Processing Purebreed Chickens - Indian Game

The children and I processed three of our chickens the other day. These were the purebreed Indian game cockerels - two full sized birds and one bantam. 

I decided it made sense to do it after some canning so the hot water from the water bath could be used to scald the chicken for plucking. 

As usual the kids get stuck in straight away. We had a bit of a rain show half way through but the kids are getting pretty good at this job now. In the time it took me to pluck two birds they had done one - I'd call that some good help! 

They seem to really understand the process now and know just what to do. They have no fear of any stage of it. 

We finished off inside, gutted them and kept them as whole birds to rest in the fridge for a few days. 

I was pleased with the size of the birds - the large fowl came out at about 2.69kg each and the bantam was an impressive 1.3kg. 

Looking forward to eating these! Hopefully we'll be able to do a few more of these now we have some flocks set up for breeding. Two have been vacuumed packed for the freezer and the bantam has been eaten - more on that in another post!