Plucking Fools!

Before I get to the plucking, let's see what is new here. First of all I made the girls some new nesting boxes. I really liked the reach-through old ones but they kept laying outside in the bales of hay and anywhere else they found so I thought I'd build them something irresistible. So far so good, the Auracanas have stopped laying in the triangle and are now using these.

I built them out of crates we had around. First, because I had to build them myself cause Kevin was out brush hogging, I needed an easy way to affix them to the wall.

I saw these metal horse bucket holders laying around the barn. They were strong and already had holes them so I flipped them over sawed a two foot piece piece of plywood and laid it over them and voila, instant super strong platform to hold the boxes. Then, I screwed them to the wall and put a small piece of wood in the front to hold the straw and eggs in and then added a little strip for them to grab on to when they jump up. Then, with the piece leftover from the base I turned it so the letters were up, cause it looked funny, (the wood that I used was off a crate that was delivered to work) and screwed it above the boxes so they wouldn't roost on top and get everything all messy. Luckily, Kevin came in right then and held it for me at the perfect slant so I screw it in. Ahhhh, don't you love how the colors start to look in the fall?

Here is one of my new Maran hens that was given to us recently.




It's a bad picture but the eggs will be really dark like the one in the center.



Here is the current production we are having. I did not think the turkeys would start laying again, this late in the year. They just recently stopped being broody. We are getting a couple every day. I just sold a dozen to one of our customers. He loves how big they are. I also put some in an apple cake that I made today. It has a carmel glaze, yummy.
Here is another picture of the mama turkey. They are roosting in the crab apple tree. They get out of the fence almost every day and we have to run them back in. I don't think we will let them hatch their own next year, they are too wild and the babies are too. I have been working with them everyday, hand feeding them but they are still really stand-offish.

Check her out. She is one scary mama! A few days ago she finally hatched out her clutch of eggs. At first I was relieved cause there were only three or four babies. Well...not now, there is a grand total of 10! Exactly not what we need with winter coming. We are currently trying to cut our flock back, it is really hard to get rid of even one or two of my birds and now we have 10 more. Of course, they are all black, I guess Dominick's color comes through really strong.

At one point I had a really nice acorn squash plant (that is what it ended up being, Mike) it was huge and producing like mad. I had a fence around it but it quickly outgrew it and was growing wildly.
Here is what happens when a very large Narri tom turkey gets done clomping and pecking through it.

Yikes, what happened!

I am going to put the fence back up tomorrow!

This little turkey already thinks he's tough stuff! I think he needs to go visit my friend Eileen. And a couple of his co-horts too.



OK, back to the business of chickens and plucking

I was in charge of making the pattern for the killing cones. I copied it from this wonderfully well written book! Everything you need to know to be successful with processing your own chickens is either in this book or on his website.

Here is the page with the diagram and instructions for the cones.

But before getting started I needed some fortifying grub, so I had this jar of the best cherry jelly that I had gotten in Amish Country and popped two pieces of bread in the toaster and soon I was ready.

Yummmm. One of my all time favorites. Then I was ready, actually, now that I think about it, I was stuffed and felt kinda yucky. Should have stopped at one piece.
Here is my pattern all measured and drawn out.

Here is the cone. In the end they were kinda too weak. Either we should have had stronger aluminum or we just should have gotten some orange cones. We ended up having to use an orange cone because the metal ones broke. Now, you may be wondering why we had an orange cone laying around... funny story.

My friend and I were out to lunch at work and he was driving the car. Kevin didn't work that day so it was just us and i would rather concentrate on eating than driving so I asked him to drive. Well, he ordered a really nice sandwich at Burger King and ended up with the wrong thing.

He was traumatized when he bit into a whopper expecting instead a chicken sandwich. He and I were both trying to look at the sandwich to see what in the heck he had just eaten We were so intent on the sandwich that we didn't see the cones. All of sudden with a loud bang he ran over a bunch of them. He ran over them so hard that he jammed one way up under the car. The car was making so much noise that we had to pull over after we got away from the intersection and he crawled under the car, jerked the cone out and threw it into the back seat. I laughed til i cried.

Anyhooty, here is the set-up. Kevin made a frame for the sink and he put wheels on it so we could easily move it in and out of the barn.

And yes, those are wheel chair wheels. I have trying to get him to throw them out for months and he finally did throw out the wheel chair itself but would not part with the wheels because as you all know"I might need them for something"! Well, they work, kinda looks like a hot-dog cart to me though. His Dad will be proud.








Here is our chill tank, filled with ice it kept everything really cold. I'm glad you all didn't have to stick your arm two feet into that freezing water to gather up 40 chickens, it was cooooold! We could only grab a couple and then had to warm up our arms.

Our turkey fryer made a perfect scalder.

One very nicely plucked chicken. This one had a couple tail feathers left but most of the others were very cleanly plucked.

Up to my wrist in chicken guts. Actually, I was trying to get at the lungs. Next time I will get a lung scraper, it will be worth it instead of trying to dig in between the rib bones with my fingertips to get to the lungs, they're sticky little things. You can't really see in the picture but Kevin put up a screen between me and the killing cones, I couldn't watch.

Here are two lucky little meat birds. Kevin wanted to keep two of them, the one with it's head in the pan is a hen and we think the other is a rooster. We were hoping they were both hens but the one is looking like a he. He's got plans for them. I think he is hoping to get some eggs from the hen, if she lives that long. They are not known for their lifespan. He wants to cross her with Dominic. They are so friendly, and they have a lovely chirp, a little different than the layers. I've noticed that the Maran pullets that we raised have a little different sound that they make too.

I shall make every effort to post more often, I have received some comments that I wait too long but it takes something to inspire me to cause me to sit here for two hours and blog, sometimes longer when I make 50 million typos. (I had actually typed linger instead of longer, duh)

Til next time,

Beth

Our Whizbang Chicken Plucker!

We are building our chicken plucker. We need to process chickens this weekend. Feed prices are through the roof. Why we didn't build this thing a month ago I'll never know. Well, maybe because we were pressure washing, scraping, painting, digging, planting, feeding, watering, building and on and on. We have most of the parts, all Kevin needs to do is figure it all out. He's checking out the " Anyone Can Build A Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker " book. Well, almost all of the parts.

He is, at this very moment, at the farm store, which is a half an hour away, getting the bearings that he forgot to get when he went there an hour and a half ago. The reason that he forgot to get the only thing he went there for, was because he saw this really cool sign on clearance and he got it to surprise me! He was so worried that I wouldn't like it but I love it. I have to decide where to put it.

He left the store after he decided to get this for me and was so excited to give it to me that he forgot what he went there for...you gotta love it, at least I'm not the only one with a brain like a sieve.

Here's the beginning. Kevin took an old 55 gallon drum, scrubbed it to death and cut it to the exact size. He then drilled all the corresponding holes, after measuring circumference, dividing by something and adding something and subtracting something. All of which I'm not very good at. I love a man that can divide and figure circumference and all that stuff.

Then he had to put all the plucker fingers into the plucker finger holes.

You think it would be easy, it was not! See all the straining? First he tried using pliers then he just went after it with his hands.

I'm glad I got to be in the house doing women's stuff.

Next was the tub part, I think that was a little easier.


Then building the frame, more measuring, figuring and ciphering, I was in the house.

Look how easy he makes it look, frames all done. Then, he comes in the front door and tells me that he has a job for me...uh oh, and I'm all out of women's stuff to do.

Of course, I have to man the paint brush, no way to get out of that.

Nicely done, I thought to myself as I finished up but then later he comes in and tell me that when he was putting on the second coat he found two spots that I missed, not just spots but whole leg areas. Oops, my bad. I guess that will teach him, never ask a woman to do men's work. I say it was dark or maybe it was the sun in my eyes, actually, come to think of it, it was raining so I will go with the dark excuse.

We stopped at a second hand restaurant equipment store and found these bargains. On the bottom is an old stainless steel topped table from bakery, and on top of it is a stainless steel sink. You can't see the top of the table but it is stainless, bad picture but I didn't feel like moving the sink off of the table so you can just use your imagination. He is going to mount the sink somehow, more calculating and figuring, so I will take more pictures then.

This is my favorite, an old scale. It needs cleaned up a little but it will work fine, as long as we don't have any turkeys that weigh between 17 and 21 pounds.

Sorry guys, your days are numbered.



Not these guys though! Speaking of turkeys, look how cute the babies are! Mama had two under her wings.

One took off when it saw me.

Then Mama did too. She thinks I am a crazy person, always stalking them with my camera. I followed her around the shed and she slowly walked the babies over by Daddy.

You definitely don't want to mess with him.

The next post should be all about processing chickens, yuck! Hopefully my hands won't be too yucky to take pictures, and I am going to, all the gory details. But not of the killing. I want to put up a curtain so I won't have to watch, I'm feeling a little panicky just thinking about it. And I'm serious about the curtain, He will never go for it though.

How am I going to tell him, he will think I am such a wimp but I don't think I can watch. I have avoided taking care of the meat birds as much as possible. This morning I did feed them though, all the time thinking "this may be your last meal". (sob, sniffle) I couldn't look them in the eye.

(As a side note, one time I was stuck on the freeway in bumper to bumper traffic and I was right next to a semi full of chickens, it had those panels with the holes in them that you can see through. It was terrible, the poor chickens kept looking at me. I felt so bad for them cause I knew they were going to their death. I tried so hard to keep away from that truck but the traffic would slow and then speed up and I would be right beside it again. Horrors, it went on for about an hour!)

Oh my. I hope he doesn't read this, he will think I should stop being a farmer. He keeps teasing me that we need to cull some of our layers that aren't producing. Every day I practically run in the house and say "LOOK AT ALL THESE EGGS!" We hatched all kinds of eggs this spring and summer so all day I walk around looking at the chicks and muttering to them "you better hope you're a hen", worried for them. I have a really sweet one that is so friendly but I think it's a rooster but Kevin says we can keep him or maybe her, the jury is still out on that one. Until it crows, we won't know absolutely for sure.

I am so tired of typing, my neck is killing me so that's it for now, need to go out and take more "plucker in the making pictures" anyway. (Plus, the pizza just got here! Yeah!)

Beth

UPDATE: It works!

Baby Turkeys, Meat Birds and Flowers

I was able to catch the moms with the babies in the short grass and got to film them for a couple minutes until the entourage of miscellaneous farm yard birds followed me and scared them off into the high grass. I go back and peek at them almost every half hour. They look exactly the same every time I look but now the moms think I'm a stalker and walk away when they see me coming.

It's Sunday morning and I am doing laundry and blogging. I feel guilty if I don't blog but I don't feel guilty if I don't do laundry. What's up with that?

Last night when I went into the laundry room to start, I flipped on the light and no light. I asked Kevin to put in a new bulb because he can reach it and I have to go and get a chair and yada yada. When he reached up to unscrew it it came on, only loose bulb, problem solved. Anyhoo, this morning when I flip it on, as mentioned before, no light so I wiggled it and it came on. Not loose bulb, bad fixture, another can of worms altogether.

So I would wiggle, light comes on, two seconds later, light off, and on and on til I gave up and did laundry in the almost pitch dark. Go get a lamp you say? I am trying to get this blog done and don't have time to go get a lamp especially when I am obsessed with all the birds outside and check on them constantly. So I blindly put clothes in the washer. White stuff with dark stuff, colors with whatever. Not important, it's laundry, I don't care. Right now I'm not really sure what's in there, I think it's the kids beach towels and some jeans.

I don't have any fancy clothes at all, I had to go out for dinner Friday night and had not even a nicer T-shirt to wear, looked everywhere too. It was either wear the T-shirt that has the Piggly Wiggly logo on it or one of the kids' Halo 3 shirts. I opted for one of my = sleeveless T's that wasn't too wrinkled form off my shelf.

So, back to the blog, I need to focus. If I could type faster this would be 10,000 words longer.

Yesterday I walked around and took some random photos as I typically do when my camera is working and here are a few shots of what's doing at my house.

I have planted a passion flower at the base of the trellis, can't wait for it to grow, hope it gets big enough to bloom this year.

Here is the ever watchful Dominick and his girls.

One of my young Narragansett turkeys. They are the most beautiful birds. If all goes as planned we will have Narri poults for sale next spring.

Behind him is my Palm tom. Someone pulled out all his tail feathers so he looks funny strutting. Actually, he has not stopped strutting since he started last spring. The Bronze tom does not strut at all now, just follows this one around all day.

My Palm hen sitting on a clutch. She thinks I can't see her if she hides her head.

My broody Orpington hens. Don't even try to get an egg out from under these two. One of them bruised my hand one day. It's Kevin's job to collect eggs from this spot. We have marked 10 eggs and left them under them. We just take any new ones.

A pretty reflection on the pond.

I'm not sure if I put in a picture of my swing before or not. This is where I found the two clovers.

The meat birds. They are always very hungry! It's actually kinda scary.

My favorite Rhode Island Red hen. Her name is Red, not very original but for some reason it fits her.

I carry her around the like this whenever I am out by the chicken house. We both love it. If I pet her, especially under her wing, she goes to sleep.

The flowers by the pond.

(I just heard distress peeping coming from the front room and had to go check and there was a newly hatched poult. This is the fifth one to hatch from this group. I can't wait until they're done. We only have a few more to go.)
The bigger picture.
My Snow in Summer, one of my all time favorite perennials.


Daylilies, I love these colors.


An old favorite.
Some sort of weed but looks pretty.
Another sort of weed, the noxious type!
My poor pampas grass, not doing so good.
Really happy Black Eyed Susans.

Now it's time to go fumble around in the dark again and then I think I will have to go out and check on the baby turkeys!

See y'all,

Beth