The Life of a Chicken
on the
Dale Family Farm
By Adam
I was interested in chickens because one of my
friends in Protection raises chickens at her farm
called Dale Family Farms. I butchered chickens
once there. Butchering means taking a live
chicken and making it good to eat.
I will use this information so I can learn
to raise, butcher, and take care of
chicks. I wish I could have chicks.
First Kurt and Andi ordered baby chicks.
Some of them were for laying eggs
and some of them were for butchering.
They watched the chicks grow into
adult chickens.
Kurt and Andi’s hens are free-range. That
means the chickens are allowed outside the
hen house during the day. They eat bugs and
other stuff they find on the farm. The broilers
(raised for the meat) are in pens to protect
them from predators.
Kurt and Andi didn’t want to have roosters (a
male chicken) because most roosters fight a lot.
So, the eggs that their hens (a female chicken)
laid were not going to hatch into a baby chick.
Their eggs are for eating. YUM!
On butchering day we started at 6:30 in the
morning. The first step of the job is to
lock up the chickens we are going to
butcher into cages.
Next, Kurt put the chickens into cones and slit their
necks so they would not run around wild. I
thought butchering chickens would be very frantic
and crazy, but it was very calm and interesting.
Then they put the dead chickens into
something called a scald pot. A scald
pot is a big pot with very hot water.
This loosens the feathers so they can
pluck them.
After that Kurt put two chickens into a
chicken plucker that he made. The
chicken plucker plucks the feathers so they
don’t have to do it by hand.
Kurt puts the chicken on a table where
Andi eviscerates it. That means she
takes out the guts of the chicken.
Then she cuts off the feet, cleans them
up, and puts the chicken in a tub of ice
cubes.
Then it’s my job to take the chicken out of a freezing
bucket of ice cubes and take it to my mom. My
mom has to clean up the chicken, put it in a
special plastic bag, and then put a label on it.
Then my mom puts them into coolers and waits for
customers to pick them up.
After we worked hard, we had a great meal of
one of the chickens we just butchered. I got
paid for helping the Dales. The way they
paid me was by giving me a fat chicken to
bring home and eat. Delicious!
It was a great day at The Dale Family
Farms and I watched a beautiful sunset.
I can hardly wait to go back and have
more fun butchering chickens.
Report written by:
Adam
Pictures taken by: Adam & Allison