Poultry Processing Day

Well, it finally came - our first, on farm poultry processing day! We had been excited and dreaded the day for weeks. Excited to know that we would have meat that we ourselves raised, know exactly what was fed to them, how they lived and exactly how they were finished. Dreaded, well, you can imagine ... we raised them, loved them and now, we have to process them.
All in all though, it went well. We had not one inspector, but 3 - yes THREE - inspectors from the Washington State Department of Agriculture come to inspect and watch. Actually, it was one inspector and he brought along 2 others so they could see how it all works. We started off with big entertainment for all, except Scott, who got pooped on as he was prepping one of the birds. Nothing like a little bird poop to lighten the mood :-) We ended up getting a 99% on our inspection - we lost 1 point because our riser on our table was not a finish wood, but "raw" wood. It get's painted next week. I was also happy to hear, once again, that "this was not what a normal farm looks like" (comment from our inspector to the other two) "this is almost like a park". Yeah Farmer Scott!!!
We ended up with smaller birds than what we had originally had planned for, but we know they were smaller from the brooder failure we had happen in their first few days of life. It compromised them from the start. Next batch though, are already looking great and the new Freedom Rangers - well, they are just AMAZING! More on them later. We have some chickens available for our later processing dates and you can find more about them on our website at: http://www.willowsedgefarm.com/chickens-and-eggs.html