Tag Archives: chicken

Chicken toy

Posted on by
home-made chicken toy

Chickens and chicken toy

To give the chickens something to play with and some sort of mental stimulus, I decided to make them a toy. I’d seen one on Amazon and thought it shouldn’t be that hard to copy. I got an old plastic bottle and punched about 10 square holes with the tip of a sharp knife. Obviously it is important not to make them too big. I then filled it with wheat and waited to see what they made of it.

It didn’t take them long to figure out what to do and the next day they were managing to roll it with their feet.

 

chicken-toy1

Fried Chicken Blood

Posted on by
Fried Chicken Blood

Fried Chicken Blood

It was only last Sunday that I learnt how to fry chicken blood to serve as a tapa. Before then, I had always given it to the neighbour’s dog – but not any more. Sorry dog.

When you kill the chicken and cut the neck, drain the blood onto a plate with a sprinkling of salt. Once the blood has congealed, sprinkle a bit more salt on top and cut into squares.

Fried Chicken Blood

Fried Chicken Blood

Get 5 or so large cloves of garlic and cut into thick slices, skin and all. Fry gently in a frying pan until golden.

Fried Chicken Blood
Fried Chicken Blood

Gently add the blood squared and fry until they have puffed up. It is important not to fry them for too long or they will taste like rubber.

The blood has completely different taste to what you might expect and tastes more like egg yolk.

Pour the contents of the pan into a shallow bowl and serve with small chunks of bread.

Chicken Soup: Sopa de Pollo

Posted on by
chicken soup

Chicken Soup

We needed to kill a couple of the male, incubated chickens and so we decided to make a soup with the giblets (heart, lung, kidneys), necks, chicken bones, gizzard, feet, etc.

We boiled the chicken bits and one of our pork bones in plenty of water and with some salt.

The stock was simmered for about 45 minutes and then left until we needed it in the evening.

In the evening, we reheated it, adding fine pasta. I added the finely chopped yolks of 4 hard-boiled eggs. Shortly before serving, I added the chopped white and made some croutons.

Increasing the flock

Posted on by

The chickens seem happy to be back at the cortijo after their winter break and are still laying 2 or 3 eggs a day. I’ve decided to try and get some more chickens to increase my flock . Rather than buying them, I thought it would be better to try and rear them myself so have borrowed one of the neighbour’s roosters. In theory, it seems easy but only time will tell and I’m sure it’s going to be a bit more difficult than I thought at first.

Here is the picture of the rooster:

2013-04-07 09.09.28This is the first day so I collected the three eggs that the hens had laid.

The rooster showed absolutely no interest in any of the chickens. The only action was when the red-breasted, feisty chicken went for him and he reared himself as if to fight but then just ran away.