Baymule’s Journal

[farmerjan]

Yeah, what @Margali said..... Thanks.....

 

[Baymule]

I slaughtered 10 CCX, picked and put on ice yesterday. When I bring one in the house, it takes over an hour per bird to pick all the tiny feathers off and clean them up. Weather has been bad, they stayed wet for days at a time. Their breast feathers are broken off at the skin and they have black splotches where they rubbed on the ground. The carcass looks unappealing. I could scrape off most of it, but it took lots of time. I got 3 put in the freezer. Naturally the 2 people buying chicken, want whole birds. If they wanted pieces, I could skin the breast, no problem. I don’t know if I can come up with enough that looks good enough for a whole chicken. And they are small. Normally I have 6-7 pound and a few 5 pounders. Looks like 5 pounds is going to be my biggest. I’m disgusted. There is not a high enough piece of ground anywhere on this farm that I can move a chicken tractor daily and keep them dry in the torrential rains we’ve been having. The poor things stayed wet, cold, and shivering.

I’m looking at something different. I’m thinking a small trailer I can build a coop on, with a vinyl floor that could be cleaned, AND a different breed. Looking at red broilers or Freedom Rangers. They are part Cornish, but have a smaller breast and larger thighs. I’ve never raised them, but I may order a few to try. A trailer would give them a dry place to be and I’d only have to move it from pasture to pasture. I could keep them with the sheep and dogs could guard them. If necessary I could put up the electric netting fence. Probably wouldn’t work very well in pouring rain though. LOL

Anyway, I’ve got to do something different. I’ll get through this mess, tell my 2 customers what is going on and see if they are open to red broilers.

And I’m gonna but a chicken plucker. Even if I wind up just raising chicken for me, DD and family, I’m not doing no more chicken pickin’.

What to do today? Oh! I know! More chickens!

 

[canesisters]

It's a shame you can't just skin them. I've skinned whole chickens, lopped off the wing tips and lower legs, bagged them up and done! Cleaning and plucking take SOO much time!
I think a wagon would be a GREAT idea!!! Would you be able to do something with maybe an open, expanded steel floor that you put hardware cloth over??? That way the rain would run right through. Would that be too tough on their little legs? If you could just enclose the whole thing in hardware cloth & have a shelter/roost in one corner, they wouldn't need to leave it until processing day... just move it 10' or so each day.

 

[SageHill]

Yup - if you're going to do this to bring in $ then those chicken pluckers on Amazon look good. Though a bit pricey - but an hour plucking each chicken and the wear and tear on you the price may be worth it.

 

[Baymule]

@canesisters I'm afraid the metal would hurt their feet and I’ve never seen a wire bottom coop that the poop actually fell through.

I might try some red broilers this fall, to see how they do. Getting really tired of White Blobs.

 

[Margali]

@Baymule Do the clients want the skin? You could offer skinless whole bird. It's not to hard to pull skin off.

 

[SageHill]

@canesisters I'm afraid the metal would hurt their feet and I’ve never seen a wire bottom coop that the poop actually fell through.

I might try some red broilers this fall, to see how they do. Getting really tired of White Blobs.

What if you gave them a perch of sorts (2x4) to sit/roost on?? All the chickens I've had like to sit on perches - no matter if they are high or low. Of course the higher the better, but they still seem to like them.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

There are plucker arm things you can attach to a power drill, less expensive than a big plucker but may work just as well. Let me see if I can find a picture.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Plucker drill attachment. You need to scald the bird, and have the drill mounted to something. It might tear the skin though, you'd have to find the sweet spot for speed of drill plus temp/duration of scalding.

 

[Baymule]

@Margali Yes customers want the skin. For a whole roasted chicken, presentation counts.

@SageHill a perch might have helped, buts it’s generally not recommended. They can break a leg just standing up, much less hopping off a perch.

@Larsen Poultry Ranch thank you, I’ve seen those advertised.

I got the 10 in the freezer. Tomorrow I’ll slaughter 10 or 12 more. I think there is 24 left.