Chickens

1

Cockerel Dispatch Day

In April we bought 16 Chantecler chickens fro Oakesmuir Farm just outside of Guelph. Since then we have raised, fed, and watched over them.Watching them grow has been fascinating. Chickens behave in interesting ways and there was many a day when I would stand for a while just watching the delightful birds go about their business. The first time I saw one pick up a caterpillar and waddle off with it at a surprising speed only to have three more chase it and rip apart the poor insect I was amazed. In many ways they reminded me of two and three year olds, only wanting what the other had. When we brought out white feather bundles home we knew that one day, one day we would have to truly become carnivores. We had no idea how many cockerels we would end up having out of those 16 chicks It took a long time to tell the difference between the males and females. They are all white and all large and the males didn't show a large comb which made sexing more difficult. Not to mention neither of us had done this before. Out of those 16 we were lucky enough to end up with only four males, giving us 12 laying hens. One became extremely vociferous very early. He was the biggest and definitely a beauty. He was named Big Red. Due to his early morning song he had to go. One more had to go as well so a Medium Red was chosen. On Friday night we withheld food to the chooks. This was supposed to make evisceration less messy if they had empty intestines. We caught the cockerels in their coop and didn't let the others out until the deed had been done. After the killing we hung the birds up to bleed for a few minutes. We had a "dunk tank" prepared as we had found out hot water of a particular temperature breaks down the proteins holding the feathers in. Whether this is true or not I don't know but the feathers were very easy to pluck. I do wish they hadn't been so dirty and wet though. Next time we won't use the dunk tank but do the traditional plucking method. I had wanted to use those feathers and Big Red had had some beauties. Next Tim took off the heads. I could not do this for whatever reason. I did kill them but I couldn't cut off their heads. the hatchet didn't take the head completely off so it was still there. I them took off the feet and would proceed to start the evisceration. This was challenging and I was somewhat frightened to do it. Once again it was a matter of just doing it so I started. It was really just following the videos we watched. I started with the hole at the neck to deal with the esophagus and crop. I then made a slit above the vent. I had to go in fairly deep and cut some connecting tissue at the side of the abdomen. Somehow I got my hand in, slowly an carefully I pulled the innards out. the lungs were still attached after everything else had come out so I cut them out. It was an interesting process. the first one took approximately twenty minutes. the second half of that. It is something that, once you've gotten over the gross factor is quite simple. Now the birds didn't look pretty but they were clean. Finally we had our meal on Sunday. It was all from our garden. I have never prepared a meal for so many months! Frankly the bird was stringy. but being a rooster and walking around an awful lot that was expected. The meat was flavourful. Roasting was not the best way of cooking it either. Putting it in a slow cooker would have been a better method. But we wanted it roasted so that's what we did. We even got dressed up for the occasion.

1

Summertime and the Living is Busy

Our chicken coop renovation is partially finished. The set-up we had for the chickens to get in and out of the barn was a bit silly. We had to move a door and put a chiar braced with wood at the gate so the sheep couldn't get in. Mr. Tufts really liked to test the chair. there was only one way to get it to stay. This was not a good set-up if we ever wanted to have a house sitter or even our wonderful neighbour bring tha animals in. (She did understand the set-up though and bless her, she mastered it!) We neede a better door for the chickens. On Sunday we spent the day building a chicken "stoma" in the old window. It now as a door with a latch and a ladder both in and out. It was perfect...to us. getting the chickens to use it was another story. the first night they just didn't get it. the next morning I had to put everyone out the door by  hand. That night, after some modifications they actually went in it on their own, with a lot of scratch to help them along. At least we now have an easy way to let the chickens in and out. next is fixing the flor and building the nest boxes. We should start getting eggs in just over a month. We can't wait as then I can start some of the art projects I want to! Our pot potatoes are finally flowering. we have been waiting a long time for this. These are blue potatoes, blue all the way through. We saved them from last years CSA diligently as I knew we would never get around to ordering any seed potatoes. We won't be eating any this year either, these are for next years crop. How exciting though. They have beautiful flowers and do make lovely potted plants. Last year we placed the potatoes in some shallow compost and covered them with straw. Some potatoes were produced but not a pot full. This year they are covered with compost instead so we are hoping to have a better yield. Of course these plants could be moved in in the early spring or autumn. Hopefully it works, but even if we only get a decent yield it will be done again on a larger scale. They do make great, lush potted plants!

0

Growing Up

It has been extremely busy around here lately. Everything is growing up. Lintilla is becoming brave and more active by the hour. We had our first cock-a-doodle-doo from the cockerel the other day and the lambs are bigger than their Mums. The garden is having the biggest change this time of year. Despite the cool weather and sporadic rain things are growing. The cucumbers are growing well and we even have some tomatoes. Many others have peas already, but ours went in late so we only have flowers. but the volunteer pumpkin has baby pumpkins and flowers on them. Even the apples are looking good. Our heritage Tennis Ball Lettuce is doing wonderfully. These little guys didn't start off too well and I didn't know what to expect. Now they are healthy and delicious! This past weekend was the final seedling planting weekend. It should have been done weeks earlier but it never became a priority. Now our sunflowers and tomato leftovers are in. The poor plants were producing flowers to try and grow and Tim just didn't have the heart to compost them. They had done so well in such poor conditions. the upside to this is that if we do get fruit we are going to save the seeds.I wonder if a new hardy tomato can be developed? It is nice to know that they are at least growing. We also managed to get some herbs in. We had bought them a couple of weekends ago but hadn't the time to plant them right away. We had really wanted to do a herb garden so it was a bit more work than five minutes. Luckily the herbs hung on and they are now happily in their herb spiral. The herbs are planted according to how dry they like it and how sunny. The chervil is on the north side lower down because this is the conditions they prefer. It isn't perfect as which herbs were bought was impulsive, not planned for a spiral. Like the rest of this place we will see what happens!