ilultham

###This post contains photos of dead animals and meat prep### With the Avian Flu lock down yesterday we decided at the weekend to thin our flocks a little bit with a few birds that were going off to go to freezer camp.  The girls have their favourites! No way were these going to the freezer! We had two cockerels (Legbar and a Maran) from a small hatch we did in the summer, leaving us with two layers and two silkies from that hatch. And three ducks - all drakes - to leave us with what is a breeding trio from two sources so next year any that hatch should be unrelated.  The girls had made me promise that this was a weekend job so they could help with the prep. I was utterly impressed with them, they know the process and just get on with the job in hand, 'The only bit they struggle with is the wings and tail feathers, other than that their birds are plucked as good as mine.  They get involved with the gutting of the birds now as well - I know plenty of adults that can't do t...

 In the last post I talk about processing a few of our Indian game hens for meat. One was a bantam and a respectable 1.3kg. But as they say the proof is in the eating - so on Sunday we had a little roast chicken for tea.  We spatchcocked the bird to reduce cooking time. This isn't the first bantam we've eaten this year, earlier in the summer we had six young bantam cockerels that were spending their days fighting and worse so we ended up having them for a BBQ. the lightest weighed in at 330g but we all had one each for our tea and it seemed far better than wasting them.  This bantam was on a different level - the others were more like eating a quail whereas this had some good meat on it. It fed all five of us, but the bones were picked clean by the end!  One thing I really love is the difference in leg meat and breast meat - the light and the dark. Unlike supermarket birds (or even home raised Ross Cobbs to a certain extent) you can really see the difference in two m...

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 s...