Best Way To Bleed A Chicken

In reference to killing broilers (or any chicken for that matter), Squaw Creek Ranch asked, "Now, what is "best" , as far as getting all the blood out, chop off their heads or cut the arteries?"

Well... here are a few links about processing chickens, one of which is me killing a chicken.

Polyface Processing Overview

Me Bleeding Out a Chicken at Polyface.

Joel Salatin Eviscerating a Chicken

Daniel Salatin Cutting Up and Chicken

David Schafer with Featherman Equipment Company sells poultry processing equipment and comes highly recommended by the Salatins. He came out to the farm and took pictures and video and then created these videos in order to help people learn how to process chickens. If you are ever in need of poultry processing equipment here is the company's contact information.

Featherman Equipment Co.

PO Box 62
Jamesport, MO 64648

(660) 684-6035

info@featherman.net

www.featherman.net

Jessica also asked, "Videos? I'd love to see them (The Pigs) moving about." Must be her lucky day. Here is a video I took back in the spring of a group of pigs immediately after I moved them into a new pasture. Notice the grazing.

Pig Update

When I was a small child I asked my father one day, "Dad, can I have a pig?"  

He questioned, "Son, you can barely wake up in time to get ready for school, how would you ever be able to wake up early enough to take care of the pig before school?"

To which I retorted, "I don't wake up early because I don't have a pig."

The logic was simple enough for me, but needless to say, I never got my pig.  Well Dad, I've got more pigs than I ever dreamed and I am able to wake up early to care for them.  If you haven't ever experienced caring for a pig, I highly recommend getting one (or 10) and find the joy I have in them.  Here on Polyface I have become the "Pigboy" (much like a cowboy... no horse).

Anyway, here is a little update on the pigs and Lunch Box, the lead pig.

Currently on the farm we have ~155 pigs.  They range in size from 30 lbs to 300 lbs and are mostly out on pasture or in the woods (save for the little new pigs and the "about-to-be-butchered" pigs).  We run males and females together (males are castrated) and keep them in bunches of 15-50.  

Pigs in the Beaver Pond Pasture.  Notice the grazing?

Polyface is doing something this year that is Brand new with the pig enterprise.  We have put 100 pigs on actual pasture.  I say "actual pasture" because it isn't grass in the woods like the beaver pond pigs above, but rather grass in an open field that, until this summer, was grazed by the cattle.  We have two herds of 50 on 1/2 acre paddocks and we move them about once every 5-10 days.  Movement depends on the age of the pig and amount of feed consumption.  They have all-you-can-eat access to the normal Polyface pig ration (Corn, Soy beans, Oats, Diatomaceous Earth, and Fertril Nutri-Balancers swine mix) and large quantities of lush, tall, jungle-like pasture.  The clover is thick the fescue is tall and the alfalfa is blooming.  When we move them they don't head to the newly filled feeder.  Instead the put their heads to the ground like cattle and graze their way to the feeder.  It's UNREAL and BREATHTAKING.  Probably should be on the 1000 things to see before you die... maybe.

Pasture difference on day of move.  WOW.  Fencing is only a single strand of 12 1/2 gauge  Aluminum electric fence.

Same pasture after a few days.

Lunch Box is part of one of these 2 herds on pasture.  We put her with the newest/smallest pigs to act as a mother with good habits.  When I enter their pasture I usually began calling for her.  In no time she finds me for a good rub down and scratch.  Then something unbelievable happens.  Once I start scratching her, all the other little pigs lose their fear for me and allow me to pet them.  Its unreal.  The day I turned them in with her they had a huge flight zone, but now they aren't afraid and usually like to nibble on my feet.  Displacement in pigs has risen to the top on my list of desired qualities.

By the way...

Pork is the most consumed meat in the world.  Believe it or not.

Here is a link to a video Nightline did with Joel and Steve Ellis (founder of Chipotle).

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7857921

Enjoy!!

Butchering Rabbits

So about two weeks ago Matt and I butchered several rabbits and we have been really busy here lately that I haven't allotted an of my down time to blogging.  Tonight I decided was long enough to wait, so here are some pictures and a little but of the procedure.  Any questions?... Feel free to ask.

The Deciding Factor:

After we wean bunnies from their mother (6 weeks), we allow them to reach 4-5 lbs (12 weeks) before making the decision to butcher or keep for breeding stock.  To eliminate breeding full brothers and sisters, we only keep either bucks or does from a working doe.  We don't always keep every buck or every doe from a litter.  Only if they're awesome like doe #14 and buck #4 (who multiply like... rabbits?) do we keep all does.  We seldom keep all bucks from a litter.  If they aren't kept, they're butchered.

The Capture:

The hunt is simple... put bunny into crate from hutch.  Its best to carry them like a mother cat carries her kittens, by grabbing  a handful of skin on the back of their neck.  Be careful of their kicking feet and sharp claws.  My war wounds (scratches and one bite) just healed up.

Two bunnies ready to be butchered.

The Kill:

Once your are prepared to butcher... burnt peace offering, say prayer, deep breath, or whatever it takes for you to be mentally ready to kill such an awesome creature (I usually just jump right in), grab to fryer (terminology helps desensitize the act) in your non-dominate hand by grasping right in front of the hind legs.  This is different than the description of carrying mentioned above (see picture below).  In your dominate hand grab a heavy stick or metal pipe about 18 inches long.  Give to fryer a good blow to the back of the head, right above the ears.  This will instantly knock-out the fryer and allow you to hang it up by both feet and slit it's carotid arteries.  The fryer will then bleed out and basically die in its sleep.  In my opinion the most humane way to kill.

  

Here I am right before "The Kill."  Notice the holding technique.

Here the fryer bleeds out.  We catch the blood in a bucket.

Skinning 'em out:

Once you get them hung up and bleed out, it's time to skin 'em.  We start with the hind legs and pull the skin down over their bodies like a shirt over their head.  Once we cut the front feet off, the head comes next.  We try to cut the head off at the same cut used to bleed them out.  

Matt and I skinning fryers.  Rope and a clothes line post is all you need to hang them.

Cutting the tail off.

Notice how the skin is in one piece.  Just like a shirt over its head.  

I'm pulling out the front feet to cut them off.

Here Matt cuts off the head.  Notice how he holds the ears and pulls down.

This allows him to cut against something firm, not limp and dangerous.

Evisceration:

One you have the skin off, its time to eviscerate.  If you have ever butchered a deer, the process is exactly the same... only scaled way down.  Be careful not to get any urine or manure on the carcass.  If you do just wash it off... no big deal to me, but for customers you need to keep them as clean as possible.  We keep the liver to sell with the carcass.  The only difficult task is removing the gall bladder.  Its hard to get a hold of, but unlike a chicken, it won't bust easily.  I tried to bust one and its rather strong.  Make sure to go past the diaphragm and remove the heart and lungs.   

Starting the cut into the cavity.  

Use your fingers to protect the guts from puncture and cut up.

The inside of a healthy fryer can be a awesome sight.

Pinching the gall bladder off.  

Don't worry about busting it... just grip and pull.

Clean Up and Cool Down:

Once we have eviscerated, we cut off their hind feet. wash the carcass with cool water, and then place them in a tank of cool water while we butcher the others.  This allows for quick cooling and hydration.  It also keeps the flies away from the meat.  Once we are done butchering, we pack the carcass (with liver in body cavity) in plastic bags and freeze them.  

 

Nice hind quarters after feet have been removed.

Makes you wanna slap your daddy!

Here Matt washes the fryer with clean water.

Cooling down in the tank.  Notice the liver below the carcasses.

I hope this brings you closer to understanding Polyface's butchering process.  It's really simple and only requires a sharp knife and some practice.

Thanks again to Rachel for all the photos.

New Cattle and RAIN!!

Over the past few days the Salatins have been buying weaned calves to replenish Polyface's stock.  We send about 7 to the slaughterhouse that is partially owned by the Salatins every two weeks.   Yesterday we received 25 calves and today we received 50.  We also had about one and a half inches of rain fall over the same two days.  

Moral of the story... If you need rain, plan on working cattle in the corral and the rain will come and make everything sloppy.

New Calf Protocol  (How do you prefer your tail pulled?)

I had always wondered what Polyface's protocol was for receiving new cattle and after the last two days I have a pretty good idea.  Both sets of cattle came from local cow/calf operations.  In fact the first 25 came from the neighbor bordering the south side of the home property.  The others came from about 30 minutes away in Stuarts Draft.  

(It was nice to get local calves since local is a huge word around here.  I heard somewhere that the average steak travels 1100 miles from birth-to-grill or womb-to-tomb, so its nice to think that some of the meat I will eat here on the farm walked everywhere but to the butcher.)

Anyway... Once the calves were sorted off their mothers and/or put into the corral, we had a series of tasks for each calf before turning them out onto fresh pasture.  Here at Polyface we run both steer and heifers.  (We have some cows that produce calves every year also, but to keep up with the beef demand they started buying calves and finishing them on grass.)  One task involves putting each calf on a set of scales to get there weight.  Then we run each calf into a head gate that holds them still so we can put in new Polyface ear-tags.  Both the bulls and heifers are pretty easy up until this point, the only difference being that we still need to castrate the bull calves into steers.  The heifers are turned loose to hang out in the coral, but the bulls are held a little longer by the head gate and a human (I had the lions share this week, but its wasn't to many).  Try and imagine this... I stood on the fence straddling the bull, both feet about belly high on the bull, facing toward his hind end.  This allowed me to pull on his tail and sit on his back while either Daniel or Joel did the castrating.  This worked pretty well under the circumstances and we only had a few that really fought what we were doing.  Once you get their tail pulled over there back, they calm down quite a bit.  In between bulls I would just climb up into the barn, over the chute and cattle to wait till the next calf.  This put me out of sight and allowed for easy access when I was needed to pull tail.

I keep saying calf but I think a different word needs to be used because some of these "calves" weighed in at over 600 lbs.  One in particular weighed 712 lbs.  Surprisingly enough, he didn't fight as much as he could have.  I guess you could say he stood there and took it like a man... or a lesser of a man now?  

This way of working new calves was a little new to me.  I'm used to having the calf either at the end of a rope pulled by a horse and cowboy, or in a head-gate with a squeeze chute.  This is how I've always castrated and tagged cattle growing up.  I can say that I prefer roping over all, and the squeeze chute is next followed by this new method.  With that said, I also respect the way Polyface does it.  All the infrastructure was low cost (home-made head gate with home-milled lumber and posts for the corral) and we got the job done right.  It's not worth doing unless you do it right.

 

Farm Food Deliveries

"The Bus" (Delivery Vehicle)

On Thursday of this week, I spent the day making deliveries with Richard (our full-time delivery driver).  We delivered to several restaurants and stores, and did two buying club drops.  Needless to say it was a long day.  (Wake-up time = 5 AM... Start Work = 5:15AM... Arrive back on farm = 8PM)

RESTAURANT DELIVERIES

As I said before, Polyface delivers to several restaurants in Virginia.  One of the more popular ones is Chipotle (big mexican-style burritos and such).  They focus on getting meat that is  naturally raised, no antibiotics, etc.  Polyface sells them about 250 lbs of pork a week.  If you haven't had a Chipotle burrito, I highly recommend you go and try one soon.  Anyway... I had lots of great experiences on the delivery run while going to restaurants, but I'm going to stick to one story that remains the most memorable for me, the Rev Soup Beef Drop.

Revolutionary Soup Beef Delivery

That morning we loaded up a half of a beef into coolers that were headed to Rev Soup.  The half beef was only cut into 4 pieces, so none of the coolers shut all the way (imagine beef legs sticking out the top).  I wasn't sure what kind of place Rev Soup was but I figured that they would have a back door that we could bring in these HUGE pieces of meat.  We arrived to the drop location and Richard had never delivered to this particular Rev Soup (there are two), so he went in to ask where the service/delivery door was located.  Turns out there wasn't one.  Only the main entrance.

So there we were pushing this cart loaded with coolers with beef sticking out the top for all the world to see.  Though I shouldn't have, I felt as though I was wearing a dress and the world had a free shot to look up it.  We got to the front door and Richard took the first cooler in while I held the door and the cooler cart.  When he got back I picked up the largest and heaviest of the coolers (96 lbs of grass-fed beef!) and asked him where to take it.  He said to go straight back to the kitchen and they'll be waiting for me.  I hadn't noticed till now that the place was PACKED full of customers.  It was a little after noon, so you can imagine the lunch rush this place had going.  As I walked in the door carrying this huge leg of beef I looked toward the kitchen and realized that I had to walk right through the long line of patrons studying the menu.  I thought immediately, "What are they going to do when they see this huge piece of meat, sticking out of the cooler, headed into the kitchen."  I pressed on through the line and into the kitchen and when I got inside the owner was there and SUPER excited to see the giant piece of meat I was carrying.  That ease my anxiety a little.

This happened a total of four time between Richard and I, and it gave me kind of an adrenaline rush.  I was thinking about it afterward and it dawned on me that, to my knowledge, not a single patron realized what we brought into the restaurant.  The restaurant was located next to the University of Virginia so most of the customers where college-age young-adults.  This lead me to ponder this, "Is my generation so removed from our food that we don't even recognized what it looks like before its soup?"  I hope not, but I think we are.

RETAIL STORES

As far as retail stories go, most of them sell Polyface eggs and pork products.  Some of the places were awesome little hole-in-the-wall places but there were a couple large, unfriendly places on the route.  It seems to me that the larger any store of any kind gets, the harder it is to keep employee moral up (no just food stores).  Maybe a thought to ponder in my other blog.

Anyway... at one of the retail stores, they returned several packs of bacon that they couldn't sell.  Why were they having trouble selling Polyface bacon you might ask?  Was it the taste?  Was it old? NO!!  It was because of the USDA blue edible ink that they stamp everything with at the USDA inspected abattoir.  "Our customers won't buy the bacon if it has the ink on it." says the man at the store.  WHAT A JOKE!  Thanks again USDA.  

So now what?  We can't sell our product in retail stores because in order for it to be "Safe" the USDA must have an inspector on site using his stamp at will.  But because he deems it "Safe" with his stamp, no one will eat it because of fear of the ink.  So were stuck having to sort through bacon each time we send it to this store and forced to explain to customers this ridiculous reasoning and the fact that the ink is soy based.  Awesome... more petroleum being used for a totally natural product.

BUYING CLUB DROPS

In the middle of all this we made two buying club drops in Richmond.  I love doing buying club drops.  Every six weeks customers order online and we delivery their product(s) to them at several drop sites.  (You can learn more at www.polyfacefarms.com)  The day before the drop (or a couple days... whatever works) we put together orders in coolers and store them in the walk-in freezer until the morning of the drop day.  On the day of, we load the coolers in the bus and head to the drop.  Once there we unload the coolers for each specific drop and customers arrive with coolers of their own (or sack, boxes, etc.) and we hand over the order as they hand over the money.  It works out really awesome and in 30 mins to an hour we've handed out between 30 and 80 orders.  Polyface has a well oiled machine and I was able to jump right in like a greased cog.  Its wonderful to know that a lot of the customers have been to the farm and most have read about the farm and are excited not only by the good food, but by the awesome stewardship on the farm.

Stay tuned... I'l try and take some pics...

Moving the Cows

Today we moved the cows at one of the rental farms, Greenmont.  

Matt and I left after chores and breakfast and drove over in his truck with some fence and a few re-bar stakes.  After we drove in the pasture Matt showed me the map Daniel had drawn us that illustrated where the cows were and where they were to be moved.  It was quite a distance and over some really nice grass.  Needless to say I was a little anxious.  Either way we went to work moving fences and preparing the future paddock for the cows and their calves.

You may be asking yourself why was I anxious?  Maybe not.  Either way, I was.  Yes, I grew up on a ranch and, yes, we drove lots of cattle over lots of obstacles, but this was different.  It was different mainly because I had never driven these particular cattle on this kind of pasture.  Since there was just the two of us Matt decided that he would go ahead of the cattle with his truck and call them and I would help steer them(no pun intended) in the right direction.  He left me at what he figured would be a troublesome spot and went over the hill and out of sight to get the cows.

He left me by a large stack of hay.  Being curious and adventurous by nature, I wanted to see the view from the top of the stack, so I climbed.  What a view!  From the top of the hay I could see almost the entire lay of land, but I still couldn't see Matt.  After what seemed like a long time I began to think something wasn't going as smoothly as we had hoped.  I had almost convinced myself that I needed to go and check on him when I saw his truck headed my way over the hill.  He was booking it and the cattle were right on his tail... gate.  I've never seen momma cows run so fast toward something (maybe away from something but never toward).  

They were running along just fine till they got to the top of the hill where they began to slow down.  I knew we needed them to keep going and not put their heads down so I trotted up to them and gave what turned out to be a final push toward the gate.  They once again ran down the hill toward Matt (no out of his truck and on foot) and into the gate.  Happy Cows!

Matt walked up with a big smile, and I'm sure I was his mirror image of happiness and relief.  We drove into the paddock, hooked up the charger to electrify the fence, put out mineral, and headed to town.  Task complete.  Check.

Week 1: The Beginning

I arrived at Polyface at 2:00PM on October 1st and the feeling of intensity was enormous. That morning the summer crew and family had butchered several hundred chickens and were milling around getting chickens into bins and bags to be cooled so they could be sold. That afternoon chores consisted of feeding lots of chickens and collecting, cleaning, and sorting eggs. When we sat down to dinner I looked around to see faces that spelled relief and accomplishment. I knew I was surrounded by a group of hard-working, self-motivated, optimistic people. What an environment. What a place. What a group of people.

So, I've been here less than five days and today my body let me know that my current routine was out of the ordinary. It keeps asking: What happened to that recliner? Where is the Mountain Dew and other various soda pop? Why do you walk so far and carry all those heavy buckets of feed and water? Fast Food? Beer? Are we on some sort of diet or at boot camp? I guess I forgot to tell my body that we were headed for an experience that might equal an farm business fat camp. The second of third night at dinner I commented to Matt and Andy how much food the both of them could and did consume. Endless bowls of tomato one night, chili the next. Trays of no-bake cookies. It was incredible. Matt made a great comment.

He said, "Grady, here in about a week or two your going to sit down for dinner and begin to eat. You're going to wonder why you're not getting full and how it appears that your stomach is a bottomless pit. Don't worry, that's normal." I got a kick out of that. We'll see if he's right, and if the way he and Andy eat is any indication then I'll probably join them bowl for bowl, plate for plate.

Where I sleep is cozy and efficient. Large and drafty are not proper words that would ever describe "The Cottage." I share this one and a half-ish room with Andy. We have a kitchen area, bathroom area (This is the half I mentioned. I call it a half because there is no door, only a curtain which works quite effective.) and a sleeping area which consists of bunk beds. You guessed it, I'm on the top bunk. I'm working on making a writing desk area and getting a cushy chair so to have an office area. There isn't much more room to make any more areas, but we'll see what we can do.  I made a shelf today that doubles as a hanging rod for Andy and I's nice clothing.  It worked out really well so I guess we also have a closet type area also.

My goal is to post every sunday at least and maybe more... We'll see what happens.  Polyface is starting to slow down so I'm sure I'll be able to keep up.  Hopefully I'll be able to expand some philosophy and tell stories.  Stay tuned.