Dealing with Chickens - Slaughter and Wing Clipping

Too many roosters. This tends to happen when breeding your own chooks but this time the excess was due to bringing in new blood - two young roosters acquired through the Snowy Mountains Poultry exchange. A third excess rooster was an old Barnevelder due to be replaced by his virile and beautiful son!

I am a beginner at chook butchery but I have found that using a killing cone make the dispatching easier - as long as the knife in use is sharp enough. The blood can drip out and the twitching stop without having to be near the carcass. 

 After this the bird is hung up in the shed before being dunked in very hot water. I have an old copper that does a great job at heating up water quickly and so a few seconds dip and the feathers are ready to come out quicker and easier. The feathers smell wet and can tend to stick to your hand or glove but it is an efficient way to pluck.

After plucking I cut off the wings at the elbow, the tail, the head and the lower legs before gutting. Again I need a sharper knife but the process is gradually getting easier.

Once the three roosters were processed I placed them in ice cold water for a couple of hours before putting them in the bottom of the fridge for at least 48 hours. This is supposed to remove at least 80% of the rigour and help make the bird more tender. The first chooks I butchered were placed straight in the freezer and proved almost inedibly tough. This time I hope it works better.

The replacement roosters needed to be introduced to their pens of hens. First however I needed to clip one wing to keep them grounded. The only feathers that need to be cut are the eight primary ones - at the point where the secondary feathers start. I use a stout pair of scissors that I keep in the shed. I think they were once dressmakers scissors.

The primary feather removed.

The primary feathers on the other side.

Rescuing a cow that is 'down' and won't get up

Hailey the Jersey house cow is a bit on the small side. Apparently we weaned her too soon after we picked her up from a dairy farm at one and a half days old. Now she is four years old and heavily pregnant with her second calf. After her last calf we milked her for fourteen months before drying her off. She hadn't become pregnant so it was back to the start. Eight and a half months later she is heavy and weak from the weight of her Hereford calf and from living in poor paddocks. Our very dry summer and autumn have taken their toll and her daily feed of grain, chaff and beef nuts have not been enough for her. 

So last night she had a big feed of lucerne hay and sat down to rest. Then, for the first time in ages, it poured. Hailey became cold, wet and tired. By the morning she couldn't rise and the weight of her calf on her back legs sent them to sleep. She had a few attempts to rise but with no success.

When I found her this morning she couldn't stand. I consulted my brains trust of local cattle producers and they all told me that she must get up today or her legs would never recover.

The pressure was on, literally. First we tried some molasses to get her sugar level up and give her some energy. Then we applied a 'flopack' - an intravenous injection of calcium, glucose, magnesium and phosphorous. These are available from the local feedstore and should be stored in the fridge. The one we used was eight years out of date but it was all we had. The bag has to brought up to body temperature by immersing in a bucket of hot water. Once warm enough it is injected into the subcutaneous fat in several places, but mainly in the neck or ribs area.

She still didn't rise, but we were advised to allow two hours for the pack to work its magic. We also needed to administer a second one in about three to four hours. Being a Saturday afternoon our local supplier was closed but by a miracle the manager called into the office just as I rang on spec. He would leave a fresh Flopack at the cafe over the road and charge it to me on Monday. Luck and local knowledge was on my side. A quick dash into town and I was ready for the next attempt.

First we took the crate off the stock crate and carried it over to where she lay. Then we passed straps under her body behind her forelegs and in front of her back legs. These were tied to the crate on one side and to a ratchet tie-down strap or winch on the other. We slowly raised her to her feet but she was not helping and remained weak-legged. A third strap behind her hips helped get her up onto her back legs and a fresh strap on the front finally got her high enough. 

By this time it was dark and under headlights we encouraged her to put her weight on her feet which finally she did. We then put the door back on the crate and administered the fresh flopack into both side of her neck. For about twenty minutes she stood still on her legs and we gradually eased off the pressure on the straps. After completely loosening them we gave her ten minutes more before we opened the gate and led her out. 

An hour earlier we had nearly given up but she was up on her feet and walking about. I led her into her paddock and under the trees where some lucerne hay and a water trough awaited her. Half an hour later she was still on her feet. Hopefully she will be walking in the morning and the crisis will be over. Lessons learnt in keeping up the nutrients and the molasses while in late pregnancy. Many thanks to our wonderful neighbours who helped with advice, straps and winches.

A useful Wwoofer - the sealed in shearing shed!

Our shearing shed has been a fair while in the construction. First we advertised for an old shed to pull down. We found an almost collapsed shed on a friend's farm and several weeks of dismantling scored us the materials. Then stumps were put in, floor joists and a frame of old round timber was built. These were notched together to make them strong and clad in old tin. Last January we put the roof on and now the shed is ready to be sealed in.

The final wall had to be clad with tin. The only tricky part was that it was about four metres off the ground. While building there had been a temporary platform across the open part of the shed. I could use this to make the frame for the top of the wall and then I had to dismantle it so that the tin could be fixed from the outside. The topmost screws were a challenge but a long ladder with a wwoofer on the bottom made it safe.

Having a wwoofer who was a furniture maker who came with lots of tools meant that hanging the final few doors and windows was a breeze. The job was probably far more professional than I would have done. With a new back door and four windows in, finally the birds and most of the draughts are excluded. Now we can plan the final touches before we use it.

Oh for a Wwoofer - fencing projects

After 15 months without a Wwoofer, Andre from France comes for a week. Not only is he keen and hardworking but he comes with a car full of tools and a keenness to use them. So it was time for those projects that required two people and some skills in using hammers and screws etc. My new orchard for dwarf apples, pears and cherries has been planted with the trees, had posts and rails fitted for the cage and tin dug in and screwed on. 

The tricky part is to put up the wire on the walls by myself. So with Andre in residence in our retro caravan it was time to tackle this job. First we rolled out the wire on one side and then hung it up on partially screwed in roofing screws. Then we rolled out the next side until we had it loosely placed on three sides. We stretched it tighter and overlapped the corners. Due to the fact that the orchard is sloping downhill and the posts are upright there was a flap in each bottom corner that had to be cut and secured to the post with staples. 

It came up well and looks smooth and secure. 

Next we concreted the door sill. The plan is to keep some guinea pigs in the orchard once it is caged. It is important that no animal can dig its way in or out. The door is recycled from an old shearing shed so it has a solid metal sheet on one side. This will help keep the dogs from looking in and salivating over the guinea pigs. Only the roof to go before it is a protected space for the trees to grow away from the parrots and the cockatoos.

The final job for Andre and I was to build  a fence across one of the chook pens - effectively halving the space but making a new pen. By using extra long star pickets and an old stay to support the door jamb it only meant one major hole to dig - for the post in the middle. Now I just have to build a new chookhouse and a separate flock can be established. 

Oh for a WWoofer  when there are projects to be done. A big thank you to Andre who was a very helpful and competent assistant as well as a pleasure to spend time with.

Harvesting and Processing - the autumn rush is nearly over

Autumn is really here when it is time to press the apples. This year most of our own apples were spoilt by fruit fly. This has never been a problem in the past but the fly population has grown with some local orchards being left to rot. If there are some heavy frosts then the flies will die off and the problem may be less next year.

So the solution is to collect roadside apples. There are always a lot to choose from and this year I collected thirteen boxes. This meant that we could fill our 30 litre barrel for cider and have plenty of spare juice to give to some friends who came to help and some for the kids to drink straight u

This is the press that we borrow each year. It is an old Swiss model which does the whole process in two stages. First the apples are chopped up with blades that are turned using the wheel on the front of the press. Then the chopper is removed and the actual press swung over the barrel of apple pieces. This is turned with the handle at the top until the juice drips out through the base. 

This year we put the pulp through a second time which increased the volume of juice by about half again.

This summer we have had plenty of tomatoes. These have been combined with our zucchini, garlic and basil to make a sauce. The bottles of sauce were then sterilised in the Vacola and stored in the pantry. Seventy two bottles at last count. There are also jars of peaches, plums and stewed apples.

One of the final big harvest is the Jerusalem artichokes. We have one bed - about 3m by 1m. Each year we try to completely clear it. The next year there is a bumper crop to harvest. This year was by far the biggest with two full feed sacks and a large bucket - about 50kg. 

We don't eat them but after a day ignoring them the pigs start to enjoy the nutty earthy flavour. This supplements their feed for a couple of weeks at a time when they are putting on a lot of weight.

Autumn is certainly a time to celebrate the fecundity of nature and put aside some of the food that will make winter taste better!