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Flars, your post reminds me of milking cows by hand, I don't mean hooking them up to the machine, I mean milking with the teats in your hands & a steel bucket underneath, while sitting on a stool. We only had 1 dairy cow, so it was pretty easy. I used to get up early to pour off some cream for my Cheerios.
Regards, GF.
 
gratus fermentatio said:
Flars, your post reminds me of milking cows by hand, I don't mean hooking them up to the machine, I mean milking with the teats in your hands & a steel bucket underneath, while sitting on a stool. We only had 1 dairy cow, so it was pretty easy. I used to get up early to pour off some cream for my Cheerios.
Regards, GF.
Click to expand...

By the time I started helping with the miking we had Surge milking machines. Still the odd cow that needed hand milking, and always the stripping by hand.
Comment about cream reminds me of the Jersey we had. The Jerseys milk was almost pure cream. This cow could crawl through a four wire fence. Would go off into the lowland brush to calve. Finding the calf and carrying it home was risking your life. Any other day the sweetest most loving cow we ever had.
 
I remember when this was the biggest, baddest thing on two wheels. (Because most Harleys at the time were sitting idle in peoples garages over an oil drip pan)

Honda CB750 - Circa 1973

1973-cb500-honda.jpg
 
BM, was that your bike or just a file photo? I am a fan of Yamaha's myself, had a '80 650 special and '83 650 special II. Great bikes and would go all week on 3 gallons of high test!
(@ about 78 cents a gallon!)

How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand? When I was a kid my grand dad used to raise 500 leghorn roosters for meat every summer. (yeah, I said leghorns) We would spend a couple weekends putting them up, depending on how many people would show up to help.

Or how about scalding a hog? Ahhh, the good old days!

I can remember my grandma frying up 10 of those leghorns at a time. She would fry them in the lard from the hog. Mmmmm! My grandfather died form his 7th heart attack! lol But man was it good eating!
 
Kirkwooder said:
How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand? When I was a kid my grand dad used to raise 500 leghorn roosters for meat every summer. (yeah, I said leghorns) We would spend a couple weekends
Click to expand...

Do the chickens have large talons?
 
GrogNerd said:
Do the chickens have large talons?
Click to expand...

You mean spurs?

My friend's family ALWAYS had chickens. My friend would tell me stories of how the mean roosters would fly at you and peck your eyes and attack you with their spurs.

I was scared of them for years afterward.
 
Kirkwooder said:
BM, was that your bike or just a file photo? I am a fan of Yamaha's myself, had a '80 650 special and '83 650 special II. Great bikes and would go all week on 3 gallons of high test!
(@ about 78 cents a gallon!)

How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand? When I was a kid my grand dad used to raise 500 leghorn roosters for meat every summer. (yeah, I said leghorns) We would spend a couple weekends putting them up, depending on how many people would show up to help.

Or how about scalding a hog? Ahhh, the good old days!

I can remember my grandma frying up 10 of those leghorns at a time. She would fry them in the lard from the hog. Mmmmm! My grandfather died form his 7th heart attack! lol But man was it good eating!
Click to expand...

Current bike: 1983 750 Virago. Chicken plucking, yes. Banties. Hog scalding, yes. Neighbor had the kettle.
 
Mean roosters go straight to the pot! I had a road Island Red rooster that was absolutely beautiful, but he started chasing my daughter around, he met a load of 6's from my 12 gauge.
 
"How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand? When I was a kid my grand dad used to raise 500 leghorn roosters for meat every summer. (yeah, I said leghorns)."

I can't imagine anyone wanting to raise 500 roosters.

500 chickens, sure. But roosters?
 
processhead said:
"How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand? When I was a kid my grand dad used to raise 500 leghorn roosters for meat every summer. (yeah, I said leghorns)."

I can't imagine anyone wanting to raise 500 roosters.

500 chickens, sure. But roosters?
Click to expand...

By my expert calculations, that would require exactly 500 cooking pots, 500 bottles of table wine, and 500 good sized onions to make that much coq au vin...
 
I can't imagine anyone wanting to raise 500 roosters.

500 chickens, sure. But roosters?[/QUOTE]

He raised them for meat, and roosters grow larger than hens, and in the day, I think he got the day old leghorn rooster chicks for just the cost of postage. He fed them just grain from his farm. They fed all 8 of his kids and their kids too! 500 leghorns didn't really go all that far! lol They only weigh about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds butchered at the end of summer. It is a lot of work for not a lot of meat.

Today's cornish cross chickens that I raise for meat get butchered at 6-7 weeks of age and weigh in at an average of 3 1/2 pounds. Then they go off to a processor. I get them back all neat and tidy in a bag all picked and dressed and ready for the onion and wine that Creamy goodness is talking of! :mug:
 
Kirkwooder said:
Mean roosters go straight to the pot! I had a road Island Red rooster that was absolutely beautiful, but he started chasing my daughter around, he met a load of 6's from my 12 gauge.
Click to expand...

I remember it used to be common for kids to get live chicks for Easter & 1 year my cousin got one. I think we were about 7 at the time. The chick was cute, yellow & fuzzy, but it grew into a huge leghorn rooster, this bird was easily over 3 feet tall & meaner than I ever thought possible. It would chase my cousin & his dog around the yard. (LOL)

It tried to attack me once, but I smacked it with the broom a couple times & it thought better of the idea. To make a long story short, my Uncle popped that rooster in the head with a .22 & my Aunt cooked him up; he wasn't that old, but he was tough, she simmered him all day. My cousin cried. (LOL) He was such a puss.
Regards, GF.
 
GrogNerd said:
Do the chickens have large talons?
Click to expand...

My mom described this movie as everything terrible she remembered from growing up in a small town.

I'm not a fan of the movie. But when the grandma said they are running low on steak and Lyle is going to come over and take care of it, I laughed hard. And I was the only one in the theater laughing, which made me laugh that much harder.
 
processhead said:
"How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand?
Click to expand...

Sure have.
When I was a little kid, for about 12 years we kept chickens ... about 10 to 15 of them a year.

When it came the end of the year, chicken-dispatching was originally done by one or both of my grandfathers, then I was the one to do the plucking, singeing and cleaning.

Both of my grandfathers were right off the boat. One from Germany and one from Italy.
When it came to killing the chickens, the German grandfather used a hatchet to cut the head off ... whereas the Italian grandfather had a fancy way of swinging the chicken back around through his legs and twisting the neck.
Though the last couple years years we had chickens the whole process fell to me. (I was a hatchet man, myself.)

Harvest time was always tough for my mom who, most years, would name the chickens like pets - and often named them after various family members ... much to the amusement of my grandfathers, and the scolding and clucking of other elderly relatives.
Though she was still more than happy to make the birds into dinner.
 
BierMuncher said:
I remember when this was the biggest, baddest thing on two wheels. (Because most Harleys at the time were sitting idle in peoples garages over an oil drip pan)

Honda CB750 - Circa 1973
Click to expand...

That's a fine looking machine.
I had a '71 CL350 (in 1984), which I upgraded to a '73 CB350 (in 1987 using the CL engine), then a few years later I got an '81 CB900 Custom that looks surprisingly like the '73 CB750. It's patiently waiting to roll again.
 
Kirkwooder said:
How many of you have ever plucked, and processed chickens by hand? When I was a kid my grand dad used to raise 500 leghorn roosters for meat every summer. (yeah, I said leghorns) We would spend a couple weekends putting them up, depending on how many people would show up to help.
Click to expand...

Never quite 500, but we would do 50 or so every fall, my dad, my brother, and myself.

I miss the farm.
 
I still raise a few birds for the freezer every year, I almost always raise a few turkeys for thanksgiving, and I keep a mixed flock of layers.

< That's actually a photo of last years layers with my breeding rooster. I lost most of them to a wryly little red fox. I have 30 white Rock chicks in the brooder right now and 2 dozen more eggs in the incubator waiting to hatch. I keep chickens because I enjoy it, and it reminds me of days long past.
 
gratus fermentatio said:
Flars, your post reminds me of milking cows by hand, I don't mean hooking them up to the machine, I mean milking with the teats in your hands & a steel bucket underneath, while sitting on a stool. We only had 1 dairy cow, so it was pretty easy. I used to get up early to pour off some cream for my Cheerios.
Regards, GF.
Click to expand...


When I was 7, I had a flock of about 30 laying hens. The city had grown up around us and every Saturday I'd sell the extra eggs out by the roadside. I had to pay for the feed but got to keep the rest.

I remember coming in bloody one day after a rooster attacked me. I can still see the look in my dad's eyes as he pulled out his pocket knife. The next night we had dumplings.

When I was in high school, we started collecting milk goats and had 6 at one point. My parents milked in the mornings and my sister and I milked at night. The sweet milk went inside for us and the foster kids. The grassy milk went in the deep freeze. When the deep freeze was full, we'd pick up a couple of day old calves.
 
If I had a small property outside of town I'd have chickens.

I have friends who live upstate who bought 13 acres this winter. The wife wants to have chickens, and I think I might try to help her build a suitable henhouse. They have foxes and coyotes and hawks in the area, so I think we'd have to keep that in mind.

Remember when you could build a shed and not need a permit?
 
as of today at Meijer ...
Organic Chicken Breast ... $9.49 /lb
Organic Whole Chicken ... $3.99 /lb

Nevermind an organic and "free-range" chicken from a costlier store .... For a dressed 4-1/2 pound chicken you've raised (so a large 8 month chicken) ... If the breast is about 14oz, that plus the remaining pieces cut up makes that bird worth approximately: $8.30 + $14.00 or about $22 for a single chicken.

Particularly if you have some land and local ordinance does not prohibit it, for as relatively simple as chickens are to raise, not too bad a return.
Once the coop and supplies are established; to a point, each additional chicken costs less to raise.

For some reason the whole idea sounds a lot more attractive nowadays than when I was a kid and considered garden tending and chicken-raising somewhere between misery and forced child labor.

And the taste! ... like it is with free-range, grass fed beef and dairy ... a big difference.
 
Jacob_Marley said:
as of today at Meijer ...
Organic Chicken Breast ... $9.49 /lb
Organic Whole Chicken ... $3.99 /lb

Nevermind an organic and "free-range" chicken from a costlier store .... For a dressed 4-1/2 pound chicken you've raised (so a large 8 month chicken) ... If the breast is about 14oz, that plus the remaining pieces cut up makes that bird worth approximately: $8.30 + $14.00 or about $22 for a single chicken.

Particularly if you have some land and local ordinance does not prohibit it, for as relatively simple as chickens are to raise, not too bad a return.
Once the coop and supplies are established; to a point, each additional chicken costs less to raise.

For some reason the whole idea sounds a lot more attractive nowadays than when I was a kid and considered garden tending and chicken-raising somewhere between misery and forced child labor.

And the taste! ... like it is with free-range, grass fed beef and dairy ... a big difference.
Click to expand...


I used to live in South Dakota years ago. I remember the Mennonites from the surrounding area would drive in town and sell whole, free-range chickens out of the backs of refrigerated trucks. We'd get a couple, take them home and roast them that night. Yum!
 
We raised laying hens for 30 years. When the hen stopped producing, there were always new immigrants who wanted them because they were like they ate back home (usually Mexico or Laos), but for us the chickens were just for eggs.

The rabbits and the turkeys usually made it to our table though.
 
bleme said:
We raised laying hens for 30 years. When the hen stopped producing, there were always new immigrants who wanted them because they were like they ate back home (usually Mexico or Laos), but for us the chickens were just for eggs.

The rabbits and the turkeys usually made it to our table though.
Click to expand...

Where I'm from we use them for stew (think Coq au Vin)
 
gratus fermentatio said:
Here's one I haven't seen or heard in a very long time:

< The Bob Newhart Show Season Six Opening >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3tpvB8B2AA
Click to expand...

Remember the drinking game called "Bob"? You'd watch the Bob Newhart Show and every time they said "Bob" you took a drink. Less a game I suppose and more a way to watch Bob Newhart at parties. (yes, this is what passed for fun ... gawd I feel so old)
 
Wasn't it "Hi Bob?" Where you drink a shot any time someone says "Hi, Bob."

I imagine you'd get a little hammered if you did that every time someone said "Bob" but I'm sure some folks did that. Probably University of Wisconsin students.
 
JonM said:
Wasn't it "Hi Bob?" Where you drink a shot any time someone says "Hi, Bob."

I imagine you'd get a little hammered if you did that every time someone said "Bob" but I'm sure some folks did that. Probably University of Wisconsin students.
Click to expand...

You must have gone South to U of I.
 

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