6 Newbies Butcher Chickens (almost) 1st Time

6 people from Abundance Plus have been selected to come and learn how to butcher today.

Never had a chance to butcher any chickens before. Um, watched 1,000 YouTube videos. It would just be a good opportunity.

We actually processed our first batch of about 30 meat birds a month ago. It took a while. It took a couple, a couple days for us. Um, and honestly, I think the kill part We were unsure about all the shaking, like how much is normal, and you know, we want to do it obviously as humanely as possible. And then the evisceration process—

Legacy. When I lost my parents a few years back, I realized that when they were gone, there was really nothing left of them other than just memories. So part of what I've been wanting to do is fix that situation for myself and my family. My wife and I have recently purchased some land, built a small house, and are getting ready to start a homestead. With the idea of really being able to set it up for our grandkids so that they can walk out across it barefoot, see the pond we've made, see the animals, and know that, you know, Mom and Dad, Granddad, Grandma put this together for them to be able to have for their children and their children.

So we have recently ordered 30 meat chickens, and so we would love to get your help learning the ropes on how to butcher our chickens.

I would love to learn to process chickens with you to acquire another skill to use towards our goal of self-sustainability and food security for our family. I would love to come and butcher with you all because I really would love to learn to basically process from someone who's actually processed before.

This is a group of people Much like you, who aren't letting the world tell them they can't. They can, and they're here to be empowered even further. The boys fell asleep last night before it got dark and didn't move the fat hens. And as you can see, it's, it's like 5:40 in the morning. Look how light it is already. But it looks like the chickens have already gotten out, so we're gonna have to catch them. We could have put them up What I'm saying is we could have moved them this morning, but there they are. Coop open, only 2 early birds. Josiah, thank you for shutting that up. You shut up the 2 that stayed in. Catch it. Yes, good. You dropped it. You dropped the net. Let's leave them in for maybe another hour and we'll Let them get oriented over there and we'll let our guests help put them out. Looks like we've got our first prospect. Everybody's here. We've got a couple of buckets in hand on time to do the pigs and the chicks. Okay, they're ready. Who's gonna do it? This one. Who wants to do it? I'll do it. Okay, so see that feeder pan? Get in there and knock it off in there and then just feed it to them. They're gonna They're gonna nibble you a little bit, but they won't swallow you whole yet. Not yet. Just don't lay down. These are very nice pigs, the Old Spot. They're very— they're known to be calm. That's why we got them. One reason is because of our kids, you know. This is going to be a big guy. He used to be twice this size. Could be 600 pounds. You're gonna look like a cow. One chore before we start butchering. Okay, look, they behave themselves. It's mostly turkeys here, some chicks. Yep. So first thing we want to do is pull their feet out. Who's up for it? Pull their feet out, pull their water out, and that way we can put shavings down and then replenish all this. We got the Navy SEALs of homesteading right here. Everybody have a homestead? Yep. Everybody have sea monsters? Yeah, yeah, I got—

I just got a new batch this week.

You just got a batch? Herbert, you got any yet? You haven't moved yet. You're moving to South Carolina. When you get there, you'll get some. You got some?

We have layers.

Okay, you've got some.

We've got 30 or so layers, and actually today we'll be getting 30 or so more meat birds.

Nice, good timing. How Okay, we done with that? You guys ready? Yep, everybody's here, we can start. Okay, you guys see the chickens way up there? You guys want to meet me up there? I'll bring Cubby and we'll go catch these birds. See, guys, I've got shavings in my trailer. Let's just start catching birds. She's turned the fence off. Thank you, Annie. We're just gonna jump in, uh, grab a bird. They will not hurt you. Anybody caught a chicken? You master chicken catchers?

I wouldn't know that.

Oh, come on. Show us how it's done then. Jonah, Jonah, keep, keep— oh, I see what you're doing. Jonah's putting this up. All right, look at these guys, super pro. Set them in. They're not great flyers. Good job setting them in, man. Where you guys been? Where you been the last 8 weeks? Okay guys, good job catching them. Let's do it. We'll meet you all over there. Let's have everybody introduce Introduce themselves real quick.

Herbert Frazier from DC.

Brett Tadlock from Cookeville, Tennessee. Doug Irving from Seymour, Tennessee.

I don't know.

Steve Stratton, Boone, North Carolina.

Christina from Detroit, Michigan. Annie Evans from East Palestine, Ohio. Beth Grammy.

What's your name?

You don't have a name. They're getting shot. Little camera shy. I'm Arun from right there. Long distance award right there. And Josiah and Lily, they're getting shy. The goal, guys, is to get this done by lunch. Harvested, cooled. Oh, you got the ice? Yeah, let's throw the ice in here. You need a guy to help you? Yeah, okay. So right there at the jawline, you're gonna go right above the jawline, put your hand below the jawline so you're not cutting your hand. And you're going to slit. You could do two. Do you do one or two slits, Jonah?

Just one, I think.

Okay. And we got a bucket full of water to catch it. Okay, go for it, buddy. Pull him out with your left hand. Okay. You feel his jawbone? Yeah, this bone right here. You're gonna end up cutting right here. Okay. Okay, practice cutting a little bit backwards.

So this way or that way?

Uh, whatever way makes you feel most comfortable. And then you're just going to make sure you go hard in there. Yep, you ready? Turn it around and go hard at it. A little nervous. Watch your fingers. Next up, scalding. That's okay, put it in there. Just put it in there. And then we're going to stir it a little bit with this 3-pronged garden fork just to agitate it. If you don't want to save the feet for a stock or something, then you could just hold it by the feet and just, uh, dip it that way. But we immerse it. This is about 30 seconds. I would have— should have maybe looked at my clock. Gideon, bring it up. Let's test it. This is how you test it. You grab the legs and you see if it peels easily. Did it peel easy? You also grab the— hold that, Donna. You also grab the wing feathers and see if they come off easy. It came off very easy, so it's ready.

Start it.

If you go too long, you'll start cooking it. It only takes 12 seconds.

Now let's see.

Okay, bring it out, bring it out. Can I cut it? It could have maybe gone a hair longer, but if you go too long, it starts breaking the bone. Disjointing it, so it doesn't hurt to—

what happened?

Pull it out. This is when they jump on each other in the trailer, they scratched each other. Now lay it on its back, bend the leg, and you can see the joint there, right? Just go lightly in between, try not to hit the bone.

See that?

And you want to cut in and not hit the bone. That'll dull your knife. Okay, put it on its side. I cut the skin, put it down, put it on its belly, cut the skin, other side, cut the skin. And I'll help you guys do this, okay? Then you can grab usually between the esophagus and everything and pull that off. Put that in your pig bucket. See this oil gland? They say that's not tasty. I don't know if that's true, but let's cut it off. So notice how I cut down and out. I didn't hit my bone. I cut down just to the bone and then cut over it. Now we'll want to cut— we'll have to pass these around. It's going to be bagged like this, so let's cut like that. Okay, I'm cutting at that angle, not there, definitely not there to poke the bag. We might actually part these birds, so then we have a neck. And what could we do next? Okay, guess what's next. The inside. See all this skin? We want to keep all this fat. He's got these two kill bones down here. You got the vent, the nice way to say that. Uh, go right above those, pinch your skin because in there are intestines and you don't want to cut it. Never poke. We're always slicing. See those intestines? See how close they are? Then I like to open it with my vent out because it's probably going to pull some poop out. It might not because we emptied their crop, which it didn't. Okay, then this is Lily's favorite part. Okay, again, it's kind of nice to pull it over an edge. I'm just pulling everything out. There's the livers. So those are really dark livers. There's bile. They say, oh, don't hit the bile, it'll ruin the meat. We drank, we drank bile the other day from the cow. It won't hurt you.

But it is—

oh, I hit it, I hit it. So if you hit it and you don't like the taste of it, tastes like you're eating an aspirin, uh, just rinse it off. This is the gizzard. Is anybody going to use those? Do you guys eat it? No, it's too much trouble to harvest them. So then we, uh, as Brandon would say, pick your battles. Brandon taught us that butchering, you just got to pick your battles. I mean, you can eat the intestines, but are you really going to take the time and wash them, clean them out? Okay, so then we have our windpipe there. Pull it out. Yeah, the windpipe is hard to pull out. Be fancy like Polyface Farms. Poke a little hole in that skin and wrestle. All right, and jam this in there. Get another rinse. Brett, is this your first time doing this? Uh, this way, yes. Brett, why are you doing this?

Uh, legacy. To build a legacy for my kids, uh, and grandkids.

How many kids do you have?

Two.

I have a boy and a girl, and they're—

he's getting ready to start college, she's a junior in high school. And so we're trying to figure out, okay, how do we move forward with this for them, for our grandkids, and have something to leave behind when we leave the world?

What's your number one struggle in the homesteading? Uh, confidence.

Just, uh, not second-guessing everything. And taking the time to learn something, but then also having the confidence to try something.

Did you just harvest that chicken? I did. First try. How do you overcome that struggle?

Uh, connecting with people and trying to reach out to community. Your stuff has been really good for that, you know, going through it and just connecting with people in the Facebook group and stuff like that to read and not being afraid to ask questions.

Look who's here. Oh my goodness, and he's staying asleep. I know. You got the foil right? I did. I just— you going to take pictures of people? I will. That's cool. Hopefully that's filming. It should say how many are left. How you like that skull, Grandma? Let me pluck. This one worked great. There's nothing on it. Grandma had a good point. They're— they're a chicken. After this, they become what you get at the food store. I hated staring at it.

She's a champ over here.

She's teaching you what's up.

Oh, she's I'm learning lots.

You're in good hands.

I am.

Joanne, why are you doing this?

Uh, we have a little farm and we have— my son's got some chickens that are going to be butchered in August, and then we have another batch of 50 meat chickens that are going to be coming in July to butcher in October. So I wanted to get my— as much experience as I could.

What's your biggest struggle pursuing the homestead lifestyle?

Getting the pasture rotation down.

The biggest—

I mean, we, we have basically 1 acre of pasture and we have 2 cows on It's just keeping her occupied enough with enough grass to eat.

So how's Gideon treating you in a room?

Better than a room.

You're getting them— oh, you're getting demoted around me.

He taught me to spray it so it doesn't feel so warm.

Gross. So why are you doing this?

We're doing this to just hold ourselves accountable. If we're gonna eat meat, we have to know—

oh, I like it—

where it comes from, how it happens. Next, you know, food security for our family and experience it more hands-on.

Feel the weight of the sacrifice. So what's your biggest struggle homesteading?

Being comfortable at the scale we're at right now because we know what we have, you know, our year goal, our 5-year goal, our 10-year goal, and it's hard to not want to be at the next stage. So it's hard to just take it one step at a time. And days when I feel anxiety about that, I just think of the 1% a day, and as long as I'm just moving towards it, then it's all okay. You don't have to have 100 acres, you know, so we have less than an acre. I brought all the food that I, you know, grew from a garden. That's all the food we're eating here.

Wow.

While we're here.

Herbert, you feeling confident?

Absolutely.

Why are you doing this?

To get out of traffic, man. I'm stuck in DC, hour and a half commute to work back and forth.

I need peace, you know.

But also being a disabled vet, you know, I got health issues. It's time to get it together. Together, you know.

But thank you for your service.

Thank you, thank you for your service.

Uh-huh.

Now, one of the greatest things you told us, dude, which is— me and my wife didn't have a name for it. Yeah, until abundance, you know, because things started changing in our life because our positive thinking was— even when I got your email about this, it said 3 people will be chosen, and I said, oh, let me take leave from work, I'm going to go ahead and get picked, whatever. She's like, what are you doing? I said, no, it's, you know, you just— the energy It's good.

Only 14 birds left. It's like not even 8:30 yet. These guys are super pro. What's your biggest struggle right now to get that homestead in South Carolina?

Um, getting the land cleared. Everybody's backed up, everybody's moving. Uh, it's a huge struggle right now.

How are you overcoming that?

Um, keep pushing forward with the plan. Got the house design already, you know, just taking it a day at a time.

Nice advice. Thanks, bro.

I'm a cancer survivor, so knowing what's in my food and what I'm eating and what I'm giving to my family is a big deal for me. Um, also, like, when we started watching your channel, seeing your kids and seeing them getting up before you sometimes and having chores and things done I want my kids to know that and to be able to do that and to feel good about that.

What's your number one struggle to accomplishing that goal right now?

Like, just getting started, um, because we really just started this, this year, um, and just building the infrastructure and the things that we need to get in place to really get things going.

Oh, baby Henry, wake up! You'll be part of this. People want to know how do I get our kids like just like all over it. Well, they've known nothing about it. Yeah, I know. Their perspective on this is totally different. It is than ours. This is just so normal to them.

Oh yeah, sure, eat that whole thing.

That's next level, eating the whole thing. You eat it.

No, out of bad experience. Is it taste the same as cow liver? No, no, I'm not eating it.

Cow liver was sweeter. It's time to milk, but we've only got 6 left. It's tricky. It's like 8:40. Don't want to milk any later than 9. Can we get it done in 10 minutes? I think so. They're so focused. They're on it. They're making it happen. Here's the trick for getting your children— exposing your children to this. He'll know nothing about it. You seeing this? You've already seen the chicken butchering, the beef butchering, a lamb butchering. It's all you'll know. It's, it's just where your food comes from. That's all it is. Coming out, they're coming out good. This one didn't come out so good. I like how we're holding the chicken together. Classic. This is so vintage, everybody. Does anybody feel like they could do this on their own now?

Yeah.

Let me know if you can't, we'll work it out. It looks like you guys are super pro.

Yeah, you just like—

You got it. Milking time. Good job, guys. Finished by— we were finished by 9 o'clock. Oh, Anne's going to town. Wow, she's got a family cow. And Steve, why did, why did you come today?

I definitely wanted to do this for my health and my family's health. We bought a farm a few months back and just jumped right in, and so no better way to do that than coming here and learning from somebody that really knows what they're doing.

As you get swatted in the face.

As I get swatted in the face, yes.

The reality of homesteading life.

Getting more on my hand than I am in the bucket.

Yeah, that's what happens at first, Steve. We're back. We're airing out the birds, but this time we're gonna part them. Cutting boards are coming, but until they get here, put it on the side. Cut down that— see the, the difference there? Until you can bend it back and you can see between the joint. You don't want to hit the bone with your knife, okay? Okay, we'll put, we'll put dark meat one and white meat on the other. You cut along through there, down to the bottom, along the bones, and we're gonna pull it back. See that? You know right where to cut, okay? Yeah, to know when to where to cut here. You see that fat line? That's between the joints. Well, maybe it's not. Yeah, it is. Okay, see that? That's how I got— that fat tells you where that joint is. Okay, now breasts, we see the bone here. I just like to go right along, right alongside the middle of it and down kind of along the cavity, pulling it out as I go, getting as close as you can to the cavity so you get all that meat. There's a breast, big old breast. We are trying a vacuum seal this time. It's taking a bit to get a hang of 2 more weeks. We're learning the sweet spot. We tried too many meats in a bag, now we've halved it. What is that, 3 full breasts? 3 breasts, and then we flattened it out. Oh, really? Kidding, you shot me point blank, my man. Whose team are you on anyway? All right, we got some guts. We're cooling the other guts and we'll feed them as next few days. We're gonna put the feathers in there. They'll eat some of the feathers, but what they don't eat, they'll just turn into compost. Doug, you want to see some happy pigs? Oh yeah. All right, trick them. Bring it over here and then run it and put it in over there.

Get over—

get their attention over there. Yep, yep, yep.

Perfect.

This is a good day for the pigs. Let's get this in the cold room. Whoa, guys, 250 pounds of chicken. Nice.

No pressure, but, uh, I have to be the vlogger for a moment, so let's see how this works. We are going to take the chicks, the sea monsters, out to pasture. So here we go.

All right, I got the meat in the cooler. You guys ready? You got them out? What was the worst day for one posse is going to be the best day for another. This is their best day. Green grass. Is that still off? Are you playing a trick on me over there? There we go. All right, so bring the— up near the shed. Yeah, just start taking them out, putting them underneath, showing them that's home. All right, they did it! This has been a good team, Steve. You guys been crushing it. How is it, guys? Everything's delicious. Everything's better with a little bit of work, isn't it? Who feels confident to butcher chickens? Good, everybody. Good job, everybody. Those guys were amazing, were they not? Abundance Plus members, talk about embracing the You Can Homestead mantra. There where you guys are, they're just started— they've just started out, but they've just embraced it and they've just done it. Uh, 10 days to launch of Abundance Plus. I've got a lot of goodies, including How to raise a year's worth of meat in 58 days. We raised those Cornish Cross to this harvest day. I want to teach you guys how to do it free. Join the waiting list for Abundance Plus and I'll give you that video like right now. Go watch it. Enjoy. You can homestead. We can help. I'm going to help you get on that waiting list. Lots of goodies there.