A good investment.

We have been producing our own broiler birds since we returned here from Spain, this is mainly because it's hard to find a genuine free range Organic bird. We bought the odd bird from the Famers Market, however the people who were doing organic meat stopped supplying our local market due to ill health. We had done table birds before so decided as we had the land we would do them again. Processing the birds is always a labour so we were very pleased when we found a small processer an hour and a half drive from us. He always did a great job, at a reasonable price. Then came the bad news, he was no longer processing other peoples birds as he had enough work on his own farm and the family were missing out on quality time with dad. We didn't relish the idea of all that plucking, although Simon can pluck a bird in half an hour, it's hard on his hands due to arthritis. So I did a bit of research (Google is your friend). and came to the conclusion that a small Italian plucking machine might be the answer. There were various companies who stock this machine, at wildly varying prices., I was amazed to find that the cheapest price was in fact a smallholders supplier in Ireland, normally prices are far higher here than UK prices. I gave the company a ring and had a chat, I was assured that this machine would do what we wanted it to do with the number of birds that we produce yearly.

After dipping in 55c hot water the bird s feathers will come out easily.

This week it was put to the test, it does exactly what it's supposed to do, pluck a fully feathered bird in under a minute.

Less than one minute on all that remains are a couple of wing feathers.

Needless to say we are very pleased that it has lived up to our expectations. We have yet to test it out on ducks, which should be done this coming weekend as they will be fourteen weeks old. With ducks you have to catch them at the right time due to moults and pin feathers, either ten weeks or fourteen weeks should make for better plucking.

There is a wide range of weights with these latest birds which are supposed to be Hubbards, a slow growing strain.

Two whole birds and two as half birds.

They have ranged in weight from six and a half pounds to nine pounds three ounces.

We really  do have our doubts as to whether they were in fact Hubbards, none of our previous batches have weighed so much yet they were reared and fed exactly the same as previous batches. One of our customers wanted her birds done as half birds, probally just as well  even as half a bird it weighed over four pounds. We have put one of the larger birds aside for our Christmas bird, we will also have rib of beef , it will be a nice change from Turkey. Once again we ended up with only five birds for ourselves and then only because I have learnt to say no. Next year we are planning on doing three batches, that way we might get a decent amount for ourselves.

The dough needs to be much thinner.

We are still looking for a good cream cracker recipe,

They look the part but are not quite as we want them.

we have tried one that we found on the internet, it's OK but not what we would like, so we will continue testing recipes until we do find a good one.