Chicken Butchering, DOG FOOD, and Chicken Day Companion Post

A few interesting details:

Farm Life Farm is not just a farm. We have a mission to share knowledge with our neighbors and clients. We are an educational farm. If you are searching the internet considering raising any sort of livestock, we can teach you how. We can also help determine if this is right for you. So many people that are squeamish or nervous, develop the ability to feed themselves after just a few hours with us.

As I typed away on the chicken day post, I thought of a few things that pertain but are not directly related. When we slaughter an animal, there is quite a bit of wasted stuff. Nothing here is actually wasted. In the end we use almost everything, however the digestive system is of no interest to us. There are many people and cultures that value these parts. We choose to give the digestive system to the wildlife in our neighborhood. We have yet to see anything left the next morning.

When we look at a chicken we have the following parts:

• Heads

• Necks

• feet

• gizzards

• Hearts/lungs

• Spleen

• Intestines

At Farm Life Farm, we make every effort to use all parts of the animals we slaughter.

If you make chicken stock or bone broth, you want the feet. The nutritive properties of chicken feet is incredible. They will add a great deal of flavor and nutrition. Many cultures use the feet in soups. I choose not to. We save the feet, freeze them and then add all of them to our bone broth. You can also dry them like jerky and give them to your dogs as treats.

On the topic of bone broth, we actually save all our bones for broth. Whenever we butcher, the bones are bagged and thrown in the freezer. If we cook bone-in meat, those bones go in the freezer as well. When we are almost out of canned bone stock, whatever bones we have saved go into a 60 quart pot with onion, carrots, garlic, parsley, and salt. We cook it down until all the connective tissue on the bones falls apart. We strain the fluid out and pressure can it at 15Lbs pressure for 45 minutes. The last two batches, we used the bones and leftovers for dog food.

We sifted through the stuff and pulled out all the big bones from the lamb and pork. All the small bones and bits of meat and connective tissues all go through our grinder on a large grind. Our grinder will pulverize an entire chicken carcass without issue. Some of the smaller lamb bones and bits of pork knuckle will grind along with all the rabbit bones. Anything larger goes to the dogs as chew toys or get thrown in the woods for the wildlife. We add cooked whole grain rice and broccoli and carrots which we also send through the grinder just for convenience. This mix is scooped into canning jars and pressure canned at 15Lbs for 45 minutes. If we have giblets, rabbit organs, or other animal organs, we will mince them as well and add them to the dog food mix. Other times, we will use fish. For example, this past summer our kids went deep sea fishing with Scouts and came home with 30 Lbs of Porgy. We have used some of it for fish sticks and more for dog food. The fish does make the dog food smell bad so my kids are reluctant to feed the dogs when it is fish food. We still feed kibble with the homemade dog food just so we don't have to calculate nutrient, vitamin, and mineral content. Years ago we had a sick dog that could not eat kibble. We would add vitamins and trace elements. Oh, why do we make our own dog food? Kibble is dead food. It is highly processed and lacks all enzymes which are destroyed in the making process. Our dogs are part of the family and I wont feed my children processed foods, why would I feed it to my dogs. The other reason is money. The scraps from our animals are already paid for. Why throw them away when the dogs are thrilled to eat it. Their coats get shiny. They have more energy.

We also save the organs, but not the gizzards. I have done gizzards in the past, but it is messy and time consuming. If you have the desire, separate the gizzards from the intestines, split them open and clean out all the stuff; better yet, watch the homestead sisters on youtube. They do a great job showing how easy it is. Actually looking at their method, I just may keep the gizzards next slaughter day.

The other chicken organs, we use for dog food. I used to save them for giblet stuffing, but I was the only member of the family that enjoyed it. The last two slaughters, I used all the giblets for dog food. If you want them for giblet stuffing, then vacuum seal them in serving size bags and chop them up while still partially frozen.

Lets talk a bit about butchering. If you plan to slaughter and sell your birds, I would recommend keeping them whole. Remember to add the giblets to the bag as many people do enjoy a giblet stuffing. I normally keep two or four birds whole for roasting. This time, we slaughtered 9 birds and I cut all of them down to parts. The math worked out for all 9 birds to be butchered given our desire for "packs of six" for family dinners.

In high school I worked at a little grocery store with a butchers counter. I worked with two top notch career butchers. Both of them taught me a great deal. Given that we would break down 2 cases of chicken each day, I did get a lot of practice. Both were named Mike, but one was a miserable drunk and the other was a really happy guy. Both of them seemed pleased to teach me. Happy Mike used to race me on chickens. Who could get the most done with the least lost or damaged meat. Safe to say I lost every day.

I always start with the feet. Cut circumfixal around the joint and then break the joint and then cut through whatever tissue is still connected. I then cut off the wings and cut off the wing tips. Wing tips and feet into the broth pile. Next is the leg and thigh. Cut the skin and bend the leg away from the carcass. Cut along the bottom and go through the joint. I then bend the leg/thigh and find the joint and cut through. You can also leave the leg and thigh together as one piece. This is great if you are going to cook them on the grill or in the oven. Separate them if you are going to deep fry them. Then cut along the ribs and rip off the front half of the spine. Cut along the base of the breasts and severe the connections at the base of the wishbone on both sides which will separate the second half of spinal cord from the breast. Last time I cut the breasts free from the rib cage. This time I left the breasts on the bones. This was really just a time/shoulder saving decision. It might make for some interesting cooking options, but my real motivation was that peeling the breast off the bone is difficult. Though if you do, you can then separate the tenderloin from the rest of the breast...chicken tenders anyone, or maybe fajitas?