Chicken butchering time, that is. A few months ago we got a batch of meat chicks, and their 12 weeks 'expiration date' (optimal growth time) is nigh upon them.
I think we ended up with 48 all told (chickens are really hard to count, before they're hatched or otherwise!) We've had great luck with them all, but a couple of days ago we noticed one wasn't up and moving around very well (the downside of meat chickens is that they grow so fast and so well that they can become too heavy for their own good.) We've cut back on their feed a bit to make sure the others don't end up porking out TOO much before I'm ready to butcher. This one was alert and healthy otherwise, so we decided that we should dispatch the one chubber instead of letting it suffer.
I figured that since I processed more than a dozen chickens last year, it would all come back to me really easily, especially since I was doing just this one. Well, suffice to say that it wasn't quite like getting back on a bike after being away from it for awhile... Quite a bit more awkward, and much, much messier.
We let the meat rest overnight (we do this with all our meats-- giving it 24 hours before freezing or cooking helps make sure the rigor mortis phase has passed, so the meat is more tender). Which is awesome, because I typically have no desire to eat the meat directly after butchering it. This one was just a shade under 5 lbs.
I mixed up a rub with paprika, cayenne, sugar, salt, mustard powder and orange peel, and rubbed it down with olive oil and rub over and under the skin.
James was off doing errands until about 8, so I let the chicken smoke for a couple of hours before cranking it up to finish it off when he got home.
Man alive was that some tasty, crispy skin! Meat was juicy and flavorful, and for a rub made of random crap thrown together, it turned out pretty tasty. (I've got my set of redneck Savor Spices on order, can't wait to have some "real" rubs in the house again!!)
James recently asked me, "So... what exactly do you DO with all the pictures you take of food??" He didn't care for my answer of "Disproving the existence of unicorns."
Even the dogs got to enjoy our first chicken of the season-- they love the feet! Of course with three dogs and only two feet, I had to break into the stash in the freezer so no one got left out. Pups will have feet-treats for a good long time after I finish with the rest of the flock!
Here's Bayou enjoying a little snicky-snack. She's the one who will hide the chicken feet in the couch cushions if allowed to go inside during snack time, which we've found is a VERY unpleasant discovery, so they're now banished outside for treats.
I'm going to try and write up a butchering tutorial/commentary on my blog after I do this next run of chickens if anyone is interested. We'll see if James can avoid fainting long enough to snap a few pictures of the process for me this time around.
