The Judgement is In

So today was rooster sentencing day, and no they didn't get a fair trial and I'm afraid the sentence is death.

We butchered 6 roosters today four of which are destined for the soup pot, while two will either be roasted or fried.. maybe grilled. I did learn a couple things from this batch of birds. First, I had read a number of times about how it is easier to skin your birds instead of plucking them. Yeah... personally? For me skinning them took twice maybe three times as long to do. The biggest problem is the feathers got in the way of me seeing where to run my knife to remove the skin.

The second thing I learned is that turkens are easy to pluck. It took almost no time for me to get the feathers off the body of it. Even better the skin doesn't look like it had the feathers in it over half the body. It was also the largest of the birds after butchering and it was one of the youngest ones we butchered.

Silver is going to make some home made stock from four of them and the feet from the birds (well the feet that were healthy, two of the Leghorns had sores on them). The feet have a lot of cartilage on them and some fat(s), it is simple to clean the feet too once you learn how. You boil some water, take the water off the fire/burner and drop the feet in the pot. Now you take them out one at a time and starting at the nails pop the sheathe off the nail and start peeling the top layer of scales off. As you go to the leg joint it gets more difficult but it is easier to start at the claws.

My biggest problem with these birds (I got them for free so it's only a half assed complaint), is most of them have had feet problems. Two of the white leghorns we got had feet that couldn't grip the pearches, couldn't grip at all and they had sores in the “palms” of the claws. The guinea fowl we had had one badly broken leg that healed wrong. There is a brown leghorn hen who has no toes. These were all in the birds we got for free last fall. Bothers me a bit they were like that. I'm just glad that they are living here now, so they have good lives till they wind up in my stock pot!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...