winner, winner, chicken dinner

Our first batch of chicks are now a year old and doing great. But then spring hits and something happens to the chicken farmer that is my husband.  He develops an uncontrollable urge to buy a new crop of chicks. 8 this time. That brings our count to 13.

I do have to agree that I love having baby chicks in the house. Their cute little cheep just brightens my day.  We got two each of four different breeds and it is interesting to see their differences.  The Americanas are supposed to lay easter colored eggs and I am excited about that.

Matt wanted this batch to be used to be handled so that meant lots of play time.

Nothin like a man and his chickens. Oh how I love my “chicken Man”!

Most days sariah can be found chasing the chickens. It’s a game they play. She chases and catches them, puts them back in the coop and they escape to start it all over again.

We also participated in a meat bird co-op. A friend of ours purchased meat birds, breed them on all organic and then each family that had a share came and helped on slaughter day.

Our whole family went and participated, well not me, I had a meeting and so couldn’t attend. Sad, I know…

T.J. gets a look at our birds.

Lest the government fine our friend for selling processed meat without a license or whatever other claim they can put on it to show that they are in control and can regulate whatever they want, we paid her for live birds and then butchered them ourselves.

There were a ton of pictures taken, but the majority of them were pretty graphic and I debated putting them on the blog. If you are interested I can email them to you though.  They also processed a bunny and we got a lot of pics of that too.

Seri was amazing and fascinated by the insides of the chickens. She kept exclaiming that the lungs and heart looked nothing like she imagined they would.  By the way, I am counting this as a science credit.  She learned more from dissecting that chicken than she ever could have learned from a worm or frog.

We enjoyed the chicken for dinner the next night.  Yummy!!!

Next year we will be processing our first flock of five since they will be two years old and the chickens tend to start getting tougher and laying less after that mark.  Matt also bought two turkeys that we will be having for Thanksgiving this year.  Oh, and just like our first batch, one of these “hens” was not a hen at all.  I now here his cry each morning and he has gone and fertilized my eggs….  stupid bird.  We are debating whether to keep him and attempt raising baby chicks or to eat him.