Sunday October 13, 2019 Guerneville CA.
Butcher day
Today was a chicken butchering day. I haven’t done this in quite some time. But a lot of the chickens have stopped laying eggs for some reason, maybe winter coming on. Since I’m not getting many eggs from them I might as well eat some of them. I have younger chickens that will start laying eggs soon so this should all work out.
Catching birds
I had to pick three birds this morning for the task and didn’t have too much trouble catching the ones I wanted.
One bird that was going to go was one that just never shut up so she was the first one I caught and put in the holding cage. And there was red bandit who sometimes eats the eggs who also got caught.
The third one I picked just because it was easy to catch and the right age. I put them all in a holding cage until I got around to doing the butchering.
More attic rodent holes
In the meantime I went up on the roof and sealed up some more rodent holes with screen which I’ll test again tonight.
Still more holes
Well I tested that out and I still have a hole somewhere so I’ll have to check it out again tomorrow. At least with the camera on them I will eventually find all the holes. Without the camera I don’t think I’d find most of the spots they are coming and going through.
Chicken butchering
I wasn’t really into butchering the chickens so I chair hopped and stalled doing little stuff around the yard until it was getting late in the day and I started the chicken processing.
I put one of them on the stove to cook right away as I wanted a big pot of chicken broth and froze the other two.
Craps to the blueberry patch
After that I cleaned up and took the two buckets of feathers and stuff to the blueberry patch and buried the stuff by a blueberry plant.
Bucket trap is working
My bucket rodent trap needed a modification to keep any mice from escaping as a couple of them got out. I fixed that up and set it up. The bucket trap has been working fairly well as I’ve caught around 6 or so of them so far.
Other than that I didn’t do much today.
Nice day though and chicken for dinner tonight.
Nice that you got the birds butchered. It was many years ago I helped a good buddy butcher a dozen capons one afternoon. Oh my such good eating.
I almost didn’t read this because of the chicken ‘thing’. I know it is inevitable for your birds but don’t want to dwell on it! haha You are kind and don’t go into detail.
Glad you are catching the rats. I found one in a half rain barrel up near my garden. Fell in and couldn’t get out. Gross and sad at the same time. He wasn’t hurting anything.