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My husband calls me the chicken hoarder. This has nothing to do with buying, raising, or cramming as many chickens as I can into my coop. What he is talking about are the chickens we have stored in our freezer. In giving up on store bought meat, I take those chickens very seriously- they need to last us through the winter since I will not be raising anymore until spring. I have found a local source of beefalo which I have also stocked up on (but use more freely knowing I can always get more). In a few weeks, 4 of our 15 turkeys will join our frozen chickens as well.
Back in the spring, when I was trying to organize a list of who would like to order chickens, everyone gave me a hard time about my method. My parents-in-law, for example, wanted only 3 chickens- so I said I would order them 5 to be on the safe side. When they protested, I explained that they need not take all 5 if they all survived. I just was being overly cautious wanting to make sure everyone got what they wanted. We would keep whatever remained for ourselves. I then had the same conversation with both of my brother-in-laws.
Come processing time, I was glad I over ordered because my parents-in-law ended up taking all 5 of theirs. So did one of my brother-in-laws. My other brother-in-law only took his original 3 (which he now regrets and wished he took all 5). After losing 4 birds during an extreme heat wave, and giving a friend 8 he ordered, we were left with 14 chickens. This sounds like a lot, but it really isn't considering this was July and we will not process meat chickens again until May of next year.
This brings me to chicken hoarding. Even though I love eating chicken, I have only made 3 of these chickens with the rest still safely tucked into the freezer. My husband keeps asking when I will make another chicken as he can't understand why I am rationing them so carefully. Worse yet, he has also suggested that I should give my unfortunate brother-in-law (who only took 3 chickens) one of ours.
Raising these chickens was a lot of work and will be the only chicken I have available to me- they are like frozen, juicy, golden nuggets- much too valuable to give away. So, if this makes me a chicken hoarder- so be it. I am a chicken hoarder.
