THE CHICKEN CHOP:

Part of owning chickens is coming to terms with thinning the flock.  We have a lot of hens we love having for their egg production.  Unfortunately, we had too many roosters.  They mounted the hens allllll day long.  So, it was time to prep the roosters for the crock pot.  (I spared you from the pic where the rooster looks into the camera just before ni-night time.

One of our good friends, Fred, from the church who hunts and eats anything that moves offered to help us.  Little Benjamin was a trooper.  This was our first time butchering our own birds because we've always paid to have it done.  This is where we "skinned" the bird, rather than plucking it.

Here's the almost-done final product once skinned.  Not really all that bad of a process.  Here's my Conan the Barbarian pose!  Do I looked mean or just grossed out?

Here we are in one of the final cleaning stages.  My wife used the loping shears from her gardening to help Fred cut the neck off the bird.  We cleaned; she packaged for the freezer.

Now all the hens are happy they can walk around the yard without being mauled by the horny roosters all day long.  Watching a rooster mate a hen is like watching a crime in progress.  The hens can thank us by giving us more eggs!