Chicken Day: A Photo Essay
It’s that time again!
Yahoo.
Alrighty kids. Cue the banjo music and go get ‘em!
Dang that free-range, organic stuff.
Aw, mom. This is Cuddles. You won’t eat Cuddles, will you?
Just kidding.
We don’t name the chickens. But we do give them a good life before they meet their purpose.
Next!
It’s gonna get you, Bekah, run!
Aww. Shucks.
Mom won’t let us watch Scooby Doo anymore, but this is OK to watch?
It’s a messy job, but Abigail has the right idea.
McGregor: I don’t remember it looking like this before….
…but it does make it easier when they’re so dumb that they just jump in.
I’m with Cocoa, The Million Dollar Mutt. Let’s put our feet up.
We had manicotti for dinner, not chicken soup.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
You must have just posted. I’m not usually up this late. Great photo essay!!! But… those kids are growing! No!! Not that they’re any less cute. But they have changed in the last few months! Especially Charles and Bekah. Besides them, your hair is growing! Looks great!
November 10th, 2009 at 7:01 am
What? No pictures of little boys with chicken heads running after their sisters? My youngest likes to make them “talk”. ‘Nuff said.
Enjoyed the photos. You don’t look like you are freezing to death, either. I keep imagining you holed up in the house under a pile of blankets. It must still be fairly warm in your neck of the woods.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:22 am
uuugghh, have that job to do here to, your children sure look at more enthused than mine do about it :) that is one job around here that doesn’t have many volunteers. Now if I say I have a colt that needs breaking they come running.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Excellent. My grandpa used to tell us stories about chicken slaughtering time on the farm. We were always TOTALLY engrossed in the story.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:02 am
too funny. But what do you have against Scooby Doo :) I have to admit I introduced my kids to Scooby as a way to relive my favorite childhood cartoon. ha
November 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am
My daughter said, “When I watch Scooby Doo, I SHAKE because I’m so scared….”
:)
Janet, These are for you:
November 10th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Penny,
I have an unbroken colt. My kids are weird, I guess!
November 10th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
At least you showed the chicken cleaned. I’m ignoring the little girl with the chicken head ;-) My husband’s friend sends pictures of dead deer, hanging. I think he does it just because he knows it annoys me LOL. Ever since I was little and we had a duck that my dad chopped the head off and it was still running around, it’s hard to look at a dead animal.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
a: beautiful children (the eyes!)
b: beautiful animals (million dollar boy gets me)
c: next time, give a warning before the chicken starts talking! I about fell out of my chair :) … us city people THINK we are tough but we aren’t!
November 10th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
LOL
Yep, that’s what my little Critter does, too.
So it’s not just boys?
November 10th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Wow – what a job! Raising, catching, killing, plucking, freezing – but some really fine eating down the road too! I’ve never tasted a free range chicken – but I’ll just have to be content with my drug free (so they say) boneless skinless chicken breasts and tenders – they were $1.59 per pound last week and I stocked up! Are you still getting eggs or has the cool weather and short days diminished your yield? We bought some eggs recently from a home school family – I asked for 4 dozen, but it was buy 2 get 1 free, so we were looking at 6 dozen for a family of 4. Quiche anyone? I just used the last few in a caramel flan custard tonight – yum.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Beautiful pictures Amy!!! The girls would be playing with chicken heads at our house too. Go figure. I big fight erupted over who would get to drown a mouse caught in a live trap at our house. I excused myself from the mutiny to go to the bathroom until my stomach calmed down.
Christina
November 10th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Sorry should read:
A big fight erupted….
I am up past my bed time. :)
November 11th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Are you still getting eggs or has the cool weather and short days diminished your yield?
We get a few eggs now with the cooler weather, but not enough to sell as we were. We don’t feed our layers (they only forage for food, but we might need to supplement in the winter), so we were doing pretty well at the peak of summer with 18 eggs a day from 25 layers. It’s almost too easy.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
I enjoyed the photos Amy. I have to say that while I love my brown/yellow/orange eyes, yours are amazing. They remind me of my oldest daughter when she was a kid. Now they are blue/green/gray depending on how she is feeling.
Oh, the photo of the daughter with the talking chicken was very funny. That would be my girls too. They might act like princesses but at heart they are born and bred Texans – wanna be cowgirls to the core.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
We have four hens as ‘pets’, I don’t think we could ever do what you are doing, you guys are pretty gutsy. We knew when we named them that it was all over…. we did have to put one ‘down’ ourselves due to sickness, and I had nightmares for a while. Dh didn’t think my humane idea to put the hen in the garage with the van running was a good or practical one…
November 12th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
You have really nice hair. Mine has been falling out ever since I started having kids, even though I take biotin and everything.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Great photo collage. We just finished butchering ours last weekend. Looks like you had good weather for your eventful day!
Tell your husband I have an easy to build, and decorative, killing cone station that I think you and he would like. I modeled it after a Frank Lloyd Wright style and it functions as an art piece as well. :)
November 12th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Thanks all for the comments. I’m sensitive (and vain)about my hair, so thanks for the vote of confidence.
Garth, Greg used a killing cone –though probably not as nice and decorative as yours ;) if such a thing were possible — last time and much preferred the axe. I’m not sure why.
November 14th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Amy, that is such a beautiful picture of you!!! Not only do you look lovely, it tells quite a story. :)
November 20th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I hated chicken killing days as a kid. I stayed inside, cleaned the house, cooked lunch, supplied cold drinks, anything to get out of that.