(Continued from Part 1.)
The following are the basic tools I use to harvest and butcher fowl:
- Large stainless steel bowl. I put several quarts of water in the pot (the amount of water varies on how many birds I am harvesting) to keep the meat from drying out and to help keep flies away if they are present. I also butcher where running water is easily accessible to wash my hands when necessary.
- Sharp knife. My preferred knife for cleaning and butchering is a medium-sized, antique, high-carbon steel butcher knife with a very thin blade. This knife is from the 1920s and does a fantastic job breasting and quartering because of its size and curved blade.
- Knife sharpener. Anyone who has ever butchered knows how fast knives can/will dull. This is true even with chickens. I use several different types of knife sharpeners, but the best, especially for my thin, high-carbon steel blades are ceramic sharpening rods, making a “V” shape that are inletted into a wood block. A few swipes at the correct angle make my blades razor sharp.
- Nails. As I previously stated, I hammered two, ten-penny nails into the stump. I use nails rather than screws for the sole reason that hammering the nails into the stump is easier with the back side of the axe instead of finding a drill or screwdriver. On occasion, a nail may come loose or need to be adjusted in width for a larger bird, like a turkey or duck.
- Shovel. This is for burying the carcasses. Nothing goes to waste.
- Axe. I use a two-pound wood splitting axe. I shortened the handle to eighteen inches which made the axe heavy enough to assist with chopping, yet short enough to easily handle and maneuver. Make sure the axe is sharp before you dispatch any fowl.
Incubating
About a year into having chickens, we decided to hatch our own chicks “to save money.” That was more chicken math. I bought my wife a twenty-four egg incubator for Valentine’s Day, (romantic, I know) and we saved the variety of eggs she wanted for about a week. If you do not wash your eggs, and keep them at room temperature, you can save eggs for about a week before incubating. I have used seven day old eggs in the past, with success, but I don’t want to risk spending three weeks incubating an egg that was past its prime when I started. Five-day old eggs are the maximum age for me to incubate.
When we started incubating eggs, I read the success rate for hatching was between fifty and seventy percent. Well, my first several incubation sessions had a one hundred percent success hatch rate. I started each batch with twenty-four eggs, and in twenty one days, I had twenty four chicks. Once they hatched, I moved them to a horse trough with a heat lamp in the barn where they stayed for a couple weeks until they had most of their feathers. After that, the pullets went into a chicken tractor I made until they were big enough to fend for themselves in the general population coop, roosters aside. I have found the pecking order is lessened by the older birds if an influx of newer, younger birds are introduced all at once. I am not sure if this is because the older birds are overwhelmed with whom to pick on, or if there is strength in numbers. Regardless, I have never had a new bird introduction go bad. The older birds get their pecks in here and there for a couple days and then they’re all cohabitating nicely.
After a few times of using the incubator, I got tired of the constant monitoring, the smell and the expense of running it and the heat lamp for several weeks after the hatch. That is when I dubbed the phrase, “never let a broody hen go to waste.” A broody hen does everything for you, rather for her chicks. Early on, I had some hens stay broody over two months, not laying that entire time. Instead of letting them sit and incubate eggs, I pushed them off the eggs daily, usually getting pecked in the process. Now, if a hen is broody and not super aggressive (allows me to pick her up without getting pecked), I let her sit on eggs until they hatch. I pick out the number of eggs I want to hatch and mark the egg(s) with a black Sharpie marking pen. I take the sharpie and draw two circles around the entire egg: one circle on top, one on the bottom. This way, no matter where the egg is sitting under the hen, I can see which eggs to grab and which ones to leave. Do not use a pencil because the markings will get harder to see the closer you get to hatching. You do not want to accidentally grab an egg that is about to hatch and sell it as a farm-fresh egg. Yes, I learned that lesson the hard way.
I never let a hen sit on more than seven eggs at a time. Each time I have a broody hen sit on eggs, I lose a couple to cracking from other eggs being laid on them. Sometimes, I have had overly aggressive broody hens start pecking the eggs if I am gathering the unmarked, fresh eggs under her. It’s almost a “if I can’t have them, no one can” response. In my experience, I generally lose about twenty to forty percent of the eggs I start with before hatching. Historically, I have never moved my broody hens sitting on eggs to a brooding box. The hens and eggs have always stayed in the general population chicken coop until all the eggs have hatched. (This year, I am building a brooding box and placing it in a separate area, away from all the other birds.) Once hatched, I move the mother and chicks to the mobile chicken tractor until the chicks are mostly feathered out. That’s when they go back to general population or being their free-ranging experience.
My phrase of “never let a broody hen go to waste” is not limited to a hen just sitting on eggs. It is also true for after the eggs hatch. A mother chicken, to me, is one of the most affectionate animals to watch. Instinctively, she starts mothering her chicks immediately. She shows them how to scratch and find food, where the water is and ensures the chicks are clean, warm and protected. When allowing a hen to care for the chicks instead of raising them under a heat lamp, you never have to worry about your electricity going out or a heat lamp bulb breaking possibly killing the chicks. You also never need to worry about the chick(s) getting “pasty butt”. Pasty butt is when the chicks poop attaches to and accumulates to the fluff around their vent effectively blocking the ability to poop in the future. A few days of pasty butt not being taken treated will kill the young bird. Once the chicks hatch with a hen, all I do is ensure they have food and water and then I am hands-off until it’s time to move them back to general population.
If I am raising chicks under a heat lamp, without a mother hen, and one develops pasty butt, I get a bowl of warm, not hot, water and a paper towel. I submerge the chick’s butt in the water for about a minute until the caked on feces is loosened. I then use the paper towel to gently wipe the built-up poop away. After all the buildup is removed, I immediately place the bird under the heat lamp to dry out and warm up.
This past summer was the worst survival rate of chicks that I have ever experienced. In July, I had a broody hen sitting on seven eggs. She ended up abandoning three eggs that were pipping (pecking the shell open) once four chicks had fully hatched and were wandering around. Over the next two days, this hen smothered two of the chicks while sleeping. Later in the summer, I incubated twenty four eggs and had eighteen hatch. After several weeks under the heat lamp, the birds were almost fully feathered, and with the warm nights, I put the birds outside, like I have done for years. Three days later, I came outside to feed them and ten of them were dead, lying all around. At first, I thought some animal, had gotten in and killed them. Upon further investigation, every single bird, dead and living, had giant lumps below their neck, above their breast. I had never seen anything like it. My wife, who previously worked at a veterinary clinic, told me this abnormally large bulge is called Impacted Crop (Croupe).
Impacted Crop is the result of overeating and the inability of the crop, gizzard, and digestive system to keep up with the amount of food being consumed. My chicks had literally eaten themselves to death. After some research, I placed the remaining chicks back in the horse trough, with a heat lamp and without food, only water. After thirty-six hours, not one bird had Impacted Crop. I placed the birds back outside, and that night, we had a freak cold snap which killed off all but two birds. Since the nights became unseasonably cool, I brought the remaining two back to the horse trough, with the heat lamp. After two weeks, I put them in the general population coop where they lived happily until a Cooper’s Hawk snatched one and my dog got the other. These lessons, though unfortunate, taught me a lot and showed me that unforeseen circumstances happen when you least expect them.
(To be continued tomorrow, in Part 3.)