"Have you ever plucked a chicken?"

Have you ever plucked a chicken? This is not a question that one encounters often. It is now one that I can answer with an emphatic "YES"! In our every evolving quest to provide our family with healthy, all natural meats we embarked on a mission for good ol' home grown chicken. Loving known around southside Virginia as "yard-bird".

Our mission began with the purchase of 20 cornish X rocks from our local Tractor Supply store. This is a hybrid breed of chicken which comes from crossing a cornish rooster with a white rock hen. The large poultry suppliers spend years and lots of money fine tuning their crosses and enhancing specific traits, such as rapid growth and large breast. The 20 chicks we purchased grew to a slaughter size of 10 pounds in 10 weeks! If I hadn't raised these birds myself, I never would have believed they weren't chocked full of growth hormones and steroids. We made sure our birds were fed an all natural diet of high protein chicken feed. They were kept on pasture in movable chicken sleds I built myself, but that's another story.

Finally the day came to slaughter our chickens. I certainly wasn't looking forward to it, but it had to be done. These chickens grow so fast and get so large that their organs and legs can not support their own weight if they are allowed to grow beyond a certain point. My husband nor I either one had every processed (term for killing, plucking and gutting) a chicken before. Several You Tube tutorials later we were as ready as we'd every be and went to it.

***MOMMY NOTE: We all know the importance of teaching our kids where their food comes from. Chicken processing is messy and could frighten some children. Watch some online videos first, then decide if getting your kids involved is right for your family.***


Our first meat chicken adventure taught us several things. First, hand plucking a chicken is not easy, no matter how perfect your scalding water is, nor how correctly you follow directions. Second, to meet my personal standards, it will involve hours with tweezers. And third, the purchase of an automatic chicken plucker (the Featherman Pro) was the best money we ever spent!! The first batch of meat chickens was trying, but a success. There was no question after the first one I roasted that it was worth all the effort.

In years past, my grandmother killed and fried a chicken every Sunday morning. My dad tells of one Sunday, when he was about ten years old, that she sent him out to "fetch her a bird". Not wanting the chicken to see what was about to happen, he held an oak leaf over the chickens eyes while he chopped its head off. That was just how it was done 60 years ago. Today, when a kid helps grandma get a chicken, it involves a shopping cart and the freezer section of their local Food Lion. There is no concept of where that bird came from, how it was raised or the sacrifice it made. Quite honestly, I never put much thought into it either, until I had to hold that metaphorical leaf myself.

                         "Hey mom...what's for dinner?"

                             "Roasted yard-bird"

• 1 (6-8 lb) whole chicken, thawed in the fridge
• 1 orange
• 1 lemon
• 1 onion
• 1 apple
• 1 stalk celery
• vegetable oil
• 2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• 2 Tbsp fresh sage, chopped
• 1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
• salt, pepper and red pepper flakes

Pre heat oven to 425. Line a roasting pan with foil for easy clean up. Wash and pat dry chicken with paper towels. In a bowl, mix zest of orange and lemon, juice from orange and lemon, basil, sage, rosemary, 1/3 cup oil and 1 tsp each of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Quarter remains of orange and lemon, stuff into cavity of chicken along with quartered onion, celery and apple. Chop into smaller pieces if it all doesn't fit. With breast side up, GENTLY, pull skin away from meat starting just above large cavity opening and work your way towards neck opening. Use a spoon to stuff spice/oil mixture in between skin and meat. Drizzle additional vegetable oil (doesn't burn as quickly as olive oil) over skin of bird and liberally sprinkle with additional salt and pepper. Rub all over to coat entire exterior of chicken.
Place breast side down and brown for 15 minutes, the oil will smoke some. After 15 minutes remove from oven and flip chicken so breast side is up. Insert a meat thermometer into thickest part of breast without hitting a bone. The ONLY way to properly roast a chicken requires using a meat thermometer. Brown for an additional 15 minutes, then loosely cover chicken with aluminum foil and DECREASE temperature to 325. Roast until meat thermometer reads 165. Allow chicken to rest for 10 minutes before carving. Enjoy:)