The Chicken Process.

I love food. Trox and myself have started to take an interest in not only what we eat, but how the food we eat is produced. We began trying to grow our own vegetables over five years ago, in an apartment complex. We have never had a huge bounty of fruits or vegetables to eat, but it has always been rewarding and a great learning experience through the years.
Now living in Newberg, we find ourselves wanting to take it further, and include our meat into self sustainment on our property. Last November we purchased twelve Barred Rock chicks, and got to the long journey of raising chickens for meat!
It has been a pretty fun process so far. It has been great opening the coop in the morning to find eighteen birds flutter out and set out for the day's delicious pickings. We even constructed a brooder for them to live in, till their true feathers all came in. The garage stank for a few weeks, but soon the coop was home. We didn't name any of the birds, for fear of attachment, but we still enjoy watching them interact with the permanent ladies already in the flock, and feel their lives are lived with contentment and ease.
There is this great article, http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf, a little long, but it set our plan of attack for getting some meat done.