Maybe This Was a Sign

 You know how, back in June, I posted about my struggle to get ahold of broiler chicks to raise this year?  If now, take a sec and read this.

Well, turns out procuring chicks was not the end of the difficulties in raising my own meat birds.  For five years now, I have used a wonderful processor that is about a 40 minute drive from me.  They do a great job, very nice facility, very nice people, and have been very easy to work with.  Unlike the closer to me processor, they do not require me to book my butcher date before I even have chicks in hand! (Growing time being 6-8 weeks, the closest processor is so busy they require you to book your date at least two months out, preferably three. . . )

I have been very happy with the further processor, until I tried calling them in mid-July to get on their list for last week of July processing.  Typically they only book 1-2 weeks out and don't take reservations further out than that. I've never had an issue with them not being available in the date range I need. Imagine my utter panic at having 4.5 week old birds and finding out that my beloved processor has sold their business!!  The new owners are almost another hour further from me, and they aren't set up yet.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who am I going to find to process these birds in 2 or at most 3 weeks?!?  I googled.  I left phone messages.  I emailed.  I prayed, and I faced the fact that very likely it was going to be me processing these 16 birds when they were 6-7 weeks old.

I can do it.  I have done it before.  It's not fun, and I don't have the ideal equipment (no plucker for one, and last time I processed my own it was a smaller batch and I skinned them rather than plucking). 5-6 of the 16 are going to family members, so skinning wasn't going to work for those.

When the closest to me processor called me back two days after I'd left a message, and said they could squeeze my birds in the first week of August (at which point they'd be 8 weeks old), I jumped on the opportunity.  They charge $3 a bird more than what I'd planned on paying (for the other processor), and they individually bag & shrink wrap and toss all the birds into their walk in fridge(s) to await pickup at the end of the day (rather than tossing them into large bags if I so choose, calling me to come get as soon as my batch is finished, and storing them in coolers on ice provided by me). 

But you know what?  Beggars can't be choosers and nobody else I'd contacted could do them in the needed timeframe, and I sure didn't want to have to process them myself.  Too busy right now to spend more than half a day slaughtering chickens, cutting them for the freezer, and cleaning up the mess.  Cutting them up after they've been processed and then packaging for the freezer myself is way faster and easier than doing the deed from start to finish.

Loaded up to go to the processor.

Home again, looking like dinner.

The local processor that I used this time, despite being almost twice as much per bird for processing as the further away processor, really was a great experience all the way around.  And I am super thankful they were willing to squeeze me in instead of saying "No can do, you didn't book at the proper time to get on our schedule."  If I do decide to keep raising my own in future years, I'll budget in the extra $$ for using them and I'll try to book a butchering date as soon as I order my chicks.

But, back to my thoughts on this year's meat chicken experience as a whole. . . 

So, it was not only difficult to get chicks to raise, it had also been difficult (and stressful, very stressful) getting someone to process them for me in the needed date range.  Strike One.  Strike Two.

Raising them was mostly uneventful until the last week and a half of their lives.  At which point I had raccoon trouble.  The coons have been avoiding the live trap that I've constantly had baited and set next to the grow out pen since moving chicks outside from the brooder.  Instead, they've been trying to break into the pen, and it's only been divine intervention keeping my broilers alive.  The coons have yanked off the wire in one spot, but thankfully didn't realize they had a hole large enough to squeeze through.  They've pulled off a chunk of board on one side where the side meets the roof--ironically climbing on top of the live trap in order to reach that high, and again, thankfully it wasn't a gaping enough hole that they climbed in.  They've pulled small chunks of wood off a lower section of that same side.  Each morning that the destruction is discovered, DH has patched my grow out pen back together, but it is obviously on it's last legs and it's useful life is being shortened by the coons.  

I'm thinking that's Strike Three.  Rather than building a whole new pen for next year's birds, and trying to reserve birds in January for May/June delivery, and reserving a butchering date in advance of the chicks even hatching, it might be better to just look into who grows pasture raised broilers and order what I need from them.  Maybe I'm just not supposed to raise my own any more; maybe this was a sign.