We Butcher A Chicken...

WARNING- This post contains photos of a family sending their own chicken to freezer camp! If you are not the chicken killing type, or if you are disturbed by information or images of animals being butchered, please, DO NOT READ THIS POST. We are on the path to self sufficiency, and raising our own food is part of this journey.

"We butchered a chicken today. Great life lesson and anatomy lesson. There is something... satisfying... to be able to provide a meal for your family that you know what it was fed, you know how it was treated, you know how it was butchered, and you know how it was prepared. I don't know if we will ever do another, but, we are happy with today." -Personal Facebook Post February, 2014

     We have become a society disconnected with our food. Rarely does anyone know where or how their food is processed. We buy our meat in nice, little wrapped packages, and not once do we question where it came from. How were they raised and in what conditions? What were they fed? How was it processed? The chicken from the stores is kept in giant barns crammed full of thousands of chickens, all pecking at each other, or standing there waiting to die. Don't believe me? Type in your computer, 'what are chickens fed to make them grow so fast?' and see what comes up. Quick link to Wikipedia says, well it says a lot.. Just read for yourself.
     I am in no way condemning anyone for eating supermarket chicken. I buy it all of the time still. My family loves chicken and I am not a lover of butchering my own meals. Honestly, I hope to grow out of this.  I have already come quite a ways from the girl I used to be. In the past, if it did not come from the supermarket, wrapped up nice and neat in Styrofoam and plastic wrap, I wouldn't eat it. We were given some hamburger from my uncle one time and while my family raved about how wonderful my meatloaf was, I was in the bathroom gagging and hearing Uncle Mark call out 'Calfy' to his cow. Fresh eggs? FORGET ABOUT IT! That was just disgusting! (My sister is still this way!)  In my quest for self sufficiency, however, I have grown to realize the importance of knowing where my food comes from. This is not important to everyone, but it is important to me.
      My husband's, mother's, boyfriend's. granddaughter (phew, did you catch all that?) raised chickens for FFA. When the project was finished, we were asked if we wanted them. They are Cornish Rock Cross and are breed to grow quickly. This also makes them unlikely to ever mate, lay eggs, or live past a certain age. And while I was not yet 'there' in my homesteading journey, I felt if I was going to 'Talk the talk...' I had better start down this road when I was offered the chance at no cost to me.
     My daughter helped me along on our first journey. We researched, read articles and watched youtube videos on butchering chickens. We decided to go with the 'cone method' of butchering. We took a milk jug, just like on the video we watched, and cut out the bottom of it. Then you put the chickens head through the hole and slit its throat. As it drains of blood it goes peacefully to sleep. Or rather, that's what is supposed to happen. Nothing could prepare us for our first time. Like I always seem to say, you think you know, but it never turns out how you expected. The chicken fought going into the milk jug hole, the incision clotted up instantly, then, the chicken cluck/cussed us, saying we were doing it wrong. Hubby came to the rescue with an ax. Note to self: Never, ever try that method again.
     Plucking took nearly and hour, even with dunking in the hot water several times. We have since learned that the skin is not that important to us, even when frying. It is a lot quicker to skin. We do not eat anything on the inside, so it is all boiled and fed to my dogs. We did find a lot of little orange balls we discovered were the beginning yolks of eggs. That is how we ended up keeping 'Prissy,' our first hen to lay an egg.
     It was very educational for my daughter. She learned a lot about chicken anatomy. She is like me (not crazy about killing the chicken) but she loves to identify the organs. She loves to cook our homegrown meat as well. She has very little attachment to the chickens because we have told her from the beginning these were 'food, not friends.' My hope for her is to become a veterinarian or be in another medical field. I believe she will be great healer one day.
     Just in case you continued to read, but were uncertain if you wanted to see the photos, I have saved them for last. The are not really terribly awful in my opinion, but this is your last chance to go check out one of my other articles. You can see my daughter make store bought Cornish Hens in my post HERE. Again, you are reading a blog about our homeschooling/homesteading family's quest to become more self sufficient. Thank you for your support.

Our FAIL...

 Getting the insides out.

 Don't you just love her protective gear!

An hour to pluck it and it still looked like this?

 The end result. 

     We decided to stuff and slow roast our chicken. We learned from our Cornish Hen dinner that we like seasonings, and this time we did it right. It was delicious and tender. I had forgotten to take a photo of it when we were finished cooking it. The photo above is what we had LEFT after dinner. Two adults and a 10 year old barely made a dent. I pulled off the rest of the meat and separated it into family sized portion freezer bags. We got 4 more meals out of this one bird. 5 meals for free. 

     We have sent several chickens to 'Freezer Camp' and I plan on sending more soon. If this is not your cup of tea, I understand. I used to be that girl remember? But it is now something I take pride in. My meat was raised by me. They were fed a healthy diet twice a day and also free range all day long. I know how they were treated, I know how they are processed. I know they were healthy and will provide a healthy meal for my family. Thank you for joining me on my journey.

Parts Of A Plant: Seeds

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Parts of a Plant Lesson: Seeds

     We started with Nutrientsforlife.org's Video, Lesson 1: Plants Around You. See the video HERE.

•    After watching the video, we went on a nature walk to gather seeds from plants around us. We were actually surprised at all the seeds we found. It was actually closer to winter time than fall. I just had her get a little from each plant we found.  

• When we got home, she set all of the seeds together in a pile. I asked her if she could separate all the seeds into 2 piles. She separated them by round seeds and flat seeds. I asked her if she could separate them into 3 piles, and she decided it should be by size. 
• Next activity was separating them back with their own seeds in a muffin tin. Some resembled each other so much, she got out her magnifying glass to tell them apart. 
• I found a neat 'Seed Graph' for her to organize the data she collected on which plant did she gather the most seeds from. you can find it HERE (mpm school supplies actually has a lot of cool ideas and links to more cool ideas) She glued the different seeds to the bottom of the graph and then counted them up and filled in the correct number on the graph. The graph went into her Gardening Portfolio. 
  

• She really liked checking out the seeds under the magnifying glass. From my seed stash, I got out lettuce seeds and let her make her own observations. She recorded her findings in her Science Notebook. Don't have a magnifying glass? I found ours at our local Dollar General in the school/stationary section. but you can also find one on Amazon HERE
• While checking out a Time Lapse Video of a Seed Growing, my daughter said it would be cool to plant our own seed and watch it grow in normal time. Great Idea! I found an old square aquarium and we filled it with our seed starter mix. Then she placed 4 English Pea seeds against the the side of the aquarium. We watered it and watched the seeds grow. She recorded what she witnessed in her Science journal as well. 

• It was not as easy to see as the video, but we enjoyed it just the same. you can use a variety of seeds for this experiment. Pinto beans and pumpkin seeds work great too! You can also use a small jar filled with moist paper towels with the seed up against the glass. 
• The next activity we did involved fermenting pinto beans. We placed a few dried pinto beans into a shallow bowl of water and let it sit a few days, adding water as needed. I asked my daughter to predict what she thought was going to happen, she recorded this in her science journal. After the pinto showed signs of growth, we dissected them. She drew out what she found and labeled the parts of the bean. We did not get any photos of this lesson, but I borrowed a couple from a homeschooling friend of mine that inspired this lesson for us. Her children are a little older so they have labeled a lot more than we did, with more scientific terms. Just another example how you can use one lesson for many different levels of children. Thank you Mary and the Butler Children for allowing us to use your amazing photos. 
  
  
  
  
•  If those words are too advanced for your kiddo, there is a simpler worksheet HERE

There are more activities and worksheets at 
Nutrients For Life

Can Teach: Science

NeoK12

We hope you enjoyed Parts of a Plant: Seeds lessons. Other pages in the series, can be found here:

Parts of a Plant: Tendrils

Parts of a Plant: The Stem

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

The FFA Hens

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     Finally got a few photos (that are a little better) of my FFA hens. Their names are 'Prissy' and 'HeShe.' Funny story, I was writing this post to see what everyone thought about the chicken 'HeShe.' Then we had some strange developments and I am pretty sure we have our answer now.
     We have actually had this chicken for several months now. It always seemed a little off, but we never questioned if it was really a hen, until a little over a month ago. 'HeShe' has always been an ugly chicken. Her face just looked mean and grouchy. She has a gimp leg that turns in a little, and she does not like to walk, run, or stand for very long. Her feathers never really laid down nicely, and at first we thought she might have been our Roo's favorite, (hint, hint, wink, wink) because she always looked harassed. Then suddenly, Roo stopped messing with her. Completely! He turned all of his attention on our Prissy Hen, causing a huge tear under her wing. Now I am going to skip over to talk about the eggs we have been getting. But first, check out the difference between Prissy and HeSHe.

HeSHe

Prissy and HeShe

At this point, we as a family have wondered, 
"Why is HeShe looking so much like a rooster?" 

That's when we named her 'HeShe.'

     Okay, now back to the eggs! HeShe couldn't be a rooster, we were getting way too many eggs for just Prissy to be laying them. One day we had 2 perfect little hard shells and 3 rubber eggs. The hard shells were laid in the nesting box, while the rubber eggs were scattered all over the hen house. We had seen Prissy use the nesting box, so we were confident she was the one laying the perfect little eggs. So who was laying the other, rubber eggs if not HeShe? 

      We were happy with the eggs we were getting and we were getting a lot of eggs for just 2 little hens. I figured HeShe would eventually get the hang of it and start laying normally. After all, these were extras from an FFA Meat/Show group of chickens. I was told they would never lay, never mate, never be good for anything except for meat. Also, they were prone to suddenly freak out, fly up in flapping wings of fury style and just die. I added egg shells and oyster shells to their diet in hopes this would help. 

     We started with 7 chickens. 6 hens and one rooster. Our Roo was glorious. We knew which one was the rooster from the beginning. Within a month after getting him he started to crow in the morning. He stood tall and proud, showing us his 'cock walk' often. We loved him. 

     But as rooster do, he mated constantly with our hen, Prissy. To the point he was hurting her. Not his fault. I had researched you needed a minimum of 6 hens to keep a rooster happy. At the time, however, these were just meat chickens I was to butcher for our meat. They were not supposed to lay eggs, or try to mate, or live past 3-4 months. Our other chickens were not old enough to put into the big coop with these chickens. So poor Prissy was 'harassed' on a regular basis. To the point she was ripped under her wing so bad I was sure we were going to have to cull her. Roo might have made it past this point, if it was not for the fact he started to attack my brother in law (super funny) and my 18 yr old son (still funny.) But, when he started attacking my 10 yr old daughter, that is when we decided Roo would have to go to freezer camp. It was a sad day for my daughter and I. Even though he was attacking her, we still loved him. But we knew, this was not a petting zoo, these were not supposed to be pets, this was food for our family. 

RIP my Roo! 

     Now we still had the problem of HeShe. Is it a boy or a girl? Her body was all hen. Big, fat, plump hen! She is short, she walks a bit funny, but definitely like a hen. My daughter wants me to also add Prissy and HeSHe both come running to the hen house like a couple of airplanes trying to take off. :) Roo did not run the same way. HeShe's comb and waddles were getting longer and darker, and looked more like Roo. Her feathers around her neck were becoming longer and wispier looking like a rooster. Slowly her tail feathers started to part and look fluffier. What was going on? OH! and right before Roo was sent to 'freezer camp' they had a scuffle only seen out of the corner of our eyes, 'Did HeShe just try to mate with Prissy? Is that why Roo attacked?' WHAT IS GOING ON HERE????

So tell me, is this a hen or a rooster? 

     And why would it have taken MONTHS for him to even look like a rooster? MONTHS! He started out just not being as pretty as our other hens, then grumpy looking. Then in came extra comb and waddles. Lastly, the feather change... So is this a hen or a rooster? I have showed HeShe's picture on a chicken group I am in on Facebook. Consensus was it was a hen that just had more male qualities. But I still wonder.. At least I did wonder. The morning after Roo's demise, I walked out, saddened by the fact that my Roo would not great me with his morning crow, only to be greeted by the morning crow of HeShe! (Now named Frankie) Has anyone ever had this happen? Has anyone ever heard of a FAKER chicken? 

     Now we have had to remove 'Frankie' from the rest of the flock to allow Prissy time to heal and let the younger chickens get used to the coop. We are not sure what we are going to do. I think he will meet the same fate of Roo, because we are pretty sure our new chicks have a boy or 2 in the flock. These will be a nicer breed of laying hens. It kinda makes Frankie useless except to be dinner. That was the whole reason we got them.  Prissy will be the last surviving FFA hen soon. I just hope she keeps laying the big beautiful eggs she has been laying, (and I secretly hope Frankie lays an egg in his pen, rubber or not, so he can stay too.) 

 Our laying chickens! 

 

 

 

Prissy is not sure what to think of the newbies in her house! 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Cooking Lesson Turned Anatomy Lesson

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Completely unexpected! 

     My daughter had been bugging me to make "little turkeys" (Cornish Hens) for a while now. I figured, why not? She needs to know what a real chicken looks like whole. Thought this could be the first step in learning to cut up a full sized chicken. 

     Yes, of course we made the little hens dance. :) 

     Zoey prepared them by covering them up with a whole lot of butter. Then, we covered them in foil and cooked our hens to perfection. She gobbled it all up! (No pun intended) The whole time she was eating, she was also asking questions about the different parts of the hens. Through out the whole entire meal! She found the breast bone with the cartilage and the bone attached together and gave me a crazy look. I explained the soft wiggly stuff was cartilage, just like on the tip of her nose and the roundness of her ears. She felt the bone part of her nose and how it came down to the softer part. For a moment, she looked very thoughtful. Then she said, "Hmmm... so that's why skeletons don't have ears!" 

Real life, hands on learning at it's best!     

Do you cook with your kids? We would love to hear

about your favorite kid friendly meals! 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

YOU ATE A WHAT?

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    As soon as I would tell someone, they would immediately make the sour pucker face, shake all over like a seizure and turn green. Some ran away screaming in fright. So of course I would have to tell them again, "We ate snake last night!" Same reaction, kinda funny. "You ate a what?" "Yes, we ate a snake." Complete and total freak out! Got to love it!
     Yes, we ate a snake. Yes, it was good. Yes, we will probably eat another if we can catch one again. "Who killed it?'
"My husband."
"Did you skin and gut it?"
"No, my son did. I didn't even realize what was going on till he brought it to me and asked how he could cook it."
"But, you ate it?"
"Well, yes of course I did!"
(Insert retching/gagging sound here!)

     Truth be told, we as a family, have wanted to try snake for a while. That is what happens when your son is a survival show junkie. Since he was old enough to watch t.v. he loved animal documentaries and shows. His teachers would comment on how he was the only one that would watch a documentary when they were studying certain animals. He was glued! When shows like "Survivor Man' started popping up everywhere, he was hooked. What boy in the country wouldn't be? Now that he is older, he has boasted his adventures through the woods and down the creek. (Where he should not have been cause it was forbidden. Can't be mad, cause at his age, that is where I would have been as well!) Many a time has he asked me, "Mom, if i find a snake, will you cook it for me?" "Well, yes, as long as you don't mess with it and show us the snake first so we can make sure it is not venomous" "What if I get a squirrel?" "You skin and gut it, I'll cook it!" Since that day he has watched his shows, dreamed of being a survivalist, and kept a look out for snakes and other critters he could eat.
     Once, son and daughter brought me a tiny, thin snake. Rescued from the cat a moment too late, its head was the only thing damaged. "Mom! Let's cook it!" It looked way too small. "If you can skin and gut it, I will cook it!" Several frustrating minutes went by. Not a very easy clean nor a whole lot of meat from the wiggling dead snake. Their faces were priceless. The cat was happy to get his prize back.
    So when your 17 year old son, who has waited YEARS to try snake, comes in with it skinned and gutted perfectly and says, "Mom, show me how to cook it!" Well then, that's just what you do!
     A small fire was made on the grill. He seasoned it with some garlic salt. (Everything tastes good with garlic salt, right?) My son patiently flipped his snake until it appeared to be finished cooking. When he tried it, he was not impressed. "It doesn't really taste like anything. Can you cook it like you cook garlic chicken in the pan?" In went some butter and garlic into the cast iron. 15 minutes later we were gathered around the kitchen counter, devouring a snake and pulling the delicate meat from around the tiny bones!

I'm glad my son finally got to try snake, and also, that he was not disappointed! 

     Yes, we ate snake. Yes, we liked it. AND YES, we will do it again if we get a chance!

DISCLAIMER FOR ALL OF YOU FREAKING OUT CAUSE SNAKES ARE WONDERFUL FOR THE ECOSYSTEM: I agree! And if the snake had not been in a fight with my dog at the time, he might have been able to go along his merry way. My husband did not know if it was venomous or not. Nor did he care at the time. This death did serve a purpose, we ate the flesh for dinner, chickens and dogs ate the insides and my daughter preserved the skin! Waste not, Want not! 

Disclosure: This post contains no affiliate links, However, I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online.