Prepping for the Poultry Processing Day
Barn work area clean
After a year, the barn gets pretty messy. My husband is not renown for cleaning up after finishing jobs. So on a very hot Tuesday morning I got out there at 6:30 and started putting things away and bagging trash and recycling.
At 8:30 one of our helpers arrived and we finished the main aisle area. Then we started on the area behind the stall door. This place had become a catch all for empty leaf bags, equipment, the brooder that needed pressure washing, the broken pressure washer, etc.
We got it cleaned out and I raked the aisle and she raked the stall and we hauled it out to the manure pile area. We finished about 10AM, just when it was getting real hot.
I had tomatoes I’d picked days before and planned to make spaghetti sauce. We had the big AC from the cold room running for the first floor, so it would be bearable.
One of the first jobs I had done the previous week was to clean out the empty freezer and get it started. We needed to freeze many gallon jugs of ice for the cooling tubs, and we can only do a few a day.
On a very hot Wednesday morning, I went out at 6AM to the butchershop to start cleaning that up. It’s a catch all for all the brooder and winter equipment that has been used but not cleaned and put away. That was the job for the morning.
I cleaned the floor of the bay window and laid all the equipment to dry. I’d bag it up and put it away the next morning.
On a very hot Thursday morning, I got out there at 5:30AM because I intended to get all the ceilings and upper surfaces and walls washed before the temperatures got too bad. Once the shelves were clean, I bagged the equipment and put it away. I finished about 11AM.
While I was working in the butchershop, my helper friend did the foliar feeding in the gardens, then came up and started the cold room. When I finished, I helped him in there. We got done about 12:30. Then we loaded the dehydrators with paprika, nasturtiums, and tansy.
On Friday, the temperatures weren’t to be quite so bad. I got out there early, about 6:30, and got the bay window done. The venetian blinds take forever to do. It’s all about dust on this farm with sandy loam.
Then I finished all the lower areas and walls.
And then I scoured the filthy floor. The butchershop was done!
While I was doing the inside work, my husband was doing the outside stuff.
He mowed an area so we could move the pen to a clean place, for when we had to chase birds on Sunday. He bush hogged and weed wacked the parking area and the turnout we would be working in.
The parts for the pressure washer came in on Friday so he got that running and pressure washed almost everything needing it. Then he cleaned and bleached as much equipment as he could and stored it in the clean cold room.
In the process of putting equipment into the cold room, we realized there was a very good chance the dilapidated doors might just come to pieces with all the opening and closing during the processing.
So he went and bought 2 new doors. There was not time to paint them. Once they dry out when we are done with the cold room, we will have to get them painted before we do the pig in October.
Saturday morning he and I got the pasture pen moved first thing, with plenty of pig supervision as it was cool.
My son moved the snake fence out of the way and finished the weedwacking.
Then we got the brooder and enclosure hung up/put away. He had a couple more things to pressure wash, and then he started setting up the slaughter area.
The killing cones
The plucker, left, and scalder, right
(Our “Wizard” who brings his family every year, brought the canopy, in case it got hot.)
I had finished and went to the house to make a giant lasagna for the potluck on Sunday. Then I started getting the first floor ready for 14 people for the potluck.
Sunday morning I was up at 3:30 getting the paperwork ready for the processing, then started moving stuff out of the kitchen into the living room. The kitchen only measures 16’ x 18’ so not much could be left in there. I had to get 2 tables set up, one seating 10 people and the other seating 4.
My husband got up at 5AM and starting bringing down chairs and table leaves from the attic, and the second table from the second floor. Then he went to do chores.
I got all the dishes out, tablecloths on, chairs around tables, and silverware. Then I started collecting all the stuff I’d need in the butchershop: the scale, large SS bowls, knives, paper towels, etc. I left all that at the house and went up to give the butchershop a good once over and rewash the floor, dust you know…
Then I got all the equipment and set the shop up. I finished about 7:45. I’d told people if they wanted to learn to cull layers, to be there between 8 – 8:30, as the processing started at 9AM.
Cooling tubs, as we used to do it in the butchershop
My husband filled all the cooling tubs and got all the coolers ready, inside the cold room. He’d turned the AC (taken back from the house) on when he’d come up to do chores. Then he ran the hoses and electric cords and got the transport cages out.
So we were on time and all ready. The day could begin.
great job getting everything cleaned up! looks awesome! hope all goes well. i know that so much prep is usually needed, sometimes the day of just flies by because you've already prepped so much. it's also great to get a peek at some more of your buildings and layout. <3
That's exactly what happens, thank goodness! The day flies by, then I drop exhausted for 2 days. But that's fine because the birds need to "hang" (think beef dry curing...) for 3 days to tenderize them. This is really important for pastured heritage birds, as they can be tough.
I've done a bunch of posts about the infrastructure here. Maybe I should take a page from @walkerland, and make a post with the links to the old posts...
Lol a week of setup so you can get a day started on time! What a process! Can't wait to read the rest :) It looks like we'll be doing a bit of processing ourselves this weekend.
Yeah, a lot of what we do here means we end up spending a huge amount of time on a project. But it's usually once a year, and means a whole year of that food.
The good thing about the the processing day, which is a teaching community event, is that the farm gets cleaned up at least once a year. :))
With a big operation like yours, I can see how the projects get so big. But a year's worth of chicken? Sounds like an awesome reward!
Do y'all produce extra to sell?
Not meat, just eggs and produce. We are not USDA so we can't sell what we butcher.
Lol I just screamed inside.
Reading Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal is turning me significantly radical. As if I wasn't radical enough... Joel Salatin is amazing :)
Yeah, we saw him at a NOFA/Mass conference a few years back and sat and picked his brain during lunch. I had an album of farm photos and we shared that. He's pretty much just as he writes...