Well, five of the roosters are cooling in the fridge. I plucked about three of them...or was it four? I was finishing up chores when my dad arrived this morning and he got one done and started on the second one before I was ready to help. Then I had to run into the house a few times to switch laundry and heat water and such, and rinse and cool and bag the chickens. But I am proud to say that I managed all that plucking without so much as one flip-flop of my stomach. I learned an important lesson last year when doing my very first plucking (two turkeys....didn't finish the second one as I would've lost my breakfast) and that was to hold my breath! At least mouth breath. Don't take a whiff of wet bird while plucking.
I'd meant to get some citrus-scented dish soap for the scalding water and some Vick's Vaporub for under my nose, but of course I forgot. Hence the nasal tones in my speech this morning.
When I got the roosters out of the coop last night and put them into the dog cage, I comforted each one, told him how beautiful he was, and thanked him. I took each into the well-lit goat's stall to inspect him and make sure he was a he and not a precious future-egg-laying pullet. There was one that I was not quite sure of.
When dad showed up, I was milking, and I called out to him to check each chicken before killing it to make sure it wasn't a pullet. It was dark last night, after all! When I was in the house, filtering the milk, I saw him approaching with a brown chicken in his hands. He came into the kitchen and called from the doorway...is this a pullet? I called back....is it dead? Because if it is, it doesn't matter!
It was so still, I thought it was dead already. It wasn't. We went out into the sunlight and inspected all the rooster points: hackle feathers....pointy or roundish? Hmmm....could be either. Saddle feathers? Those look kinda like saddle feathers to me. Sickle feathers on the tail? Well, these look straight, but those two are starting to curve....Big comb? Nope. Definitely barely a comb.
We decided to give him/her a reprieve. If it crows in the next few weeks, it will be processed with the meaties. Meanwhile, enjoy life, buddy, and for goodness sakes, try to squeeze out an egg or two. If you know what is good for you.
I put all the backs and necks right into the stock pot and the rest is parted up and aging in the downstairs fridge. I'll be filling up the Dutch oven on Sunday for a big Sunday dinner! Maybe a couple of pot pies will be made this week, too. Five pastured chickens. Yum.
Oh.....something very interesting! Our land was owned some years ago by someone who owned some kind of machine shop in the next town over. We were told that he illegally dumped the metal waste in the back of this property, and when it was sold (before us) many, many dump trucks were seen coming out of the back loaded with metal shavings and scraps. We still find a lot of bits of stainless steel....curly shavings and bits of what looks like little tubes and pipes all over the pasture. Now and then, not all the time. And there are piles of rusted metal in the swamp. It looks like barrels of rusted metal bits were dumped and maybe the barrel rusted away over the years...it was hard to identify at first, not knowing what it was.
Well, today, I tried not to look into the offal bucket but, well, you know how it is....a quick glance. I spotted what I thought was a small shiny socket from a set. I pointed it out to my dad. He picked it out from among...oh, nevermind, it is too gross....it was just a small bit of metal tube/pipe, but it was filled with gizzard contents. Closer inspection of the gizzard contents revealed many bits of stainless steel in amongst the pebbles and grass and other stuff normally found in a gizzard. The chickens are cleaning up my pasture soil! And using it as grinding grit in their gizzards! How strange.
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