Butchering Day

We had too many roosters, so we had to butcher some. I desperately looked for a place to take them and have it done, but I couldn't find any meat processing place around here. Surely there is one somewhere. Tom decided to do it himself. He read the How To in our chicken book and Larry came over to help him (in the picture, they're setting up a makeshift table to work on out in the field. I told him I didn't want to see or hear anything about it. Meagan and I went to the flea market. It took Tom and Larry from about 8:30 to 11:30 to process two of the roosters. They had to take a break for lunch and to help a hay buyer load 90 bales of hay, then they went back to the rooster processing and finished up around 4:00.

Six roosters in all. We have three left, with ten hens. I think we need to get an incubator and hatch a few. Last week something got one of the hens and ate it's head off. The chickens are starting to range further and further from the house and coop. I think the hen got to close to the woods and something in there darted out and got it.