CHICKEN PLUCKING TIME AT THE LANGELIER FARM

[Henry]

FAMILY AND FRIENDS GATHER TO PREPARE CHICKENS FOR THE FREEZER


By noon today 237 chickens (only nine weeks old) will be in the freezer, ready for use in a nice chicken recipe. The Langeliers purchase these chickens in Canada, which are bred purposely for meat.

The chickens are slaughtered, then passed on to Dale Bellows, shown above where they are dunked in hot water. The tank of water Dale is using is heated with a gas propane heater.

They are then passed on to Norm Rainville where he uses this electrically powered chicken plucker. Although you can't see it, to the left is a tractor with a front end bucket on it that the feathers are being caught in. Saves work in cleaning up later on.

Randy Devine, Kaitlin Langelier and Paul's brother Andrew Rainville remove the innards, cut off the legs and any feathers that might be remaining. Paul Langelier, partially hidden with the hose in hand does additional cleaning, inside and out.

When you look a little bit closer, you notice that Paul is separating the liver, gizzard and heart. Paul separates out the innards because there is a man from Swanton who comes and gets them; apparently he enjoys eating those parts. He also takes the feet to make his "chicken feet soup". I don't think it's something I'd ever want to try.

The young lady in front is draining the excess water from the cleaned chicken into a tub.

And she and her helper bring the cleaned chickens to where Karen Langelier is waiting to further process.

Here is a view of them from another angle. In the foreground are some of the chickens the three women on the right have ready to be delivered to a waiting freezer.

Sue Rainville, Karen Charbonneau, and Karen Langelier are shown in this final preparation. Seated on the right at the end of the table in the back is Karen's mother who has come out to observe this yearly event.

Interestingly enough, seen in the background to the left a bit, is what remains of what was one of the largest poultry farms around, Hillcrest Poultry, which is a business that was started many years ago by Reggie & Joyce Barkyoumb, now retired. That business is now called Hillcrest Foods and the business of raising chickens for eggs is no longer there. Reggie & Joyce used to send their chickens off to slaughter when their egg producing days were over.

Even though this is a once a year event, you would never know it to watch these young and old work together -- and they seem to be having fun.

To say we had as much fun back on our family farm in the early 1940s shown above, well you would actually have to have a photo of me smiling also behind the camera taking the photo above some 60 years ago.

[Rev. Elizabeth]

Interesting, your remark about chicken foot soup!  When Justin Brown and I and a group of students went to Guatemala this past February, Justin and I worked in the kitchen of the project where we worked.  Now, this project provided educational enrichment and meals for about 400 youth who lived near the Guatemala City dump.  Anyway, that particular day there were buckets and buckets of--yes, chicken feet!  And Justin's job was to use a knife and cut the nails off the toes, while I cut endless vegetables.  Unfortunately I don't have a photo of him doing this exciting job.  
The children loved the soup, of course, and would pick any morsel of meat or fat that they could get off the feet.  Actually, I tasted it, and it wasn't too bad!