Fabio, the rooster with the big blond mane, is dead. He attacked me one too many times and had been hard on the hens. I got a new rooster from a local farm...though...he may not be entirely rooster. We'll see. NO ONE crowed this morning. I actually overslept. I have alarms but also listen for poultry discontent. There wasn't any. Noted. We'll see if Houdini cocks-up (like "mans up" but for chickens). He, they?, are not terribly masculine. Reminds me a bit of Cogburn who turned out to be hermaphroditic, and was a fine flock organizer, guard and provider (shared snakes he caught). Anyway, Fabio.
He gave his life to science. A colleague and I butchered him out with stone tools as an experiment for work. It was interesting, and respectful.
The actual kill moment went..uh...not perfect. Fabio's neck was hard to cut, couldn't be broken. It took a couple of minutes for us to do the kill. That sucked. I prefer a quick, clean, lower trauma system. Cutting with OBSIDIAN...couldn't get through. Tried the head anchored to the ground and pulling up to break the neck and sever the spine!!!! I COULD'T DO IT!!! I was pulling with my legs. I have done 20 hens and roosters and ducks in a row this way but could not get this guy. FINALLY, found one spot on the neck that a harders stone knife could get. Next time we will have another back up method in place. Before the kill I thanked him and said we'd do our best. During and after, we thanked and apologized.
His hide was also tough. Inflating it with a garden hose with 40psi+ and couldn't get him to fully inflate. I have not had that happen. Still, even partial inflation helped the skinning and saved the hide.
Trying to break the joints...my colleague is a fit 6'3" dude in his 30s and HE couldn't twist the leg joint! Good lord Fabio! You were a beast! Hybrid vigor I guess. So, when you can't snap and stretch the joint, it is hard to cut the tendons and break up the carcass. It would have been a faster butcher with a less tough bird. But, a wild bird could be this tough as well...turkeys. I know there are wild chickens locally.
The colleague and I did the hide by cutting up the back, peeling the skin which came off well. Forgot to cut around the legs and wings (also hard to bust the shoulder joint to get those off). Noted. The hide is staked out with borax on it. I will freshen up the borax today and see if the feathers are clean enough to offer to local craft people.
The guts went to the hens because they are gross. I must say, there were some giant rooster balls in there! Cripes. The gizzard was smallish. About the same size as his balls. Big liver too. The hens went right for the soft bits.
Cutting up the back between the spine and the ribs was a non-starter. The colleague cut through the thin part of the ribs. This left a meaty back and neck portion. This also went to the hens and wildlife. The breast was good sized and the legs were almost turkey legs. These went home with the colleague. Because we hadn't prepped a 2nd table and there were tiny rock shards on the main table, we butchered on the ground on cardboard and the carcass wasn't super clean.
A friend taking photos for work records told us to wipe the carcass down with vinegar for better grippage. He was right! It was like magic! Noted.
I'm not sharing a photo because we only used the work camera and I set the rule that we don't use any of those for personal things.
The whole thing, setup area, tables, etc, sharpen the stone knives, photograph them, kill the bird, cut him up, and basic clean up (it's outside...critters do much of the clean up) and get the equipment loaded back on the pick up...90 min. We could have done an assembly line and had 3 or 4 going at a time even with 2 people and done those in 2 hours. With practice and a less tough bird, or not trying to save the feathers, even faster.
