Joe’s Mobile Poultry Slaughtering
Today we had the good fortune of a visit from Joe Hainer and his poultry slaughtering set-up. It’s important to us that the meat on our table does not come from the wretched industrial food chain. By raising the chickens here we can ensure that they enjoy a wholesome life living as chickens were meant to live: wandering about, scratching about, eating bugs, working out a pecking order, just doing chicken things until the big day. In the past, we did have to pack them up and take them somewhere — which was stressful for them and I didn’t like that part.
Not any more. Joe Hainer came over this morning with his truck full of equipment. After getting everything set up, he picked up the chickens and did his thing with the cone and the knife and that was the end of that. So much better than the commercial system where, after enduring a penned and overcrowded indoor life, they get hung by their feet — alive —and moved along a conveyor belt and into the blade, which may or may not strike in the right place. Tell me that is not terrifying for them! Actually don’t, as I won’t believe you.
Now I have a freezer full of Rudd Rangers and Freedom Rangers, designated meat-birds, and an odd assortment of roosters who were either too aggressive with humans — don’t want that in my flocks’ genetics — or came back to me from customers who ended up with roosters they couldn’t keep. These birds had every day a good day, except for the last little bit of the last day.
Update: 1/29/2024 Unfortunately, Joe is no longer offering this service. Alas.
I know that for most of us our chickens are pets and we don’t eat them. Yet we do like to eat chicken. And we don’t want to participate in the horrific living circumstances of industrial chickens. Our solution? Hatch and raise Freedom Rangers. Though they come to butchering weight slower than the monstrous Cornish Cross, they are good foragers and can enjoy their days toodling about in the pasture.
Meat Chick Hatching eggs sell out really early. I like to order the Freedom Ranger hatching eggs from Freedom Ranger hatchery — a family of connected family-owned poultry farms. They only have 19 ship dates left between now and the end of August 2023.
Oh happy day! We moved the meat chicks out from the brooder tower and into the Chickery today. Hurray!! Check out how happy they look.
Every day a good day, except for the last little bit of the last day.