NOW or NEVER | Butchering Over 400 LBS of Chicken

Very special day today, butchering, and we've got an Abundance Plus butchering workshop. That's a perk for Abundance Plus is we put it out there and folks can apply and have a chance to be selected. And come actually to a free butchering workshop. We also have a film production going on. Emily, where are you from?

From Saluda, North Carolina.

Nice. Where are you from? Uh, Fresno, California, but moved to Hidden Knight, North Carolina. Wow, another convert. Yes. What's your name? Where are you from? My name is Richard. I'm from Roswell, New Mexico.

Wow.

My name is Francisco and we're from San Jose, California.

Nice.

My name is Jessica.

San Jose, California. Nice. Tori, where are you from? You had, you had behind Richard.

I'm originally from Chicago, but we've lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Stacy, if you have a Roots and Refuge piece of clothing, you might be a crazy plant lady.

I am a crazy plant lady.

Okay, high five. You're in good company with Rebecca. Josh Thomas is here from Idaho. He's putting together a well-put-together master class style thing for homesteading. I'm one of the instructors.

I don't actually know how to use one of these.

I just demoed moving and catching some chickens. That's their turn. Francisco, have you caught a chicken?

I have now.

Nice.

First day catching shrimp.

We got a new one. Let's see you do it, Tori. Oh, you're a master. How does that meatball feel in your hands?

Uh, heavier than I thought.

Yeah, thick. Yeah, look at this. That took a half pump for us, didn't it?

Yeah, I told him the butt was naked.

Farmstead meatsmith right there. What's up, Brandon?

Jonah, what you got?

This is for Winnie.

She'll love you, my man. All the other kids are with the babysitter up playing at the lake.

I want to be there. Oh, you do?

Well, why are you here?

Because you need help.

Oh, that's very kind of you, man. We'll have to give you some sort of prize. Stacy, why learn how to butcher right now? Why not yesterday? Why not tomorrow?

Well, it should have been tomorrow. I mean, it should have been yesterday. There's urgency for me, yeah, to make sure that my family has food whether something bad goes down or not.

Why all these master class courses now, Josh? Why not a year ago? Why not a year from now?

Well, they should have been a year ago, just like she said, but, but, uh, we need them now. Everybody needs them. Everybody needs to be learning these skills. Look, food's going up, systems are getting less and less dependable for us, and we need to just be doing this together. And not just, not just me, just not her, but all of us together. Then we're building resiliency and we're helping each other out. And, uh No, we need to be doing it yesterday, really.

What's your name? Where are you from?

My name's Alexandra. I live in Marshall, North Carolina, but I'm from Washington, D.C. Why now? Because we just started our homestead about a year ago, and now's the time. We just got our chicks and we're going to butcher soon, so it's good to get the hands-on experience, do it over and over. It's the only way you learn.

Why learn to butcher now?

Well, um, we're— we just bought land, so we want to homestead and get out of the rat race.

Ah, where's the land at?

Rutherford, 40 minutes from here.

Oh man, good choice, good choice. You picked the best state in the union, North Carolina. I know, I've traveled the entire America. I know this. Beautiful. It is beautiful.

Weather is awesome.

Thomas from Indiana. Hey, why learn to butcher now? Um, 19 years old. 19. Well, all your other friends— what are your other friends doing? Uh, going to college, learning how to be an entrepreneur, taking business classes. Uh, I want to learn how to butcher so I can go teach others how to do it. Nice. Um, and it's good to have good trades in life. Good. This is my flesh and blood niece. These are all my digital nieces and nephews. Okay, so Sarah, if you have a piece of clothing that has chickens on it, you might be a crazy chicken lady.

I thought this was so fitting for today. I know, right?

You don't even have chickens. You're just skipping that step.

You're going straight to the crazy chicken lady.

Next up, bagging. Get the birds out of the ice bath. I think we might be done. They're all empty. Put them on the PVC, let them dry out, air dry. Put a Whiz Bang poultry bag over them. We learned a new trick today courtesy of Josh. Where's he at?

Josh doing those things.

We're putting two legs, a neck, and a head inside the carcass. I mean, it just That's just the air taking up room in the freezer. You might as well stuff it and we'll use it later for broth. We haven't had any in 4 pounds.

We did, we have one in 4, which—

4 pounds, it was just basically 5 pounds. 4 pounds is fine. We've had most of them in the 6— look, 6-pound range. Rebecca, you have to average this out. I'm going to by the end.

Oh yeah, we like to add them all up. And then we'll figure out how much we drink.

Who's gonna bet? We're gonna bet what the average is. Everybody's gonna take a wager on, and whoever wins is gonna get a hat, an Abundance Plus hat. What's our average, guys? You're gonna win a hat. Your average is— average weight— 6.570 pounds. 6'3". 5'14". 5'14".

I'll take 5'11". 18, 19, 20. I'm counting how many we had. Did we lose that many?

What have we got?

73 total.

I don't remember losing that many.

I know, I don't remember losing that many.

Well, they sure made up for it in their weight.

Yeah, they did.

Got the Abundance Plus hats for the winners. We can have 7 winners. This is like that Little League team where nobody loses. I'm guessing 6 too. Everybody's got their guess?

We had 73 birds total. And we had a total of 441 pounds and a little over a quarter for an average of a little over 6 pounds.

Whoa, 6'1"! White on black or black on— oh, I kind of like the black on black. That's what you're wearing. I like the black on black. Thank you, sir. Who else? Oh, Sarah!

Sarah! Thank you!

Bacon on the way.

What you cooking?

Pancakes.

I got some sausage patties coming. It is breakfast for dinner. The trick to breakfast sausage, I decided, is to sear it. We're gonna sear it on both sides. We need to— we'll put it in the oven. Notice we did no oil. The oil from the patties comes out. I could have maybe done it a hair longer. What do you think, Beck? Could have done it a hair longer?

Yeah.

How are your pancakes coming?

Well, I gotta make them smaller.

How'd the second ones turn out? Much better. Much better. How is it, niños? How is it? Mom makes some mean gluten-free pancakes.

Mm-hmm.

What do you think, Henry? Big boy.

Hurry, don't jump on it.

Papa's plate. I had to make a burger. Can't just eat pork anymore. Makes me nauseous. I can sneak some bacon on top of it. Thomas, we're gonna fill you up, my man. Yep, you worked hard. Everybody worked hard today. Good job.