Today was our first of 3 butchering days.  I have about 130 birds here, or I should say "had".  We are down by 42 today.  I have raised them along side mine for friends and they help butcher.  We learned a couple of new things today while butchering.  There's a tendon on the chicken's foot that you can pull and it makes the chicken's toes grab things.  Yvonne's little boy had a great time with that chicken foot and even had to take it home to show his dad!

Another thing my son showed everyone is how to put a chicken to sleep.  You have to turn it upside down and then tuck its head under its wing.  When you set the chicken on the ground, it stays that way.  Sometimes they will get up on their own and sometimes you just give them a little nudge and off they go.  Pretty funny.

Of course, all of the adults had memories of watching the chicken bounce around without the head, so we made sure the kids in the bunch got to see that too.  Gotta make those memories! 

If you'd like to see pictures from last year,just check out this entry.

It is so nice to have those birds in the freezer and have "fresh" chicken all year long.  It just doesn't compare to anything you buy in the store.

The short answer to the question below:  We had seven people total.  It took us about 3 hours.  We weren't all busy 100% of the time, but close. 

The long answer:  If 2 people gather the chickens and one cuts off the heads, then the chopper can become the gutter as well.  (That's generally my husband's job.  He does the gutting and most of the chopping of heads.  My son does some of the chopping.)

Two can scald and pluck (we have a plucker) and then 2 do additional cleanup of feathers.  After the gutting is done, they go in a bucket of cold water.  The lungs are much easier to pull out if they are cold.  After the lungs they get a good cleaning and into fresh, clean water to chill.

My husband said today it would be nice to have 2 people gutting in order to keep up.