Farmish Update

My goodness, I forget how busy it gets in May.

Hubby has been working late nights - he got home at 11 pm one night!

Sir Loin is doing well. He began to munch grass during his daily exercise (MY daily exercise?) last week, though I didn't let him eat much. I need to refresh my reading on calf bloat and all that... We had a guy from church come help us with a little project... Sir Loin has lost his manhood, earlier than I'd originally planned. We decided it might be best to do that while he was still small enough to manage easily (?), considering we have no idea what we're doing. The procedure went well; it's amazing what you can learn on YouTube.

We've had remarkable success with our broilers this year - up until this weekend. I built a floorless pvc/chicken wire pen for the bigger broilers, and put them in the garden, with new grass each day. Found one dead on Saturday, and two dead this morning. I hate losing big fat (expensive) birds... We had some severe weather hit Saturday evening, and again Sunday afternoon. Perhaps they were smothered in the effort to be sheltered/warm or ??? Still ahead of where we were last year, and I even have enough to sell a few - and a very willing buyer, once I can figure out a proper price!

One hen (a black australorp, I think) is setting on a nest (tucked behind the former kitchen sink, up against the broken greenhouse, naturally). I saw it today when she came out to eat, and from my view it seems they might be mostly smaller eggs. We don't really have any pullets, but someone is laying small eggs.. I'm interested to see what hatches!

I have a lead on a milk cow... (!) My stomach turns a bit in thinking of it. Where would we put it? How would it live? Where would we milk it? HOW would we milk it? We have a few ideas and options, but nothing as straightforward and workable as "a barn." Then I thumb through my 200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipes Book and get excited again. :)

Hubby's work let us use the backhoe when it was in the neighborhood. We have a hole, and a pole stuck in it! Now to wire in the meter base, get it inspected, get power, power the pump, set up the pipe, attach the sprinklers, and irrigate the pasture! (then what...?!?)

I have done almost *nothing* in the garden, except break the push mower. It's been such a wet, cool spring, and the grass and weeds area already knee-high in there! We do have chives, and some self-sown lettuce, cilantro, and parsley showing up. We prepped the carrot box (raised bed) but haven't planted. Today and tomorrow are cool and windy; maybe we'll get it planted soon.

In addition to the push mower, the rest of the house is also falling apart.

• The ignitor on the pellet stove is haywire (causing circuit overload if we try to use it). Hubby starts it with a propane torch or something, when we need it (how absurd is it to need a pellet stove in May?!). 
• The dishwasher broke on Mother's Day, and I've spent a week trying to hunt down parts, hoping we have figured out the problem (ribbons aren't dishwasher safe. Rocks, chicken bones, apricot pits, cherry seeds - those are all fine.). I ordered parts online today; MUCH cheaper than any local option (who also would have had to order them). 
• My favorite stove burner has been dead about 2 weeks now. Haven't even had time to *figure out* how to pull it apart, let alone fix it. We seem to be using some part of that appliance every time Hubby is present :) 
• Several plug-ins in the kitchen have stopped working. It's obviously an entire circuit, but the breaker isn't tripped.
• The faucet at the rear of the house is wonky. If you turn it off too much, it turns back on. Getting it "off" just right is tricky. We have a new faucet, but... haven't installed it yet, of course. :]
• The hydrant in the backyard isn't working right. Not sure if we have to dig up the whole thing or what, but getting water to the calf and other things is getting complicated back there!

These things aren't broken, really, but they need worked on:

• Part of the garden fence still needs lined with chicken wire. I was working on this when wind, rain, and hail pelted me until I was wet to my underwear. No fun, but I stayed to keep the chickens from drowning. :P
• The field fence hasn't been worked on in a couple weeks. Nice for backhoe access, but not very helpful in the long run. We've set the gate and gate support-stuff, but actually that's the only place that you *can't* enter from that side. :) I need to get the fencing pliers and go to work during naptime...
• I need to build another pvc pen for the next batch of chickens. I'm cannibalizing the greenhouse structure for the pvc, and we bought corner-connector things and glue. This one will be 24" high, so turkeys might live in it eventually (first one is 18" high).

Whew! If I don't post here often, you'll know why! :)

Broiler Feeders

We've had trouble with getting enough feed into the broilers after a certain age. I saw a how-to post on some like these (I can't find the blog! She seemed lovely, like someone I'd like to be in another life, but she is lost to me..), so I decided to try my hand...

First I had Hubby detour into the field so we could load a busted piece of gated pvc-pipe into the truck. Then I asked him where he put my tools when he borrowed them (I'm a little bit kidding. Barely.). :) I cut the pipe at about 4-feet, did a very poor job of it too, and then found some scrap lumber to do the ends.

Hubby used some electrical conduit for the handles, and then I had him saw a rib out of the shredded greenhouse, hoping it would slide over the conduit with enough space to 'spin' so the birds can't roost on it. As it turned out, it was a bit too snug a fit, but the conduit seems to spin a bit in the wooden holes of the ends, so He screwed the pvc to the conduit, which keeps the conduit from sliding too far left or right and out of its spot entirely.

So far so good!

Broiler Setup

I think we have the perfect broiler chicken brooder for our situation. We have brooded them in big circular rings (they say it's better to have no corners, so they can't pile up and suffocate), on the floor of our squarish hoophouse, and even in cardboard boxes or wire rabbit cages, when some have needed separation. 

Two years ago I was pregnant with Baby, and *really* didn't want to deal with critters anywhere near the floor. I begged Hubby to let me cover the Green Monster with a tarp, or a roof, or something shelter-ish. He did not seem willing. :) I came up with several other ideas, and he finally acquiesced (loudly and violently, if I recall) and fashioned this setup for me:

April 2011 Broilers

This is the bedliner of his small Toyota pickup, propped up on some wooden frame things (oops, Big Sister sat on one corner and collapsed one. No chickens were harmed, but we've "upgraded" to buckets and cinder blocks on that end). The 'tailgate' area (foreground) is framed in with some scrap lumber, and the whole thing sits in our chicken multipurpose hoophouse. There is enough room to walk along the right side of the bedliner, and to stand between it and the door (as I was to take the photo). There is room underneath for extra woodshavings and feed, if you keep it off the ground. Heat lamps hang at appropriate height from the wire 'rafters' of the roof.

I really love this. It's a back-saver, and we've brooded up to 50 chicks at a time (I think it could handle more, but we can't. :) ). We have 35 in there now, and have switched to a larger feeder and waterer since they're 2 weeks old and considerably larger than they were in that photo! We use 125 watt bulbs instead of the 250. We don't do enough chicks at once to worry about a major heat source; with this setup everyone can cozy into the light and heat if they want to.

One downside to this setup is that at about 2 weeks of age, the chicks can and will hop up to higher vantages, and sometimes end up on the floor. It is helpful to have small, limber children upon whom you can call to rescue such vagabonds.

Extra shavings can be added as needed (you don't want to let a 'crust' of manure build up) and at the end of the season we take down the lights and quite literally roll the house away. We lift up one side and roll the hoophouse over on it's roof so we can dump the shavings into the garden. :) The kids think it's great fun.

This year we have one more week before our next batch of chicks arrives. I aim to have a nice floor pen ready for these by then, and I'm praying the weather will be appropriate to have them outdoors (it has not  come even close so far, and the week's weather forecast is not encouraging). Based on reading I've done, I'm NOT going to clean and bleach this brooder, but rather put another layer of shavings in and put the new chicks on top of that. :) We'll see how it goes.

Broiler Feed

On Thursday, I made an interesting observation. I checked the broiler chicks (still 35!) and fed them. We are feeding them with two quart jar feeder things (like these, but galvanized instead of plastic), and they were both all but empty.

Before my azure order arrived, and after the feed store ran out of non-medicated starter, I bought some organic starter. Organic though it may be, it was the standard corn/soy ration. Within a day or two I'd picked up my azure order, including 100 lbs of organic starter from Magill Ranch. I ordered a bit of this last year, and was impressed with the 'food-like' appearance of the feed (imagine that, food that looks like food...). Last year's had obvious bits of green split peas, the orange/white bits of crab meat, whole grains... Looked almost edible. This year I don't notice the crab (could be because it's too tiny in the starter. I might be remembering the bigger feed), and the peas are yellow. I filled the jars half/half each when I fed them Tuesday night, and on Thursday I filled one with the corn/soy starter (that looks like chicken feed - fairly grayish brown crumbles) and the other with the no corn/ no soy starter.

The chicks weren't ravenous, most were napping in a corner, but a few curious birds came around as I freshened their water. I took the opportunity to count and make sure all were there, and stood and watched them for about 15 minutes. I was very surprised at what I saw.

The chicks ate the Magill Ranch starter. There are about 8 little 'holes' around the base, from which they eat, but eventually twice that were gathered around, fighting for their place at the trough. Occasionally a back-row bird would turn and notice the other feeder, right under his beak, look askance at it, and go back to pecking the castoffs from the real-food starter. The entire time I watched, though it was crowded, not one chick ate from the corn/soy feed. They'd skirt the feeder, make their way to the water, then pass by it again before elbowing their way to the preferred stuff.

I was really amazed. I can't say why they did that; maybe it tastes better, or meets their nutritional needs better, or they, like me, really like MEAT and know that soy is bad for you. :) The feed store stuff might well have been on the shelf for ages (I asked, the lady said they don't sell much of it or the non-medicated starter), and perhaps that is a factor. In any case, I certainly know which I'll be feeding them! Maybe my hens will enjoy a sprinkling of hi-protein starter every now and then... :)

It Begins...

Photo from 2007

On Tuesday this week we finally picked up our first batch of broiler chicks. They were ordered for the previous Tuesday, but the hatchery messed up and didn't send them.

We are doing things a little differently this year; instead of 50 at once, we're doing 35 twice - this way we will have two processing days, but they won't be as utterly time-consuming and exhausting. I think we put up 42 last year and that was a. lot. of. work. We're nowhere near Joel Salatin's 200 birds/hour obviously, and I don't know that we'll ever get anywhere near there, but this will be - hopefully - easier and more productive.

We had to push back the second batch by a week; I wanted them four weeks apart and the hatchery overruled my order and made them 3 weeks apart. That is bare minimum, and they'd have been 2 weeks apart with making our first order late. This way I can use the same brooder facilities, in succession.

We ordered about 20 pullets as well, to replace many hens we lost last fall, and five turkeys. I was hoping to brood them in succession too; pullets first, then turkeys later in the season, but they're coming together in May. :] I'm guessing this hatchery isn't terribly user-friendly. :)

In any case, we brought our 35 home in wild winds and cold weather. NOT my ideal, but with 2 heat lamps and only 35 chicks, they can all huddle right into the warmth and no one gets left to freeze. They've survived one night so far, and that's good since temps aren't even going to hit 60 within the next week, according to the weather folks.

I ordered some organic starter from Azure, which will hopefully come this time (I ordered it last month and it never arrived). In the meantime I'm giving them a non-medicated starter. I'll use regular grower (or gamebird feed, if I can't find a non-med, high-protein feed) for most of their growing days, and then try to finish them up with a final bag or two of organic feed. I don't know if this is ultimately a huge difference, using it only for a portion of their feed, but at $30/50lb, there's no way I'm using it as their main feed. :]

To keep track of costs, I'm going to keep a list in the sidebar.

Broiler Cost Breakdown 2010

last year's naked chicken

Before we get to the numbers...

We had to delay our chicken processing until Sunday, as Hubby's "on call" Saturday turned into one 12-hour workday.

To set the stage:  We have never managed to process all our birds on a single day.  Sometimes we split it between weekend days, other times we do all the big ones, then a week later do the rest.  And I think the most we've raised to slaughter was 35.

Oh. My. Gosh.  Let's just say I am so sore, the kids are sunburned, and the place hasn't even really been cleaned up yet.  I was done in long before all the chickens were.

Oh, and two more killed themselves on Saturday!  I told you they're suicidal.  After such a great record though, I tried not to get too upset.  One more keeled over by Sunday morning.  But, I was even glad, by the end, that I didn't have to eviscerate the beasts.  Even lifting my fork, to eat dinner at 8:30, was enough to send some of my back muscles into spasms.  Ouch!

We had a hard time with their wings breaking; usually the left one and usually when they started flapping as their nervous system discharged.  In fact, we even had two whose wings had broken earlier in life.  This was so heartbreaking to me.  One even had a spot where the bone was actually sticking out through the skin.  Both had a terrible knot of tissue and bruising in the area, and they were both among the very smallest birds.  I don't know how they didn't get infection and die (I did cut the problem wing off each carcass; the rest of each looked fine, if small).  I wasted one of Hubby's precious gizzards when I busted a gallbladder over it, and then another when I did the same inside the chicken.  I know this is BAD.  But I hosed the bird off well and quickly, and it looked fine, so we bagged it up...  I'll let you know this year if we find out it wasn't ok. :)

When it was all said and done, we had 42 chickens in the freezer.  Seven more than last year.  And about 45 total lbs more, at 226.5 lbs***.

Average weight per bird:      5.4 lbs
Range:                                  3.5 - 6.5 lbs
Mode:                                   5.75 lbs
Median:                                5.75 lbs

Cost (unlike last year, taxes are included in these figures):

50 vaccinated chicks:                    31.80
6 lbs unmedicated starter                6.34
50 lbs organic chick starter:          29.43
500 lbs game bird conditioner*   110.13
150 lbs organic grower:               88.29

wood shavings:                           10.ish**
light bulbs:                                    6.ish**

Total investment:                     $281.99

Price per lb of semi-organic chicken:  1.24/lb  [1.17 before sales tax]

I'm worried I lost a receipt, because apparently we used more feed last year.  These did seem to eat more grass and bugs, and we kept feed from them on occasional half days to facilitate scavenging, so perhaps that is the difference?  We also added apple cider vinegar to their water, but not routinely, and not at all after we made the self-waterer.

This price is just under last year's cost of $1.25/lb before sales tax.  We got a lot more this year, so input costs were higher, but mostly due to splurging on four bags of organic feed (by the way, we fed them the starter as soon as we got it from Azure, then saved the grower for their last days.).

Things I might do differently in the future:

NOT process all of them on one day.  I know others do it better and faster (Joel Salatin for one!), but as fast as I feel I am, i's still a long day.  Especially when there are kids to feed, baby to nurse, etc.  Maybe we could do 30, and then 30 more, in separate ages/batches.  This might cause a housing problem, however, if they overlap.  Barring that, taking two days or two weekends might be a better plan.  This year's schedule didn't allow for either of those options, but I don't want to allow that again.  :)

Inspect the flock more often and more closely.  It's a shame they're so weak that they can break wings in daily life, but there is no sense allowing them to suffer.

Use vinegar more routinely.  I hear it helps mineral absorption, as well as staving off certain health problems.  Not sure that's what helped this year, as I didn't remember to start using it until 3 weeks in or so.


If I can get at least 2 meals per bird, that's 84 meals taken care of for the year (well, except for the cooking, of course).  I can usually manage that easily, plus making stock, though the little ones might not go as far.

So yes, I'm still glad we did it. :)




*I chose game bird conditioner as it was high in protein like a chick grower, not medicated, and easier to distinguish from our hen feed. 


**I didn't really keep these records, but realized I considered these costs last year, so I'm adding them here again.  I am not counting the price of the chicken waterer (someday I'll get those pics on here), because that will be used and reused for the hens, turkeys, or other future feathered livestock.


***These numbers seem confusing, because 45 lbs of chicken among seven chickens is over six pounds each.  We did have some that size, but no more in proportion to last year's harvest.  I think perhaps my eviscerating is becoming less wasteful; keeping neck skin, belly fat, etc. intact instead of taking the time to trim it.  Hubby also did more eviscerating last year, and he takes longer and cuts differently, I think tossing more out than I.

Chicken Day 2010

Today is the day.  Forty-three (or so) chickens are scheduled to stop their eating and create some eating for others (me).  This is a record, I think (I'll have to look up last year's blogpost on the subject).  Seems we've lost far fewer birds this year than usual.  One to a toddler, another on day 2 for unknown reasons, one more shortly after, I think, 3 to cold while we were gone, 1 to a predator.  None to sickness or infection that we can tell, though I was thinking one was gonna kick the bucket a while ago; it's comb and wattle was purple, and it was always wheezing.  I can't spot it lately, so maybe it recovered...?

I have my hand-me-down overalls on, so I'm well prepared.  There are some glitches already; Hubby is on call and has been called out to at least 2 service calls so far.  Baby has been fine tuning her nighttime routine, which includes SUDDENLY waking every 2-3 hours and shrieking/screeching at the top of her lungs.  There seems to be nothing wrong, and she mostly settles after I pick her up or nurse her, but it doesn't make for a very restful night for either of us.  She's actually a bit hoarse this morning!

Worse-case scenario we have to put it off until tomorrow.

Chicken Nipples

You didn't know there were such things did you?

Well, ours don't have any YET, but they're on the way.

It's my mom's fault, really.  She and my dad have been married 25 years, and decided to celebrate that in large fashion.  Of course, to qualify for "large fashion" one must have all one's relatives from far and wide show up, right?  In the middle of the busiest work time for Hubby?  In the middle of garden planting season?  Chicken season?  Turkey season?  Yes.  See how much I love her?  So we have to leave in a week or so to participate largely, fashionably (ahem), and there will be about 80 creatures needing tending here.  Forty-eight of whom will be putting away some 20-30 lbs of feed a day, to say nothing of water.

I REALLY don't like asking people to do stuff like this.  It can be hard.  Heavy.  And you might step in something.  And anyone who I would ask would need to drive to get here, and I probably couldn't bring myself to ask them to do it more than once in the four days we will be gone.

God is good, and he let me stumble upon this.  Especially this version, with the toilet float valve.  Awesome. :)  By the time this posts, I will hopefully have all the pieces ready to work with.  I got extra chicken nipples from Farmtek.  The shipping is very high even for small amounts/items, so if you need a few, drop me a line.  I ordered a couple extra. ;)

Hopefully we'll have this figured out and operational before we go, then my neighbor can just swing by long enough to see that everyone is a live and pecking.  If not, I'm not sure what she could do about it, but...

Now to figure out a mega-feeder...

Creatures

Despite the wintery weather we've suffered in this past month, the "farm" side of our place is coming along.  That happens when you order your critters in March; you have no choice but to deal with them when they show up!

We ordered our standard 50 cornish cross broilers, though I'm almost ready to double that, and sell the balance.  We'll see how it goes this year, and maybe we can do that next time.  

The best part is they're over 4 weeks old now, and we have lost ONLY TWO - the one Organique squished (oh, that is so hard to write!) and another in that first couple days.  I don't know if it had to do with the organic starter or not, but I'm happy to see it.  Here they are on Thursday:

On Tuesday we picked up our three turkey poults, and a Rouen duck.  Here are the poults.  We only got 3, because we still have some turkey in the freezer.  We got the broad-breasted bronze this year:

Here is the duck.  He's cute now, but I'm not looking forward to his/her goings on in future years.  We don't plan to eat it:

Here is a handful of our hens.  We have 2 roosters, and about 20 or so hens.  The gold (buff orpington) rooster is in the foreground, and Big Ed (a light brahma) has a white body, black tail, and has his head down, above and to the left of the gold.

They're doing well laying eggs for us finally; better when we DON'T suddenly realize Organique is missing, and the mad scramble to find her finds her madly scrambling eggs in the chicken house.  But we haven't had any of those days lately.. *sigh*

Picking Up Chicks

We do it every spring, and this year is no different.

We ordered 50 Meat Mutants (a.k.a. "Cornish Cross Broilers"), and they arrived Tuesday.  We went to the feed store and had to wade through foreigners who wanted boxes full, but hadn't placed an order ahead of time.  Thankfully the peeping chaos didn't keep me from finding my own 50. :)

That was Tuesday, and we've lost two.  One to a tight-fisted toddler (we all cried) and one to who-knows-what.

They're housed in the same setup we used last year... a small pickup bedliner raised up a few feet off the ground, and covered with our plastic-covered hoophouse.  In the bedliner we have wood shavings, and of course water, feed, heat.

The feed store saw my grimaces the last couple years, and this year stocked small (five-lb) bags of UNmedicated starter.  They were $3 apiece, but I bought a couple, because though I had ordered some organic starter from Azure Standard (they must've heard my laments, too!), it wouldn't be here until Friday.  The organic starter was just under $30/50 lb bag (so even a bit cheaper than the small bags of unmedicated), and I ordered one of those, and two bags of grower (lower protein) at the same price, to "finish them off" before processing.  Buying enough to make them truly organic would've been truly expensive, so we figure to feed them the bad stuff in the middle of their lives.

The feed info, from Azure's website:


Corn & Soy Free!
Product of Oregon.
Ingredients: Organic Peas, Organic Triticale, Organic Wheat, Organic Crab Meal, Organic Fish Meal, Organic Barly, Calcium corbonate, Organic Poultry Nutri-Balancer, Enzyme.
Guaranteed Analysis:
Crude Protein    19.10%
Crude Fat            5.60%
Crude Fiber        4.80%
Calcium               2.31%
Phosphorus       0.99%
Salt added          0.58%
Sodium               0.26%
Energy              1,309  Kcal/LB
Vitamin A         4452  IU/LB
Vitamin D         1608  IU/LB
Vitamin E         50    IU/LB
Choline           1639  IU/LB
Biotin               62.1  MCG/LB
Manganese    184.4  IU/LB
Zinc                  99.1  IU/LB
Copper            15.63  IU/LB
Selenium (added)    0.3  IU/LB
Lysine             1.07%
Arginine           0.95%


Like you, my eyes mostly glaze over with all the %s and units and such, but did you see that ingredient list?  Yummy!  I'm very excited.  No genetically modified grains, or super-estrogen soy.  I was excited to feed this to the little critters.  When I opened it up, I was even more excited.  It looked like... food.  I know, amazing!  There are whole grains and powder, even bright green bits of peas.  I sprinkled some of this over their other uniform, beige crumbles, and they really preferred the organic stuff.


They're still cute, and I took a few photos of Little Artist holding a chick, but inadvertently put my camera on full manual settings... which I'm not yet fluent with (indeed, I'm not observant enough to even notice), and the photos did NOT turn out.  Some of them would've been so cute, too...  *sigh*


We have a few turkeys and a Dumb Duck coming next month!

Plucker Pics!

To read more about this adventure, see this earlier post.

Saturday morning started out, well, typically... See what we have in the near-center of this picture? Yep, one kicked the bucket at the last minute.


Then I inspected the plucker. See the fancy way Hubby figured (well, *I* helped) to keep tension on the belt?

This is the center-lower portion of the plucker. This is what happens when the delivery man for the tool shop didn't show when he was supposed to. Instead of the 2x6s being aligned above one another and the bearings set over centered holes, Hubby offset them and used angle iron to make use of the bearings we *could* get. They were cheaper anyway.


Hubby was on-call, so we didn't want to get too deep into the project until evening, so he spent the day being all manly by installing a switch (a waterproof one at that) and playing with wires and his nifty electrician tools.

See? Manly:

The virgin plucker (this before the addition of extra fingers):

We set to work the automated-chicken-catchers. This one works well (please don't ask why the top of an alphabet table is sitting in my garden):



This one doesn't work so well yet, but it's cute, so we keep it around anyway:


They found creative ways to keep the chickens in place if Daddy wasn't ready to "hang up another one" yet. Organique enjoyed the closer look:

The not-so-virgin plucker, after the addition of the extra fingers:

Did it work? Did it? Huh? Huh?




Well, check it out:



Some people might not find this beautiful... They're probably the same ones who buy shoes more often than once a year and don't ask their husbands for pluckers as anniversary gifts:

These are the last 18 birds, representing approximately 97 pounds. Hubby brought it in the house in one load, without breaking my laundry basket.



And... these are the turkeys that day, a photo which I accidentally uploaded. They're already much bigger.


So - are you impressed? Excited? Thrilled? Probably not, and I can mostly understand that. But I'm tellin' ya; a plucker is an amazing thing.

I might give it a name.

Meat Mutant Breakdown

Well, after finally ridding ourselves of the scourge that is the Meat Mutants, I'm excited to have kept careful records of what it took to get these things to the freezer.  For once.

50 chicks @ $.50/ea (I think we actually came home with 52) = $25.00*

50# chick starter @ $11.30 = $11.30

9 bags (50# ea) chick grower @ $9.60 = $86.40

6 bags (50# ea) chick grower @$9.70 = $58.20

?? of ?? =  $8.00**

Wood shavings @ $10

Light bulbs @ $5

Total investment: $203.90

Total return: 35 birds, ranging from 4 to 7 lbs, totalling 181.25 lbs.

Cost per lb of dressed bird:  $1.25/lb***

~~~

To tell you the truth, I'm a little surprised by this.  I'm fairly certain I have all my receipts but it sure felt like I was at the feed store every time I turned around, shelling out dollars like crazy.  Of course, I was also buying lay pellets, grain, and dog and cat food, and that adds up too.  

The cost of hardware is not included here, as we bought it in years past, but it would be something to consider; the feeders, waterers, heat lamps and the like.  And obviously it doesn't take into account our work both in feeding/housing them and butchering.  And I don't think you could pay me enough to do that. :)

Considering how many birds died between bringing them home and putting them into the freezer (we even found one Saturday morning before trying out the plucker), I would expect we could get this price tag down considerably if we could keep more of them alive.  We also should have had them dressing out closer to 4 lbs than the 5+ we averaged, and that last pound or more of weight probably cost a whole lot more.  When eviscerating, there was a LOT of fat on these critters, and much of it was tossed.  I don't know how my eviscerating compares with the store (well, yes, mine's FAR more careful and cleaner than mechanical evisceration!), but I usually cut off the tail-feather thingy, and any hanging fat or skin.  These are likely included in the weight at the grocer's.  Also, Hubby keeps the gizzards and hearts (ew), but I didn't count them in the end.  *I* don't really consider them food. :)

Overall, I'm somewhat surprised that these didn't come out more expensive.  Considering our losses, and how long we left them alive, I expected the pricetag to be double a decent grocer's or more, and it's not (Costco had them for 99c/lb last I noticed).

[Don't read the following paragraph if you're eating commercial chicken for dinner tonight.]

And in comparison to the grocer's (other than that they're huge), they enjoyed fresh air and sunshine, green stuff (when they'd eat it), and weren't constantly medicated (the one bag of starter was) or breathing fecal dust.  In death, they were killed more humanely, eviscerated by hand (carefully keeping the poop from the food!), and chilled in a tank of clean water - that didn't have several inches of fecal matter settling at the bottom (how much of that do you think is soaked into the meat?).  Still hungry for chicken?  I am! :)

*This is far less than the 'usual' pricetag of $$1 - 1.50 or so.  But the local farm store was running specials a lot this year, and we ordered during that time.

**The last week when we still had most of the birds to feed, the feed store was out of chick grower.  We bought lay pellets and whole wheat, and they got some of this, in addition to what we had left of the grower.  This cost is an estimation.

***Also, I didn't include sales tax in the costs.  Consider the final price tag to be $1.25/lb "plus tax."

Plucker Power

Hopefully I'll get my act together enough to post all the ... precious... pictures I took today, but I can't wait to get this out.

The bottom line:  

My new favorite appliance is the chicken plucker.  I need to give it a name, like I do my vehicles.  I love it.

The details:

Saturday Hubby was on call, so we delayed our Chicken Slaughter, Round 2 until evening, when he was certain not to be called out.  As it turns out, he was home all day, but he did reassemble the now-balanced shaft/flange to the unit (and also put a waterproof switch on it and fixed the mower deck of the riding mower).  It was cool (high of under 60!), but that keeps the bugs away anyway.  I had Hubby hang them by their feet and cut their throats (a better way for them to die, and better for the meat/nutrition also, apparently) to bleed out.  We scalded them as per the Storey's Guide instructions (30 seconds at 130 degrees), and put the first into the plucker.  The first bird came out fairly impressive, albeit not as good as pictures I've seen online.  Still better than we manage by hand!  The ones that followed were of mixed results.  We did only 8 birds that night, as a big storm was moving in and we needed to wrap things up.  Some birds wouldn't shed their back feathers or those from one wing; several had their faces just beaten up (not an eating issue, at all, but wild to see broken-up beaks and such) and occasionally a foot would get caught between the plate and barrel wall, jamming the system.  I'd read it works better with more than one bird at a time, so we put 2 in at once, and thereby discovered that our motor is NOT a 1 hp, or even 3/4 probably.  It's an old-school Westinghouse motor, and the horsepower info is all scratched out.  It could handle one okay, but NOT two.  I ended the night with mixed feelings about the contraption.

Hubby thought more fingers placed inside the barrel might help; some up higher as well.  We had a handful of leftover fingers, so this morning he installed them.  After a night of unusual rain (of unusual quantity), we set up shop again and gave it another go.  The water had gotten way too hot, so Hubby cooled it down with the hose, but didn't cool it down enough.  Or so I'd have thought.  Instead of 128-130, he had it at 140 or just above - at least, according to our thermometer.  This temperature, and the added fingers, made all the difference.  Hubby is killer, scalder, and plucker extraordinaire, and I maintain my title of Evisceration Queen.  (Wow, that'll be something for Gi-gi to brag about when she writes her Christmas newsletter to all the doctorate-holding relatives *sigh*)  The girls chase and capture the chickens with finesse. 

After this temperature discovery, I was so excited to be handling NAKED chickens right out of the plucker.  There were the few tail-feather stubs (which, I usually cut off that entire little thingy anyway), and the occasional pinfeather on the back or under the wings, but overall I was enthralled.  I haven't bought a store-chicken in years, so I'm not sure how well they're feather-free, but these were far better than we ever achieved by hand - and in less than a minute!  (We're very accustomed to removing the skin around here. :)  Modus operandi for us is to put the whole frozen bird into the crockpot, with or without seasoning, then remove the skin and enjoy tasty meat).  I'm inspired to fry some chicken - and that is saying a WHOLE LOT.

Our unit differs a bit from the ones you'll find online.  Obviously we'll be looking for a bigger motor before the turkeys are full-size, and there are the additional rubber fingers in the walls.  Also, our 'gap' between the plate and the wall is less than the inch or so called for.  And, in fact, since the barrel isn't perfectly round, our gap varies considerably in width.  However, while most homemade-plucker users claim a certain percentage of caught/broken legs, we didn't have that happen at all.  Caught/broken feet, yes.  Boy, they came out looking wild and flopping at odd angles sometimes, but after removing the feet, there were no problems with the legs.  I.e. the part you eat.  Carcass-wise, Hubby scalded a couple of them too hot or too long, and their skin suffered some serious tears, but again, we're not selling these to restaurants or anything.

Once we found that groove, though, it was just great.  

I love this thing.

I am such a freak.

Farm & Garden, June 2

In the garden:

All but 1 tomato plant are set out.  The 1 was the victim of the stroller-smashing accident, and when the whole thing was mostly busted off, I set it like a flower in a cup (a sippy cup, actually...).  It sprouted wonderful roots!  It's been hardening off on the porch, and hopefully I'll be feeling moveable enough to set it out today.  Total tomato plants will be 27.  The girls had messed with the plants, and several little packs of tomatoes were missing their labels, so I'm not sure what's out there.  I do have 3 "juliet" salad-style tomatoes, 3 "old german" stripey-lookin' things, 6 "mountain fresh" which I bought because they were tall and their tag had only a handwritten title, and no other information (I think that's why they were still available).  I called my neighbor and had her google them.  I also have 4 little bush-type plants, and I forgot their name (but the tag is in my apron pocket, I think).

The SFG holds 4 peppers, a huge bell, a 'chocolate' bell, a 'sweet cherry', and a 'garden salsa' - hot one.  I have 3 more of each Sweet Cherry and Garden Salsa with the tomatoes.  10 total pepper plants.

The onions in the SFG have sprouted!  The carrots are getting their first real leaves, if/when Organique will stop scooping out handfuls of dirt and seedlings.  I also don't like it when she scoops up 'weedy' garden dirt and adds it to the SFG.  Argh!  And I can never move fast enough to intercept...

The lettuces are getting bigger (again, the ones Organique hasn't uprooted to add to her 'soup').  The largest are maybe a fist-sized clump.  Not sure when I'll be able to bring myself to pluck any.  They're so pretty!

The SFG potatoes are really growing.  Four per square foot seems excessive to me, but maybe the fancy dirt makes up the difference?  I also have 5 garbage bags set in the ground with about 6 potatoes each.  They're beginning to sprout.  As are 5 little seedlings in a row across the surface of one... I'm not sure what they are or how they got there.  They look possibly like melon or squash, maybe even sunflowers.  Maybe I should transplant them...

The SFG has 7 cucumber plants.  I don't know if I'll get a trellis built, or let them wander off into the wilderness.  So far they haven't died, but they don't seem to be growing much either.

I have several herbs in the SFG.  Chives, sage, thyme, oregano, cilantro.  I started basil seeds, but they're not acting real hardy yet, and I don't know that they'll get there or not.  There are still a handful of empty squares that had assignments on paper, but not yet in reality.  I may change my mind.

Yet to do:

Set out pumpkin starts, zucchini (I found some eventually), yellow squash (I'll be hatin' the squash, huh?), and the butternut squash a friend gave me.  Of course, the sippy-cup tomato.

Have Hubby rototill a spot for the sweet corn he ordered.  So much to do on his off-time!  So little off-time to do it! :)

Critter-wise, most of the Mutants are still eating and drinking.  Hubby is on call this weekend, but Sundays are usually slow; maybe we can do it then (with the plucker!?!), or on Saturday evening if he's not too done-in.

The seven little white turkeys are alive and well, which surprised me some.  As soon as they could (and it was soon), they would jump up onto the edge of the bedliner/brooder, occasionally getting down to the ground.... the same ground the Meat Mutants occupied for some time.  Turkeys are susceptible to chicken germs or something like that, and I was worried.  Hubby never got around to moving the hoophouse, and eventually ALL of the turkeys made it down below, and there was no trying to capture all 7 every night to put them to bed.  They're still down there, knocking over their feed and water daily.

The 3 geese are quickly outgrowing the garden cart.  I'm not sure what to do with them yet.  They and the turkeys are both without heat lamps, after surviving one night where we forgot to plug it in.  I think that's always how that works out.  They're so big, but they're still 'babies' - 3 weeks old today, I think.  Their feathers are still the soft, fluffy kind, and they'd probably still be hawk-bait if they were somewhere exposed.  They LOVE green stuff, and eaven choked down several morning glory vines the girls tossed in.  They prefer alfalfa and clover, of course. :)  I'd like to know if they'll eat thistles...  Then I might know where to put them. :)  A guy at Hubby's work grew up eating farmyard geese, and warned him they were the greasiest meal he'd ever eat.  Sounds like a self-basting bird, to me!  I hope we like them.

Still to do:

Take the plucker shaft/flange back to the shop and have them figure out how to center the shaft.  The guy got it off a bit, and the balance just won't work that way.

Get the plucker operational (it should be, after putting the shaft back on) and kill the Meat Mutants.

Find a better home for the geese.  They're still too small to stay inside field fencing, I think, and I'm not sure if poultry netting will keep them in (it's not electrified).

Maybe kill a rooster.  One or two of our four are a bit too aggressive.  Organique ended up with a scratch on her hand due to one of them.  Too bad he's the prettiest.  The big Light Brahma is really mellow, as is the Buff Orpington.  It's the Brown Leghorn and the Black Australorp that are problematic.

Fix the shed to keep chickens out, and fix the coop to keep chickens in.  That way we can find their eggs!  And my porch will be more presentable...

Plucker Problems, Part 2

Be warned: this is a long, rambly post. But there are pictures.

See here for part 1.


Every day I seem to pass a new threshold. "Wow, I've never worked this hard." "Wow, I've never worked this long." "Wow, I've never hurt this much."

I didn't mention it in Part 1, but I've definitely been over-doing it. Which means I'm either stupid, or wimpy... Wimpy, because I DO manage to keep going, but then 'pay' for it so much later, or stupid for even trying. Maybe both?


Sunday morning I ran to the farm store for *more* bolts (man, I'm getting to be a bolt expert, lemme tell ya), an electrical plug (to wire up the motor), and something pipe-like into which a 3/8" bolt can fit, as a hinge-mount thing. Hubby managed to figure out a way to make the motor adjustable, so as to keep tension on the belt. I forgot to check for a belt.


I ran home and loaded everyone up for church (*gasp* yes, we were going to make it to church again, finally). Organique fell asleep right about the time we pulled into the parking lot (so not good), and managed to disrupt us and the rest of the congregation several times that morning. *sigh*

She fell asleep when Hubby finally took her out of the building (and into her carseat), leaving me and at least one other daughter to listen to the rest of the sermon in peace. On the way home we went to the farm store again because I had gotten bolts with smaller threads than we needed, plus, Hubby needed to look for the belt.

They don't have belts there.


NOWHERE else is open in our little town on Sunday.

We went home, I made a peanut-butter type of milkshake and ran out the door, so tired, sore, and achy from the goings on of the past days, but *someone* had to find a belt for this thing, and *someone else* had to weld makeshift hinges. The latter would not be me. Pregnant lady with a miter saw, yes. With a mig or tig or wire-feed or stick-welder? Not so much. I don't even know which kind(s) we have, or which he used.

At this point I also fielded a knock at my door from the mother/inlaw of my neighbors wanting to learn about keifer. I tried to be relaxed as I kicked dirty diapers and mismatched shoes out of the direct area of the front door. There wasn't much I could do about the beach umbrella, overturned garbage can full of moldy banana peels, soggy beach towel, or chicken poop she already had to step over just to knock on the door. Did I mention I've been busy with other projects lately? I gave her my email address as it was obvious we were on a time-sensitive mission, and I had no time to spare discussing the how-to's of keifer. Besides, among the cluttered counter she might have seen the jar of keifer that has likely morphed into something very wrong and terrible.


Also we got a phone call from our cousin. He wanted to inform us of the Sunday-night bible study/fellowship they were having at 6:30, which I *always* want to go to and we've only made it once. I explained our current project and problems, and the slight likelihood that we'd make it, though I wanted to. I was already about to run to Town for a belt. Hubby had run back to the farm store to get a metal-cutting saw blade (those hinges, you know), and probably a couple more times for bolts. Lock washers. A 3/4" spade bit. Gas. A few minutes after hanging up the phone, the cousin called back.


"How would you guys feel about our having fellowship out at your place, and helping you out?" (they sometimes do service-style gatherings, helping out this family or that with just everything.)

"Um... you know we plan on killing chickens, right?"


"Yeah, that's a big job. I'll call everyone."


After about 50 more clarifications, and a discussion with Hubby, the plan was set. How did I feel about having "fellowship" out here? Fine. How did I feel about the spilled cherry juice all over the dining room floor (that was also serving as glue to hot-pink post-it notes that wouldn't sweep up), or the 38 loads of laundry that needed washed and/or dried and/or folded and/most/definitely put away? Not so fine. How did I feel about asking other people to deal with the most nastiest of jobs that was my choice, my responsibility, my chore, and for my benefit? Terrible. Hideous. Deep breath; *I* wasn't really asking them. Crazy Cousin was. Deep breath again. Fold some laundry. Find some chidren to put it away. Run around giving to-do lists to everyone, so I could go find that darn belt. Decide that the freshly-spilled peanut-butter milkshake that slid off the table with the fresh tablecloth that didn't make it all the way on wasn't going to make much difference, what with the juice and post-it's. Dry Big Sister's tears and get her some more milkshake. Have I mentioned I haven't done much cooking lately?


I stopped at Cousin's to load up his weird little trimmer-mower that he is letting us 'borrow' and 'store' (we love that kind of arrangement), and then hoof it to the auto parts store. It was somewhat closer than Lowe's. Hubby had warned me, though. We needed a 64" long, 1/2" wide v-belt, but most places weren't geared to find it. "They're going to want the year, make, and model so they can look up a part number... You might have better luck at Lowe's." While I hobbled and waddled around the sorely-understaffed-on-a-Sunday-afternoon auto store, I couldn't find any belts displayed. I asked a guy that was picking through a tiny drawer of tiny brass bits if they kept the v-belts hidden away, and he said yes, and he'd help me shortly. While I waited and ached, I tried to access one of their computers, but when I clicked on belts, nothing happened. I snooped around more, and found a phone book and called Lowe's (after I saved the # in my phone). Right around the time the Lowe's guy answered, another clerk materialized and offered to help me. Of course. The Lowe's guy finally informed me that the biggest belt they had for a mower deck was 52". Not good. The auto guy was helping someone else by now, so I called Hubby. I don't know why, but I did. Finally, the auto guy was within my sights, and I asked about the length of belts they had, and he pulled out a ginormous thing. We kindof measured it with a tape measure, and deduced that it was far bigger than I needed. Eventually he discovered that there was a little number code for each belt, and some of the numbers indicated length, in inches. Ah, yes. Experts abound. The bad news: no 64" belts. The good news: some were longer. The bad news: no 'universal' belts Hubby had described. The good news: 70" might work. The bad news: darn, it's a 5/8" belt. The worse news: there were no half-inch belts that would come close. Another call to Hubby, "would v-belts with little teeth cut into them work ok?" The good news: Yes. The better news: a half-inch one in the neighborhood of 68" was located. I'll take it! And after wondering what this all-important item would set me back (after the hundreds already invested), the best news: $6.99. Thank you, Lord!


I headed home to wash dishes and put away groceries bought on Thursday (have I mentioned I haven't done much housekeeping lately?), and have girls hang out laundry, and when a storm blew in, to bring in laundry. And then put away laundry. Hubby had the hinges finished, and put the belt on, then we wedged the angled part of a sawed-off fence post (because we're particular at times like this) under the motor to create that tension. Temporarily, of course (yeah, right).


He wired on the plug, and gave 'er power... Ta-da!, it whirled! Of course, the work wasn't done, because we wanted a circular plate. I found the lathe woodworking tools, and my first contact with the plastic bent the tool, dug a deep (but not deep enough) cut into the edge, and nearly took my arm off. Hmm.. We tried a file, a belt-sander, and more, and eventually returned to the woodworking tools, with Hubby and his Muscles in charge. It worked much better this way. We got it nearly circular, to discover that the wobble won't go away because the metal fabricator guy (who charges $75/hr!) didn't center the flange on the shaft right, and it's off-balance. Believe me, as soon as I can, you know, walk, and bend over, and move again, I'm going to tear that sucker apart and take it back for a re-do.

Cousin showed up "dressed to kill."

Note the carcass of the trampoline in the background.

The Cousins showed up, with their "piece of crap mower" (i.e. old beater good for mowing weeds) and their kids (at least one of whom is old enough and savvy enough to run said mower), as did a handful of bachelor-types. Later another family. Hubby now had to weld some sort of stop on his drill bit, so we could make a counter-sink for the finger-holes in the plate. And I had to access the geometry section of my brain to figure out the spacing for these holes. It was truly miraculous. Or not. I had help.

Yes, that's a roll of shop towels.

No, those nice fingernails and fancy bracelet make it obvious that that's not *my* hand.

The plucker wasn't going to be operational fast enough anyway, so I got out the axe...


And handed it to Cousin.


Nothing like a service project where you end up covered in blood spatter. That, my friends, is service. Love. Sacrifice... in a very Old-Testament-y way.

Cousin's Boy really got into it. He's a big helper already, and not even 11.

He chopped. Kids gasped. Others cheered.

Organique was not among the cheering.

Rabbit trail: Three days ago Little Artist was nearly crying, because she wanted to keep one of the white chickens. That she loved them. She didn't want them to die. Yesterday she greeted the Cousins in the driveway with a gleeful clasping of her hands, and exclaimed, "we're going to butcher chickens!" She was quite disappointed when the event didn't materialize on Saturday. Later, she emerged from the chicken pen with her own chicken, telling me that she wanted to chop the head off this one, but she'd use the "little axe." How does this happen? Is it that we don't do the normal diversions of ballet classes, or video games? Good heavens.


I set about to scalding and handing out rubber gloves to willing pluckers (Hubby was still drilling holes and countersinks in the garage, the lucky guy). We didn't get to them all, indeed at 10:00 pm, by the (head)lights of an old suburban-type-vehicle pulled up onto the lawn (yep, we classy), I had eviscerated 8 of the 9 dead (having my guests pluck was asking enough, don't you think?), leaving Hubby to clean the last one, as well as his beloved gizzards, while I made my way to the house with Organique, who was ready for her dinner and bedtime (yep, we also great parents). Oh. I. Hurt. Every step. Every movement. Feet, legs, hips, back. Ouuuuchhh...


We talked and fellowshipped (which I loved) while I played the part of crummy hostess (which I didn't love - "oh, can I feed your kids some almost-warm casserole, in which there *might* be glass shards, but I think I got most of them out?").** I drug myself to bed about 12:30 or shortly thereafter, and Hubby made it up around 1:00 after getting some of his tools sorted out and put away. He got up before 5:00 a.m., and I was up about 6:30. This morning I feel like I usually only feel at the end of the day. Maybe worse. This will be the first Monday in months that I haven't washed the sheets, but I just can't do it. Hubby's work clothes will be the most I manage today. And I suppose I should cook.


And let me tell you more about what happened yesterday. Before the sun went down, Cousin and his Boy mowed a huge portion of my garden. I know, that sounds dire, but when I say "garden" I basically mean the fenced-in weeds, where I also have my SFG boxes and tomato plants (soon the squash and pumpkins, I hope?). Their Boy, and the boys of the other family also mowed a huge 'field' area. By "field" I mean the weeds not fenced-in. The neighbors love us, as you can imagine. In the morning's light, it looks SO NICE. I can walk through that part of the garden and maybe even be able to see what I'm tripping on! The cheet grass is there, but it's short and won't tickle my legs. It looks... tended, if a field of weeds can look so. ALSO, Cousin's new career (HVAC stuff) netted him a 1.5 ton window a/c unit which he completely refurbished and redid, and then GAVE to us. Some of the guys installed that sucker in the family room window, building a stand from extra lumber I bought cheap at Lowe's last week (Thank you Lord, again!) and some cinder blocks. Wow!


Can you believe I'm still not to the most incredible part of this story? See, Cousin is the pastor of the church we used to go to. The 'fellowship/bible study' is almost entirely made up of people who attend that church. Do you get that? We do not attend his church. We don't tithe there, or anything else. Service. Love. Sacrifice. Now, we obviously are still quite involved with many of them (we're related to a good portion, obviously), and our not attending there is not some vengeful axe to grind (hmm.. axe..). And I love, LOVE Christians living out Life across those traditional "boundaries." Where "church" isn't limited to Sunday mornings in a certain building, but that as we gather and serve, the "Church" is uplifted. This Sunday evening fellowship (and chicken slaughter/home improvement when appropriate) is the best example of that that I've seen in a long time. Maybe ever.


How do you repay that? Should you even try? A batch of cookies, organic or otherwise, is hardly sufficient. A chicken dinner probably not entirely welcome just yet. Hehe. Since I'm not exactly functional today, my gratitude is expressed in thanks to God. That HE has ordained believers to serve one another and provides people to lean on (not just in an ethereal, emotional sense) when you would NEVER even THINK of ASKING for it. And asking God to enable me to do the same for others.


**Okay, this was one of those "for after baby" meals that just didn't make it till then. One day, while retrieving something from the chest freezer in the basement, Big Sister balanced the frozen dish on the corner while she rummaged, knocking the 9x13 pyrex dish to the floor, and breaking off a good portion of the glass. I rewrapped it as-was in plastic wrap, and just put it back in the freezer. As I defrosted/chiseled the remaining casserole-dish off the frozen meal, I realized some of the *ice* crystals weren't, but decided it wasn't going to waste, either way. This was before I knew we'd have a pile of people over, and once I did know, there was no time to cook. *sigh*

Plucker Problems

It's been a busy week, this past one.  We (I) have spent most days running around for the all-important parts to our chicken plucker project.  Spending more $$ on the project than I thought was possible.  Last Tuesday our online-ordered parts came in, and the local tool shop worked on a shaft for it, and drilled a bigger hole in a too-small pulley we were going to use.  $110 for the 'right size' was just NOT the 'right price'.  I ordered bearings that were to be delivered to the shop around lunchtime on Friday.

Friday I spent nearly all day in the garage.  I REALLY wanted a pile of dead chickens on Saturday, and REALLY didn't want to hand-pick them, so I had Hubby set up the miter saw for me in the driveway before he left for work at dark-thirty.

There's nothing like the sight of a big pregnant lady wielding power tools in the garage, I tell ya.  Too bad there was no one to take a picture (actually, I'm sure I don't regret that circumstance). I measured and sawed and used my cordless drill and even the drill press.  I found a little ratcheting wrench-y thing (at least, I think that's what it was called) to attach bolts and nuts, and only sometimes had to call Hubby and say, "do the washers go on the bolt side or the nut side?"  It was a good thing I called.

But - I built the frame!  All by myself.  And a few other things, like marking the tub for the fingers (re-re-remarking, I should say).

I went to the local tool place to 'get my bearings' (haha) just before they closed at 5, and guess what... Mr. Delivery Man, who called from 2 hours away that morning to say he'd be there, had NOT shown up.  NO, they were not open Saturday, and NO they didn't have his number so I could go accost him on the freeway.

So I bought another kind, some sideways bearings, for half the price, but double the required brainpower to install.  *sigh*

Hubby got home just before 9 pm, and busied himself for too many hours after HIS brainpower was used up.  That is, the next morning I was surprised to see that he'd (tried to) cut a circle from our HDPE plastic, and mount the shaft in the center.  In the dark.  After working 12+ hours, etc, etc.  It wasn't terrible, but I needed to find a new 'middle' and mark it appropriately, again.  Hubby now needed to figure out how to mount the bearings, shaft/plate, and motor, so we could get this "circle" spinning and whittle down the edges to the right size/shape.  No easy task.

I had mentioned off-hand in an email to a friend, "your husband doesn't happen to have a 14" pulley laying around, does he?"

Turns out he did, and was able to drill a 1" hole in it for the shaft - at a great price (free).  This I got from them on Saturday night, after working alternately with Hubby in the garage (those rubber fingers are SO HARD to install!), and killing myself in the garden.  

I always kill myself in the garden; why is that?  I must be very weak.  Though I did get all of the tomatoes (28ish?) and the rest of the peppers (6) planted, and the rest of my weed-tarp stuff laid out.  It was only about 95 degrees.  Organique joined me for a time, and sullied my warm square-foot-garden water with square-foot-garden dirt (which isn't so bad, since it goes back in there anyway), used a little juice jug to water one particular square foot of potatoes - a lot, drank some of it, scooped a handful of dirt and seedlings from a carrot square :(, dug up a red lettuce (which I found in the same bucket on Sunday and replanted), and sullied the water with regular dirt.  This was bad.  Regular dirt = weed seeds = not going into my SFG.  Then she dipped her head into the mucky mess, just because.

We ended the day still needing a belt for the plucker, a way to keep tension on it, the plate made circular, holes drilled, fingers installed, etc.  And no dead chickens.

Stay tuned for the best part of the story...

Get Your...

cotton-pickin', finger-lickin', chicken-plucker's outta there!

Did your mom ever say that?  Mine did.  I do.  It must be said really fast.  Of course, my kids have no idea what I'm saying...

But this brings me to my dilemma.

I have 35-40 Meat Mutants, panting out there in the heat, eating more $$ per day than my children manage, and I think they'd do far better relaxing in a VERY cool place.  Like, the freezer in my basement.

Tomorrow is our 9-year anniversary!

Put those together, and what do you get?  "Honey, for our anniversary would you please build me a chicken plucker?"  (I know, I wanted it for Mother's Day, but that's come and gone.)  I'm sure husbands all over America are sick and tired of hearing that phrase.  Or not.  Yes, I'm weird.

We've been slowly working towards it, gathering parts and materials, spending lotsa money on said parts and materials, and we're getting down to the wire here.

The only question mark (haha, yeah right) is "at what RPM does the pluckerplate need to spin?"  We don't have the official plan book (long story), and really don't have time to order one at this point.  Since we're also using a slightly different motor than is called for, and slightly different size of drive pulley, we're not sure what size the slave pulley needs to be!

I'm sure this is all making perfect sense.

I have an algebraic-looking formula scratched down here on my scrap paper (I think it's the inside of an organic cookie box - what I actually got for Mother's Day), and not enough information to get my answer (remember when we always thought we'd "never use this stuff in real life"?).  I have "x" and "a" but I need to know "b" before I can figure out "y".  "Y" is the size, in inches, of the pulley I need to buy/find, and "b" is the RPM I'm aiming for.  And youtube videos aren't exactly helpful for that kind of information.

I've put the question to others out there, on a blog or two, and I'm hoping someone can help me out.  As far as I know, this will be the only tub-style chicken plucker in three counties (else I'd be borrowing/renting the other one, for heaven's sake!), and I'd like to get it right.  Or close.  Or useable.  Usable would work.

So, the moral to this story?  Don't count your chickens before they...  er...  Don't pluck... er... Don't order 50 broiler chicks before you've MADE your plucker.

There.