We have been working on a lot of pig meat that we got from our friends for about a year now. So we haven’t had a need to raise our own meat for a little. We also have been contemplating purchasing half a cow soon to restock the fridge. But the thing I miss the most would have to be having chicken.
So since the middle of October to the week before Christmas, we raised meat birds on the homestead. This round we started with 25 birds and found that was a pretty decent amount for us to process in one day. We are pretty fast with processing but we also have to take into account that on processing day it may be one or both of us working. Typically we prefer both of us but its not uncommon to have just Jeremy processing due to Mandy’s health reasons.
It may have only taken a few hours to process the meat but I think this was because it took us some time to get back into the groove of things. I know for myself, Mandy, it took me a bit to get back into the hang of how processing went. Not that I forgot but more so there is a flow that goes with it and I was not in that flow. Jeremy was lapping me in the dispatching, scolding and defeathering realm while I was breaking the bird down. In the past I was waiting for Jeremy to catch up. But we managed and were able to get this all done in a day.
Our plan is to do these small batches a few times through out the year. We are thinking of starting in February on having our next round of chickens and then a few weeks later we will receive our next round. So we will have essentially two batches of meat birds at a time. Now we may decide to pause in the summer as this will be our busy season and Im not gonna lie, I don’t want to smell that in the heat. The cold weather takes the smell down a little but the heat will just make it worse.
This year I think we will end up with mostly chicken as our predominate meat for the household. With the few treats of beef and any pig we have left over still in the freezer. We will most likely end up with processing some duck as well as our ducks make some wonderful mommas but we truly do not need more ducks for the flock. But for the most part we will be raising and processing our own chicken! Days like this I am absolutely thankful for the homestead.