so today isn't only a bad day we have to unfortunately harvest some chickens so stay tuned to this YouTube video and we're gonna show you the whole process from start to finish alright so quick disclaimer about this video I really want you to understand that you might see some things that would disturb some folks so by all means if this is disturbing you or you find this to be too violent or anything like that by all by all accounts close the video it's not every day is a very fancy day on the homestead unfortunately this is one of those days that just has to happen when we bought our chickens we ended up getting our chickens is something called straight run and when you get a chicken straight run there's a possibility that the roosters might also be in there of course with the hens now most of the time we raise the hands we raise the kids already started it's a very it's a very loud and obnoxious day but unfortunately the roosters and the hens both come and so the roosters have to unfortunately be taken care of because we can of all these roosters going around stressing everybody out and causing all this drama on the homestead so we are going to harvest the animals but the most part is that we're gonna honor their their way of providing for our homestead and we make draws and soups and all of these wonderful things with the entire bird as much as we could possibly use on the homestead but this is one of those issues that we have to deal with so this is one of our chickens right here this is one of the Roosters he is a Swedish flower and the specific giveaway of what we know now of course he's got a nice big comb he's got his little waddles there but the biggest thing is is that when you flipping around area if you wanted mine flipping them around and let's show his tail feathers so you see these right here so these are known as saddle feathers these are the saddle feathers and then they always get this really nice plumage right here and that's how you can always tell that it's a rooster or not plus the dead giveaway is when they start cockle dude are doing something that not a lot of people can do this is the connection between us and our food this is it right here but we honor him that's the important thing is that we honor him by making sure that we use all of his parts and then we say prayers and everything it's not very happy to do something like this people do cones people do you know traffic cones or metal cones or whatever we're simple we're gonna use a bag an old feed bag that we just simply cut out one of the corners of it and I'll show you right here so we just simply cut out one of the corners and then the Roosters head goes through that and then we use that roosters or excuse me we pull through and then what we do is we cut the jugular and make sure that the chicken stops moving once the chicken stops moving we transport it and then we start taking care of the rest of the process and we'll show you the dunking plucking all that kind of stuff by the way for the record I officially cannot stand doing this I know that it's a unnecessary part of homesteading but I really still don't like it you do is I take a ridiculously sharp knife and with that ridiculously sharp knife I will cut the jugular vein the one that runs sorry a little bit blood on my hands but I will cut the jugular vein right as it goes up the side of the neck and I make a very deep and short cuts around the feathers I pull all the feathers back and expose it in order to make sure that the animal does not consciously feel anything now of course the purposes is to try to keep the bird calm by being upside down sort of helps the bird black out a little bit but you know it's it's sort of the most humane way Joel Salatin actually did a very good demonstration at day mother earth news fair here in Asheville and showed us that that by doing it that way it's a pretty quick way of dispatching an animal alright so we've already taken the liberty of putting this water on the stove to get it to a temperature of all right so what's the temperature 145 to 150 has been a little bit easier all right yeah 120 was what Joel Salatin said but it looks like 145 had a sucker yes I probably definitely helped shut your hand if your hand plucking 145 150 chicken plucking feathering d feathering got these guys they're ready to go and we will be plucking we will be we will pluck and then we will disembowel and then we will prepare for the freezer I will show you how that whole thing works okay so we'll submerge up to there leave it for about I do like a two second three second count and then I pull out because you don't want the bird to actually cook you do not want it to actually cook so you just submerge for a second and let it kind of drip dry research and count to another three four second count make sure that I'm also getting these feathers right here too all right airy you're gonna grab this you're gonna grab the feathers at the base like right by the skin daddy can do the wing feathers they're harder if you want to just start yeah clumps and then grab one of these bags nope fees and you're gonna put all the feathers in there nope grab one and then here's one for you buddy all right so for this next part what we're gonna do is we're gonna take if you'll notice I've left pin feathers or should say left feathers and some of the feathers around the neck the reason why is because there's just no point in actually plucking this because these are gonna all be soup birds but I'm gonna take this bird I'm gonna show you how to remove the insides of it in order to get a process to take the feet because these feet are really great and we're gonna take the feet and actually use those as well on all of our stocks and soups and all that kind of good stuff so but yeah we'll show you how this all works all right so little rigor mortis to set in on this bird so unfortunately you might see a feat afoot fly from time to time but you need a ridiculously sharp knife I'm using actually one of my filleting knives because it's all so thin first thing you want to do is figure out where the backside of the bird is it's right here on the bird okay so that's where the first cut is going to be so what I'll do is I'll take my knife barely cut the skin surface and that's why I really like to use this fillet knife because I know that it it cuts very true but I'm going to simply pierce and cut right there above their hip bones and then I will turn my knife over and go the opposite way being very careful not to get myself the important thing is with this is that you do not get the intestines of the bird if you can avoid it okay and so I have my nice little incision here and then I come with some set of scissors and I will just slowly work my way around the anus of the bird in order to trap the anus because that will be the distal end of their intestines all right so I've got the anus of the bird out and then you just literally can grab you can literally grab the insides and you disembowel it but just simply pulling down all the internal organs are all attached to one another I already feel the bird's heart and we will just work it all out it would just work it all out by pulling and I usually get the lungs and everything all in one fell form all right so let's do some organ identification chicken liver I'm sorry that's chicken liver kidney those are the two kidneys and I can feel it right there the smaller chicken so it's hard for me to get my hand in there now I have a small hand but there's there's a chicken heart that's a chicken heart right there and that is it so the rest of him is all good to go so the rest of this stuff we will throw away all right last but not least I will remove the rest of the neck we'll clean that up and then take off these pieces right here and then take off the feet and I'll show you how to do that next all right so this is how this is how I do the feet as I'll take you know find out where the joint is cut right above the joint and then verify that I could see the bottom end of the bone right there and I take my cloning scissors might be cut right at that joint usually get that nice clean cut so there we go there's my nice clean cut on the bottom side of the foot with a completely intact chicken foot and that's it I know that he's not pretty but this is clean and then I'm gonna wash them off package him package him and he'll be good to go for the freezer all right and that's the finished product so we rotate it and we'll throw it inside the freezer and she'll be good to go but that is one completed one completed rooster no that's about a soup size we are definitely not going to be using it for anything larger than that all right finished product of one of them it's a little steamy of course because we just stuck it in the instant pot clean that off there we go so what do you got going on in here that is the chicken from one of our chickens actually I'm pretty surprised by how much there is and then this this is my herbal bone broth with the bones and some of the organs and the feet from the chicken and this recipe is in my home apothecary book it's got polenta nettles mushrooms peppercorns a straggle 'us salt apple cider vinegar carrots ginger garlic celery it's like a kitchen sink I think that's it so you put it on and so I do manual and I'm gonna go all the way up to about 90 minutes and I'm gonna fall asleep and wake up and it's gonna be all ready so it actually will pressure cook for 90 minutes and then it'll keep it warm until I wake up in the morning and then this is the finished product now it's still cooling but I wanted to show you all the herbs and everything then look at the color so that was made with the chickens that we just processed yesterday nice vibrant perfectly brown color