Ah, the wonderful slow cooker. How we love thee. Eight hours in the crock pot turns those tough old birds into succulent dinners for two. We've had a few of them now and are ready to get crazy with new recipes for our chickens. The hens are laying at least a dozen eggs a day now, so we're rapidly running out of room in the refrigerator. Kim has finished a fantastic sign for the side of the road to advertise our farm fresh pastured eggs. I'll be putting some pictures of this up shortly. We'll start at $2.50 a dozen and see what happens.
As for butchering and cleaning the birds, I still need practice. I did the last one myself and spent about an hour on the job, which is far to long. Marcus watched me kill the hen, which he handled quite well. He missed most of the gutting due to homework obligations.
Dick gave us a dozen duck eggs from his farm, so I put them in the nesting boxes for the broody among the hens. I have one that's setting consistently, the one that hatched a clutch last year. A couple of the others have tried it, but seem to be on the fence about it and would rather be foraging. Hopefully we'll have both chicks and ducklings within a few weeks.
For a brooder, I'll be using a large wooden box I brought home from the dump. It's deep and long, perfect for a big bunch of chicks. We purchased a heat lamp from the new Tractor Supply Company store in Presque Isle yesterday. The one I bought last year fell apart completely (cheepie from Walmart).
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