Windy Meadows Hatchery

[123RedBeard]

Domestic dogs should respond quite well to over 4k on their nose!

If it hasn't rained recently ... Also dump out the waterer's on the ground rod. . . Or bring an extra bucket...

 

[Tnic]

I hope 45k will do the job, I know I don't wanna test it. lol I can likely get it hotter if I can get all the sags out.

 

[Molpet]

How are they doing? When is processing day? Interested in dressed weights

 

[Tnic]

They're dumber than a bag of hammers, but no casualties. As Joel Salatin has said many times, they ain't very bright but they know all they need to be successful chickens.

They're ready to process, but moving took top billing. We'll start culling the bigguns, I think, next weekend if my brother & SIL can come help out. Good think about live meat is it won't spoil on ya so no rush to run em all thru for now.

 

[Tnic]

Processing day!
My Brother, his wife, Me & my wife banged out 20 birds in about 2.5 hrs. We took a few birds to get the hang of it, but then we cruised on to victory. I used a wheel barrow to load 4 birds at a time. 1 Cone, a turkey frier scalder (we used the basket) and a Vevor plucker worked out well.

I did get a poop shower right in the face on the last batch of 4, but remembered Joel Saltin's advise. 1) keep mouth closed. 2) If ya feel somethin on yer lip, don't lick it. Got my faced washed off and soldiered on. Needless to say it IS a messy process and that shower felt really good.

We're gonna keep em on ice till Tuesday then shrink bag half and break the rest down. There'll be at least two whole birds going in the BBQ (low & slow) this week then most of that broke down and vac bagged.

We're very pleased with Windy Meadows. No early casualties, but one bird died over night last week. No injuries that I could see, and no signs of predator intrusion. Just a random death I suppose.

Ok the numbers. I weighted 4 random birds and got avg Live of 7.46 lbs and dressed at 6.2 lbs

 

[Tnic]

DAY 2!

My bride & I processed another 15 birds yesterday (tues 8/14) and I got dressed wts for 7 this time. We culled the largest on Sunday so this batch is running smaller.
Avg dressed wt with a 7 bird sample came to about 5.2 lbs this time.