We butchered 19 chickens out at the bro's and SiL's place today, including "Mr. Lucky" their 3-4 year old original rooster (which we weren't supposed to do but was misidentified--hard to believe with 2 inch spurs-twice, oh well luck runs out for everything sooner or later). Nice day for it, in the 60s, a bit breezy, no rain.
I wouldn't describe the system as "redneck" because they might insult rednecks but I would call it "ad hoc". Bro made a home-made feather plucker from some youtube vid. It worked pretty good but running the drill on fairly high rpm was too much for it and the bearings started to burn out about half way through the birds. Had to finish up manually.
A friend of the family's boys, a friend of theirs, and visiting teacher from Columbia all got to help out. The boys all got to cut at least one chicken in what the mom called a "rite of passage." I got to explain how to gut a bird, how to clean a gizzard, and other associated facts of turning live birds into meat. I don't think the 8th grader (who was a bit squeamish) will eat chicken in the next day or two. But sooner or later I'm sure he will and maybe appreciate it a bit more...
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