A Fowl Day

Isaiah's first comment on waking was that he saw the little Mallard, the only duck we intended to keep, running frantically around the pen holding her comrades. He went out and helped her in. Would it be too cruel to keep just one solitary duck?

Processing of birds dominated our day. By Saturday, we are usually dragging a bit, so we didn't get the scald water heated until about 10am, but then we were ready to go.

The first bird we killed, a rogue broiler chicken, had a fully-formed egg inside. Clearly, she was entering her productive time, but it was time for her to go. The other three rogue broilers were not productive in any way.

We then killed two Barred Rock cocks. One, especially, had a magnificent comb and a strong presence. But one rooster, our home-grown Chanticleer, is enough. Goodbye, cocks.

Next we struggled through 19 two-year-old Rhode Island Reds. I have suspected that few brown eggs in Jadon's daily collection come from these old birds. So I was surprised to find seven fully-formed eggs, and another seven birds with forming eggs inside (a forming egg is the size and color of a yolk: very interesting to see). The seven eggs collected, though, were so large they didn't fit in the egg carton, so if the birds have actually been laying, I suspect they must have been hiding their eggs well.

And while I'm happy to have egg-laying birds, if they eat and lay in hidden spots, where we don't find the eggs until they are rotten, the birds are not much good to us. So while I'm grateful for the year of laying the birds gave us, I am glad to be done with them, unproductive now for the last five months. Enough!

And I am especially glad to have no birds greet me in the barn, where they have pooped me a "present" on my worktable or oven. Or, in the worst, in the oven.

We killed the last two birds hatched on the farm in 2010. White Pertelote was Chanticleer's constant companion.

And her follower, "Pertelote's sister." Neither of these birds had laid eggs for sometime.

We took a lunch break when these were done. It seems like killing and eviscerating would not take so much emotional and physical energy, but it wears us out. Old layers more than broilers: the fatty egg yolks in so many hens' cavities coated my hands in yellow gunk, and required extra rinsing. And some birds had yellow livers that also smeared. No, if I'm going to have to pull out guts, I prefer them young and clean.

After lunch we embarked on a new adventure: the processing of ducks and guineas.

One guinea got away. Isaiah had pulled it out to photograph, and it somehow twisted out of his grasp. I expect the single guinea will be lonely, but I can't say I'm sad. Despite being male, and thus unproductive in eggs for the last two years, I have appreciated his tick-eating, and the occasional majestic glide across the farm. I expect we'll get new guineas next year.

The two we processed were very small. I cannot imagine raising these birds for meat, but the processing itself was just like a little chicken.

The ducks were quite a different story.

We started with the white Pekin ducks. These meat birds tower over all the other birds in the barnyard, so it was shocking how little meat their carcasses produced. After eight months, the largest weighed just over four pounds, once dressed.

The real issue with ducks is how ridiculously difficult it is to pluck them. Despite a very long scald, the plucker only pulled some feathers. Phil spent twenty minutes or so plucking each white. Totally frustrating.

Next were the dual purpose Cayuga ducks, a beautiful black with incredible blue, purple, and green highlights in the sun.

On the first of the three, Phil dry plucked the breast, which left black pinfeathers in the skin.

He got out a burner to burn the feathers off, but we decided in the end to just skin the bird.

But that wasn't ideal. The duck has a beautiful layer of fat right under the skin, and skinning took off that layer. And the whole duck weighed something like a pound, so the time spent skinning was totally impractical. The sun was going down, we were tired, cold, frustrated with the task. "We will NEVER do ducks on a production scale," we decided. And I suppose that realization was valuable.

From then on, we scalded the birds, plucked the breast feathers as best we could, and cut off the breast (a typical hunter's processing). Although the black feathers are unattractive, I figure I can cook the breast and remove the skin once the juices have run out.

When we came to the Khaki Campbell ducks, beautiful and brown, the description made me wish I didn't have to kill them. They lay 300-325 eggs a year for three years, starting at six months. But I hadn't seen any eggs from them yet.

A quick comparison between the ducks we have and the illustration in the catalog revealed the problem: all our Khaki Campbells were drakes! No eggs would be forthcoming from them, ever! The tell-tale little curl in the tail gave them away.

Just to make sure, we checked the inner cavity of the first one we killed. Phil almost didn't believe his eyes. The drake's testicles filled almost the entire width of the bird, exponentially larger than the largest of chicken male parts we've seen.

With textbook little twisting tubes leading out of the body. (Excuse the graphic photo, but it's not something you see every day!)

Magnificent feathers.


The final birds of the day were Welsh Harlequin. I think if I were to raise ducks, I would choose the Welsh Harlequin, which can lay up to 300 white eggs a year, and pluck quickly and cleanly. Of the three we had, two were males. But how perfect! The one female would be a companion to our little Mallard, which made Isaiah practically ecstatic.

"I hate killing animals I like," he had said early in the day. But the joy of a restored little Mallard turned the day from grim to joyful.