Chicken Harvest
September 10th, 2015 · No Comments · Posted in farming
We had postponed our September Freedom Ranger broiler slaughter till tomorrow on account of rain but the weatherman this morning moved the downpours to late this afternoon, so we’re on again. As I type this, I’m waiting for the water in our electric scalder to come up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. When it does, the fun begins.
Some of our customers like smaller birds, others larger. So we conduct the harvest over two weeks, meaning half the birds grow for 10 weeks, the other half 11 weeks. And within each week, we divide the harvest over two days, so we are never dealing with more than 12 or 13 birds on any given day. We can usually have the birds killed, plucked, eviscerated, weighed, bagged and labeled by noon.
The weather today is just right–overcast and in the 70s. We don’t particularly like butchering chickens under a blazing sun. And neither do the chickens.
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