Our chicken processing equipment has all arrived.  We ordered kill cones, knives, a catching net, and automatic plucker. Monday I am heading up to Ft. Collins to pick up a stainless steel processing table. We hope at some point to not only raise our own chickens as we do now for eggs, but also hatch them as well.  This will let us replenish our flock as well as utilize them for meat without having to have them shipped by mail as chicks whenever we need new ones.

This year, however, because of time constraints we ordered 30 Cornish X chicks.  They will be arriving May 12th just a week before our visit from my mother.  These broilers grow incredibly fast (they are the basic breed used in all of your cellophane wrapped grocery store birds.)  In just 10 weeks they will be ready to be put into the freezer.  This will easily provide us with all the meat we will need for the rest of this year (we have plans to raise some pigs too but that will be another evolution and more posts as  – if –   it happens).

We had one rooster out of our four that, well – quite frankly, was a pain in the ass.  The other 3 would crow, but “Spike” as we called him (because of the way his crop was shaped) would crow about every 20 seconds for HOURS at a stretch.  I kept threatening just to shoot him and throw him to the coyotes, but was convinced by calmer minds to wait until the processing equipment arrived and use him as the trial run.  That trial run was today.  Spike, became tasty stew.

Roosters need to be slow cooked. Their meat, compared to younger pullets and cockerels, is pretty tough.  It is very flavorful, but it isn’t something you would cook up and serve with potatoes to Sunday guests.  As with farm fresh eggs, the flavor of the meat is leaps and bounds better than the store.  The birds also live a very good life prior, which, we think, is important.

So here are pictures of the trial run.  If you have a queazy stomach, don’t look; but this is a blog about farming and homesteading.  This goes along with it.

We decided that to be more self-sufficient with our chicken flock it made sense to hatch our own chicks for both meat and eggs instead of having to order them from hatcheries whenever we needed new ones.  It is also a good way to help keep the flock healthy by not risking importing potential illnesses.  At some point it will be fun to let the hens do the work by sitting on the eggs, but that entails having separate quiet areas for them to be and because  we still have to work for a living we can’t give them the attention they need.  SO, our new incubator arrived last week!  It is a Brinsea Octagon 20.  It has all the bells and whistles (literally).  While we haven’t set it all up yet, it appears that one pretty much plugs it in, waits for it to stabilize the temperature and humidity, adds the eggs and wait 21 days.  We will raise replacements for the layer flock as we need to (egg production drops off after the hens get to be about 2 years old).  About twice a year we will raise a batch to put in the freezer.

Along with it we have gotten in place the processing equipment for chicken processing.  As my memories of chicken plucking are smelly, wet, and sticky, we ordered the latest and greatest plucker.  We got the machine from CConly and it alleges to pluck a bird in 10 to 30 seconds.  Works for me.  So while this is not meant to make my vegan friends cringe, we consider ourselves “Mostly-Terrian”.  We still enjoy meat and eggs.  At least anything we put in the oven will have been raised and processed by our own hands.  Desperately few of us can say that anymore.  Ours is the EZ 131:

Here is the incubator:

So we are still trying to decide the fate of at least one of the roosters.  At this point we are kind of leaning toward keeping the Wyandotte male, the biggest of the Orpingtons and one other.  The one we hear crowing the most may just be advertising his willingness to become stew.  It seems that his favorite hobby is crowing.  All four crow but this one seems to be calling out to the crock pot.

The Wyandotte’s name was Sorpressa (Spanish for surprise).  When she was found to be a he it became Sorpresso (masculine).  We have decided to call the biggest Orpington Gandalf.   Gandalf protects his flock, is compassionate and gentle with the ladies and isn’t overtly noisy.  He even lets us pick him up.  The other two Orpington roos are noisy, rough and obnoxious.  Gandalf fits.

Da Eggs was Tasty!

Although the first eggs from the new girls were not much bigger than golf balls, they were very tasty! The yolks were practically rusty orange. Of course, if you have never had eggs right outta the bird’s butt you haven’t lived! We compared them to the organics we get at Whole Foods and the store boughts couldn’t come close in color and flavor. Fun!

What a surprise!  After over a week of bitter arctic weather, today was in the 50’s.  The waterers are thawed, the chickens were out in the sun, and……..  we have our first 2 eggs!

I put decoys in the nesting boxes to kind of show them where they should go to lay their eggs.  Right now we have 5 boxes (two more are built and in the barn waiting to be hung).  Each of the boxes had three of the ceramic decoys placed inside so it was quite easy to see if there were more.  Today there was!  The birds are right around 22 weeks old now and this puts them right on schedule.  They weren’t very big, in fact one was fairly small.  But they will increase in size as they get a big older.

I think the heat lamps gave them enough extra light that they started to develop their eggs.  We will see in the coming days if there are more or if this was just a one time shot!  But what fun to find your first eggs at the right time and in the right place!  JAZ Farm be havin’ eggs!

We have now survived the 3 nights of minus 10. No bird losses and only minor frost bite on a couple of the rooster’s combs. Even in this cold, the boys are gleefully engaging in Fen Hucking. The new jiggering of the water system has kept the water thawed in wicked cold. Zina and I went inside the coop to see what the conditions are really like in the cold and wind and it is surprisingly comfortable. No drafts. The girls are all roosting, the boys are strutting their stuff and we can hear them crowing all the way inside our house. JAZ Farm chicken ranch has been put through the paces and come out the other side with a gold medal! Woohoo!

Drove out to the farm this morning.  Car said it was -6. The birds had been left alone for a couple of days because of work and I was very nervous about their well being. When I pulled in they all came scurrying out to see me (of course I’m the guy with the corn too). None of them were any worse for wear. The roosters have a little bit of frostbite again, but since they won’ t let me catch them there isn’t much I can do.

The waterers were overwhelmed by the cold though. The heaters work fine but it is simply too cold. One of the biggest waterers, even though it was directly under two heat lamps was an ice brick. It is currently in the bath tub thawing. I quickly got some fresh water out to them (I imagine they’ve only been without for a day) but they all crowded around to get their fill. I moved another heated waterer out and will watch to see how it does. I’ve decided that I am staying out here until the cold spell breaks to a point where the heaters will do their job. In the mean time I will just haul water out there a couple of times a day.

They are some tough critters. They poof up like basketballs and huddle together on the roosts. All of that fluff and body heat seems to do them just fine. Farmer Juan was very happy to see them all doing well. Perhaps I am the nervous mother hen not them.