Women Of The Dirt

The Yucky Part! Part 4

Gutting.  I don't like the gutting part and if I had to gut my own birds, I am not sure that I would raise them.  I shall always endeavor to have a gutter in my life!  On the other hand (were screaming yellow rubber gloves, but that's beside the point here), there were plenty of women and children here willing and ready to tackle that job! 

Tamara arrived with a taco platter in hand from the local fast food joint.  That just cracked me up.  She cracks me up!  Here we are, a group of women wishing to grow wholesome food for our families and she arrives with her kidlets and fast food.  She's also the one who brought a can of whipping cream to a gathering.  We have so many women who milk their own cows and we could have FRESH whipped cream and she brings a can of it.  I had lots of fun with that one.  I promptly ripped the lid off and squirted some in my mouth.  When the kids came in to eat and some of the moms went outside, I started squirting it in their mouths and told them not to tell their mothers!    Taco platter aside, Tamara went to work gutting.  She's very careful in the "dissection" process and shows the kids the various identifiable parts.  It was a great learning experience for them.  When she was gutting a duck she screamed, "I think I just found the quacker!"  Sure enough there was a very hard, transparent part of the duck that we were certain helps them make their quacking noise.  One kid wanted her to pop it.  It looked like you could, but it was as hard as a rock.

The gutting table!

A couple of serious gutters!

Now mind you, this was a cool, October day and with all of the trees in our yard, not a lot of sun was shining on us.  When I snapped these pictures Gracie's comment was, "Ooohhhhhhh!  It's nice and warm in there!"  She was happier than a pig in slop!

A WOTD in training?  I think she's almost there!

I do feel that the enthusiasm of the kids is a direct result of the enthusiasm of their moms!  It was amazing to me to see how they all jumped in to do the necessary steps of processing these birds for their freezers.  I did warn Tamara, however.  I told her to enjoy these times.  My daughter, who is 24, won't have a thing to do with butchering chickens.

Howdy,

08:24, Thursday, October 29, 2009 .. Posted by Vickie

We have butchered some of our chickens before. Not a pleasant thing to do, but it is a necessary thing to do if you want good, fresh, healthy meat for your family.
Good luck with your endevours.

Absolutely enjoying your series!

10:46, Thursday, October 29, 2009 .. Posted by atchie1

We did 43 white rock x meat birds in July and just did all (except for Oscar, lol) of the roosters of our dual purpose flock. We kept the 20 hens as layers. We don't behead ours ... pop them into the killing cones and junior nicks the jugular and then hubby scalds and plucks (with the plucker). As for the gutting ... that's my job ... while princess does the final clean up on any missed pinfeathers and gets them into the water before packaging.

I have to say though ... I absolutely couldn't agree more on your views of the chicken plucker!!!!! I wouldn't imagine doing that many birds without it. Our family of 4 can get 40 large chickens (10-12 lb each) from "foot to freezer" in under 3 hours.