It's Not All Vegetables

While Waite grows an extensive garden, he is most definitely not a vegetarian. In fact he doesn't like too many vegetables; he just likes to grow them. He works with his neighbor, Clem, raising pigs and chickens to supply meat for the long Vermont winters. Clem has a small barn and likes to raise animals. He doesn't like to garden and so he and his wife get all their vegetables for their own consumption from Waite's garden in exchange for use of his barn for the pigs and the chickens.

On June 19 Waite and Clem butchered 26 chickens...well, actually 25, because, as it turned out after some investigative and tracking work by Clem, Clem's dog somehow managed to grab and run off with a beheaded chicken without anybody's noticing it.

Here are some shots of the operation.

From the upper left to the right:

A chicken being removed from the plucker. The plucker is motorized and can pluck two chickens in less than a minute.

Clem (left) and Glenn Cole -owner of the equipment- load two chickens into the killing cones. The dog in the middle left of this picture is the one that managed to sneak off with a chicken. If you look close you can see it's scheming something.

Picture of the plucker.

The set up: Killing cones (orange) are in the background; in the center is a tub of water heated to 150 degrees F (water temperature is critical for proper plucking); in the foreground is the plucker. On the back of the red pick up truck are two boxes of 2-gallon freezer bags.

A picture of the flock just before the operation commenced.

The chickens are Cornish X, a hybrid. They are only about 7 weeks old. Dressed weight ranged from 3.9 lbs. to 6.4 pounds. Most of them were just over 5 pounds, perfect roasting chickens.

Clem and Waite have another 50 day-old chicks arriving Monday, June 22. Between the two flocks, Waite will have a year's supply of chicken.