Butchering Time

Then this last Saturday (August 16th) we butchered 45 chickens with some of our friends. I raised them for 9 weeks and then we made a party of butchering them. I had never butchered a chicken before and so it was an new experience. Azariah wanted to watch one flop on the ground after its head was chopped off and he was not disappointed.

The butchering block that was actually only used a few times. The guys started hanging them up and cutting off their heads. Rebekah would put their heads on the ground, put a stick over their neck and step on the stick. Then she would pull their feet to pull their heads off. It actually worked very well. I must admit, I did not actually kill one of the chickens.

We decided to skin the chickens. So here, is a picture of Gil skinning the first chicken. We did pluck a few, but actually found it just as time consuming and I wasn't patient enough to get all the little feathers out. So Gil would skin, gut and hand the chickens over to me.


I would then take the chicken inside, cut off its feet and then either cut it up into parts or freeze it whole. I only cut myself 4 times with the knife. Isn't this a great picture of the chicken :-)


Our friends, Bough and Rebekah, who butchered half of the chickens. This is at the end of the day after all the butchering was done.

Gil and I after the day was over. Notice, I wore red so any blood would not be noticeable.

Would we do it again you might ask. Yes, we will probably raise chickens to butcher again, but probably a little differently.