What a Week!

I feel so Farmy! My prayers were answered with comfortable weather so on Monday I cleaned the barn, Tuesday I got all the alpacas in the barn so they would be easy to catch on shearing day, then I butchered 10 chickens.
   This was my first time to butcher all by myself (I miss Colleen) and it went pretty well. I drove an hour to borrow a chicken plucker (so worth it!) then I set up my area. I had a fire burning under the scalding pot which turned out to be brilliant because the smell of the smoke covered the smell of chicken guts.
    The plucker was an interesting experience. It took off the feathers so fast but i got covered with them (yuck!) and it took off a few wings so some of my chickens looked a little disabled. Still I finished 10 chickens in 4 hours...then another chicken came out of the bushes. I was too tired to care at that point so he got a stay of execution. I delivered them to the customer after the shearing on Wednesday and they were very pleased.

Shearing was dirty but went very fast. The guys managed 19 alpacas in 4 hours. I was way impressed. I had a bad eye allergy during the process and had to take benadryl after the shearers left and passed out until 6:30. Then I took the chickens to the buyers. It was a long day.

Before

 

After