Saturday, January 3, 2009

Home grown chicken soup

Last week dad came up with a plan for a new chicken tractor, and we slapped it together for around $120. I had a hand from a friend moving them in on new year's day. I've been letting them wander loose, but under a watchful eye recently. They are 6 weeks old, and getting big, but they are still smaller than the cats, and the cats aren't too afraid of them yet.

Today I walked away from the chickens while they were grazing on the compost heap. I spent about 30 minutes playing with a new water setup and then noticed a couple "sleeping" chickens in the field. Looks like one of the cats was acting out a slasher film with them. I thought I had tabs on the cats, but I must have missed one for a bit. I dunno; maybe I should put that cat on the payroll, since it saved me the trouble of killing the bird.

Well, I strung them up, popped off their heads, and plucked one without scalding. I started on the second, but tore part of the skin off, so just undressed it the rest of the way. Since the first one was a pretty bad pluck job, I undressed him too.

I took them inside at this point and removed feet, crop, neck, oil gland, and guts, in that order. Those tiny guys are hard to clean out. Tossed them in a pot whole and we'll have some Asian influenced chicken soup in an hour. Can't wait!