The Poultry - Just Before the Final Butchering

Just Before Final Butchering

These are our birds.  We have eleven turkeys (Narragansetts, Spanish Blacks, and crosses between the two), 15 ducks (Rouens), 12 laying pullets (Barred Rocks), 6 2-year-old layers (White Wyandots), 11 1-year-old layers (Rhode Island Reds), 1 old red rooster and a new rooster that we hatched, a cross between a White Wyandot and a Rhode Island Red, two Cornish Bantam hens and a white bantam rooster who is so old that I can't remember what breed he is.  We also have 5 Toulouse geese.  We have 45 chickens and game hens in the freezer already, but we will be butchering the old hens, the drakes, 3 geese and most of the turkeys this Saturday.  We will keep a breeding pair of turkeys and geese, a small flock of duck layers and one drake, the two bantam hens and a rooster, and the layer pullets and 1-year-old layers along with the young rooster over the winter.  We hope to hatch all of our own chicks in the spring for next year's layers and meat birds.