I was delighted this spring to learn that our nearby Cenex store would be the keeper of a new set of rental poultry processing equipment, which is funded by the Northwest Ag Business Center. There was a set up at a Mount Vernon feed store, but the drive was far enough that I never bothered to rent it. This new development gave me no excuse to procrastinate any longer on butchering some roosters and drakes I had that were just standing around eating too much food.
I hate butchering poultry, it’s the plucking of smelly birds that I find the most distasteful. Plus, I’m not fast at it, so it’s so much work, and the whole time I keep thinking I can buy a chicken at the grocery store for five bucks. The equipment makes it a lot easier.
I knew I only had a few birds to do, but thought it was a good chance to try out the setup without the pressure of needing to do a big batch. I rounded up the boys the night before to pen them up with only water so they’d clean out. There were 4 roosters and 5 drakes; so nine birds in all.
To reserve the equipment, you have to call the Ag Biz Center on a weekday and get on their calendar. There is paperwork to fill out and bring to the store. You pick up the equipment one day after 4pm, have the whole next day to do the butchering, and must return the equipment on the third day by 4pm. This apparently ensures you have no excuse to fail to clean it thoroughly!
And it’s a good thing, because if you had a lot of birds to do, there would be time pressure to get the equipment back the same evening before the store were to close. It’s some work to get it all spiffed up when you are done. Lucky for me, one of my nephews was here, so that was his job.
The killing cones work great for keeping the birds calm and non-flappy. The dunk tank is nice in that it’s thermostatically controlled at the proper temperature for scalding birds; though I suspect it was a couple of degrees too cool, as it didn’t do a great job on the duck feathers. If had had done more birds, I might have monkeyed with the dial a little more to bring the heat up a notch. The plucker works like a dream- you throw four birds in there, turn on the water and the spin cycle, and a minute later, they are nicely plucked. All of the feathers sluice out into a bucket at the back.
I tossed the birds in ice water in our stainless steel barn sink to cool; and then brought them into the house to finish processing. I cooled them overnight in more ice water, and then vacuum packed them for freezing whole. These were “old men” birds, so definitely too tough for roasting. But they do make the most amazing soup- the broth is very dark colored (almost the color of beef broth!) and incredibly flavorful. When it’s in the refrigerator, it gels into a complete solid, which tells me that there is lots of collagen, and other good-for-the-gut stuff. Some say that broth-based soups are very healing for people with all sorts of chronic maladies, they are so rich in minerals and base nutrients, which are easily digested from the slow cooking.
We make bird soup about once a week. When roasting a store-bought bird, we enjoy the legs and wings for dinner, set the breast meat aside, and boil the carcass and some veggies down into stock overnight and through the next day (or sometimes two days!). Then we’ll sauté some chopped veggies (whatever can be found in the fridge), add in the chopped breast meat, and serve noodles or rice on the side to add in (otherwise they get soggy when stored). It’s amazing how easy this is, once you are in the habit of it- not much harder than opening a can of Campbells. And so much tastier. With store-bought birds, I always have to add more chicken stock to the water to get enough flavor. But not with old farm birds, their soup can stand on its own. The meat just needs to be slow-cooked along with the broth, to tenderize it.
We already surrendered one of the roosters to the pot, and I bet we got at least a dozen soup meals out of that bird! Kirk will eat it several times a day, sometimes for breakfast, lunch (maybe even first lunch, and second lunch…) and dinner! So, I guess the labor is worth it- you can’t get soup like that anywhere but on a farm.
I’m glad to be filling the feed hopper a little less often, and my hens are pleased to only have one mature rooster giving them, eh, attention. I was getting a little low on hens due to natural attrition, and so with the roosters outta here, there’s room for more. This time, Plymouth barred rocks.
June 9, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Great help with that equipment. I swore I would never do a big batch of chickens again because I hated the plucking so much, but this kind of thing could change things. Can you give a general ballpark of how much the rental was?
June 10, 2012 at 12:42 am
CF, now that’s a setup to crow about, one fowl cyclotron, that. Just spin the feathers off, does it? Could one use the spin cycle of the clothes washer, do you think? We are great soup fans in this household–Saturday soup on the woodstove. Sounds like those roosters make excellent “Schtock,” as Jaques Pepin would say. Your post explains why my white chili recipe directs the preparer to simmer a whole chicken in chicken stock. Is free range the secret to that dark, thick, gooey collagen? Nothing is heartier than a chicken noodle soup made with stock from the chicken carcase and simmered for hours on the woodstove (served with homemade noodles from my mom’s noodle recipe, of course). And for only pennies, too. I’ll leave you with a little Sendak:
In January/it’s so nice/ while slipping on the sliding ice/to sip hot chicken soup/ with rice/Sipping once/sipping twice/sipping chicken soup with rice. TMJ
June 10, 2012 at 1:25 am
Julie, it’s subsidized, so it’s only $25 plus tax to rent it.
June 10, 2012 at 1:41 am
TMJ- I think older chickens just have more of everything-more muscle, more connective tissue, more accumulation of minerals in their tissues etc than a 6-8 week old meat bird. It takes forever to cook down those old roosters, but their leg meat turns out looking like pot roast- dark and stringy! 😀 I would imagine being free range helps, but I’m guessing even pastured fryers can’t beat an old chicken for soup…
June 10, 2012 at 2:14 am
LOL. I couldn’t help but think of the claymation movie “Chicken Run” when I read about the machine. I might have to make some soup soon.
June 10, 2012 at 1:53 pm
I apologize for an unrelated comment, but. Do you have weaning advice? I have my herd on fescue, rotational, and just split the three lambs out to wean. Some advice is to worm them but I don’t want to do that just because. Should I be supplementing with grain? I was not supplementing the ewes. Thanks!
June 10, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Claire- I usually wean lambs at 60 or 90 days, and they can wean onto grass fine in that age range. But it is still stressful for them, and they take a hit in weight gain and are much more vulnerable to worm infestations than if they stay with their dams longer. Grain can definitely help them through that hurdle and keep them gaining.
June 11, 2012 at 4:27 am
Oh, that makes me think of pot pies! That would be another excellent use of old chickens!
June 11, 2012 at 8:28 pm
I was as excited as you were to find out the Cenex was going to be the next site! On my way home from work, couldn’t be better! We are hoping to do a late batch of meat birds still, and we have a bunch of turkeys that are going to become intimately familiar with the equipment just before T-day. I just wish we had the great gravel space that you do to work in.
Quick question, how much propane did you go through to heat the water, and then run it while you scalded? Any idea? The directions left me with the impression that it will take 3 or 4 gal, just to get the water to temp…
June 11, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Here’s a great recipe from a blogger who’s husband (from Africa) loves old ‘cooking hens’. http://www.food-soil-thread.com/2011/09/recipe-for-old-laying-hen.html
June 12, 2012 at 3:13 am
adalynfarm- I was worried about that too. It sounded like warming up garden hose water can take a long time, and might be worth starting it the night before. I started with water from the hot water tank, just to expedite it. It didn’t take long at all to get it up to temp- maybe an hour? And with the insulated cover on, I didn’t hear it cycling on very often, so I don’t think it really used that much fuel. I suppose it might be different if you were cranking through 80 birds and hour or whatever the max is they say it can handle, with the cover off.
It was surprisingly non-messy- I suspect you could even do it in a garage. The killing cones have a huge catch basin; the plucker sends all the water and feathers into a bucket, and the scalder was fairly mess-free.
Thanks for the recipe!
July 1, 2012 at 9:06 am
interesting post!
thanks for your tip about the mineral imbalance. i think you’re right because he’s experiencing some pigment loss around his sheath and the vet said that’s a copper deficiency. i don’t usuall provide minerals in the summer months but it seems i need to.
since there is no campbells soup in germany, and i’ve given up on any other canned meals here, we do almost exactly what you do but with a storebought chicken. every week i defrost one, roast it, we eat what we want and i boil the rest (but only an hour) and add whatever veggies i have. i like barley in my chicken soup. this week i’m gonna add red chili flakes and vinegar to make it hot & sour soup. sometimes i add tom ka gai paste to make it thai soup, but that ruins it as far as my man is concerned.
July 1, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Hi Lytha! I hope you fix his hot spots, whatever’s causing them, poor guy! I became obsessed with minerals after reading Pat Coleby’s book on sheep, but she also wrote one on horses. There is a whole yahoo discussion list from horse people dedicated to the topic of mineral supplements Pat Coleby-style (I lurk on it, because there are some posts about sheep as well).
Ah, Campbells soup- I’m not sure I could settle for it anymore, with its substandard bits of veggies, and tiny cubits of meat. I like barley or rice in my soup too, but my husband is definitely an egg noodle person.
So is canned food passe in Germany? I could envision them having poo-pooed it a decade ago due to BPAs or whatever. It seems like whatever the hot new health food topic is in America, it passed through Europe ten years earlier…