshly reprimanded, shown the dead bird, and then reprimanded again whenever they showed interest in it.  I've kept them chained up when I'm not in the backyard.  It's going to be hard to trust them around the birds again.

Confined dogs

Insect Report:

Flea beetles on an eggplant

Flea beetles attack my eggplants every year, making the small holes in the leaves that you can see in the picture above.  Unless the population really gets out of control, they don't really seem to hurt the plants much.  They are interesting beetles in that, when disturbed, they can hop very quickly like the fleas they are named after.  A dose of neem oil mixed with pyrethrin (aka NeemII) gets rid of them.  These are both organic treatments.

Japanese beetles eating an okra leaf

Japanese beetles minutes after an application of NeemII

The Japanese beetles are out and trying to eat my green bean vines, apple trees, blueberry bushes, okra, basil, etc.  Above, you can graphically see the effects of the aforementioned neem oil/pyrethrin mix.  The beetles are only out for 3 weeks or so a year, so two or three applications spread over that time will keep them off of my crops.

Japanese beetle on sweet basil

Pyrethrin kills a broad spectrum of insects, including beneficial insects.  The way to protect beneficial insects is to target the beetles by applying it in the late evening after most beneficial insects have quit flying.  Pyrethrin is biodegradable and breaks down quickly when exposed to oxygen.  Neem oil on the other hand lasts for up to a week, but only kills insects that eat plant leaves.  

Butterfly on flowering sweet basil

These basil plants were treated with NeemII less than 24 hours before this picture and video were taken.  They are covered in butterflies and literally hundreds of hoverflies.  The video doeesn't fully capture the swarm of activity, but it's the best I could do.  It's important to use a pest management system that doesn't harm these beneficial insects.  Both butterflies and hoverflies are excellent pollinators (meaning more fruit for you) and the larva of many hoverflies eat harmful insects like aphids.  If I had just dusted these in Sevin dust, I would have destroyed both.

Caterpillar hiding in damaged onion leaf

Closeup of caterpillar in the onion leaf

Looking at my onions, I noticed the ends of a few leaves were missing.  Upon closer inspection, I caught this guy red-handed inside one of the leaves.  I believe it's a leek moth larvae.  I could treat the onions with Bacillis thuringiensis (BT), but after inspecting them closely I only found a few and the onions are nearing the end of their growing season anyway.  I'll just keep an eye on it for now and smash any that I find.  Interestingly, they have not affected my two-year-old evergreen bunching onions.

Garden Report:

Okra

The okra is still in the vegetative growing phase and has not put on fruit yet.  This variety (Perkins Long Pod) will get up to 5-6 feet tall with trunks as big around as my wrist before they are done.  You can see a definite size difference between the plants on the south (left) end of the bed and those on the north (right).  The plants on the north end get less sunlight because they are shaded somewhat by the plants to the south.

Tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Roma tomatoes

The Roma tomato plants may not get tall (~2 feet), but they are loaded with fruit.  None of which are ripe yet.  The cherry tomato plant (Super Sweet 100) has just begun to give a few ripe fruit.  Like the Romas, it is loaded with green fruit and blossoms.  No evidence of blossom-end rot this year.  The crushed egg shells (calcium) and straw mulch (conserving soil moisture) seem to be working.

Jalapenos

Bell peppers

The peppers are also loaded with fruit.  The straw mulch has really improved the health of my plants.

Flowering eggplant

No fruit on the eggplants yet, but they are putting on plenty of purple flowers.

Onions with an eggplant in the background

The onions are ready to harvest.  This is indicated when the foliage begins to fall down as seen above.  Click HERE for a previous post on harvesting and drying onions.

Young butternut squash

Butternut squash vine on a trellis

I have had such problems with squash vine borer (SVB) in the past, that the only squash I'm growing this year is the butternut squash.  Butternut squash is said to be resistant to the SVB.  So far so good.  The vines are 3-5 feet long and are growing up my cattle panel trellises.  

Swiss chard

The chard is doing what chard does.  It's growing with little care or maintenance.  Such a great crop.

Purple-podded pole beans on a trellis

The pole beans are 3-4 feet long and have yet to flower.  The only problem I've had with this variety in the past is with Japanese beetles defoliating them.  I have the NeemII ready...

Turnip

The warm season growing of turnips has been a huge success.  No maintenance and they are ready to harvest.

New growth on the apple tree

The apple tree is putting on some new growth after being hit hard by cedar-apple rust.  I've treated it with Serenade and this is a promising sign.  I plan preventive treatments next spring starting in April.

Blueberry bush

The two blueberry bushes are growing gangbusters.  I mulched them with straw and that seems t have really helped keep the pots from drying out between waterings.

Dead strawberry plants

Speaking of drying out between waterings, the lack of rain combined with 100 degree temperatures and my neglect have killed about two-thirds of my strawberry plants.  The cinderblocks being porous and having one side exposed to air, dry out easily.  They are easily harvested because of the accesibility, but be aware of the drawback to planting inside the cinderblocks.  Being the low maintence gardener that I am, I am ok with this.  The strawberry plants that remain can obviously handle drought better than those that died off, so as the years go on, the genetics of my plants will exhibit drought tolerance.

Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes)

Amongst those weeds is a stand of sunchokes about 4 feet tall.  They will put on a beautiful display of small yellow flowers in a month and after it freezes, I will harvest the potato-like tubers.


Chicken and Egg Report:

Juvenile laying hen next to a juvenile meat bird

Again, the size differential between these birds who were born the same day and fed the same feed is astounding.

2"x4" wire barrier

The white cornish/rock meat birds have become so heavy that they cannot haul themselves back up the ramp to get to the food and water.  I put a 2"x4" wire mesh across the end to keep them up top, while allowing the hens access to the nest boxes.  The hen's production has leveled off to about 4 eggs per day.

Out in the proverbial cold

When I put the wire in a week ago, more than half of the egg laying chicks were able to squeeze through the wire and come and go as they pleased.  Just a week later, they have grown such that only two of them can still fit through.  The ones that can't fit through, spend their days foraging in the yard for insects, worms, and vegetation.  We've mysteriously lost two more of them (down to 7).  I can't blame the dogs.  Since I found no feathers or other remains, my money is on hawks.  I'm going to let the dogs run free again as a deterrent to the hawks.  We'll see how that goes.

Weather Outlook:

-We finally got a break from the heat and got a little rain to boot!  Temperatures will remain in the mid to upper 90s this week with little further chance of rain.  Keep your gardens watered.

-Ten day forecast

What's Being Harvested:

-Cherry tomatoes
-Turnips
-Herbs

-Serrano, jalapeno, and bell peppers

-Green, yellow, and purple onions

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