my first go around with meaties!

mayrooni said:

do you have plans for the set up you have?  id like to make one of those for housing one year. 

my plan for butchering...call me crazy!  ill be doing them mainly alone, by hand.  so I have 12-15 days planned and just do as many as I can before I go crazy!   my husbands work/school schedule got changed on us, so I'm kinda stuck.  I'm sure ill get some help, but it will be a drawn out process. 

Click to expand...

If you do a search I posted how I made them

100 alone by hand IS crazy. I did 20 by hand with a helper and it still took all day. I hope you find some help.

mayrooni- Before you get the 100 birds, there are questions to answer, and homework to be done. What are your poultry meat needs? How much chicken do you eat in a week, month, year? What are your freezer capacities? Is there sufficient outside space to raise the birds to full term? From my observations, numerous people start with the intention of raising their own meat,only to find out that they are not mentally able to overcome the killing of the birds. Are you able to do that? To process birds by hand without help can be foolhardy (accidents can and do sometimes happen). Using an electric scalder and plucker is a great help, but on the realistic side you will still need 12 to 14 minutes labor time to complete the process for each bird. If you can use an outside processing facility (additional costs) then you have to plan on crates and a truck for transport of live birds, then coolers to transport the final product home. Contact your local county agriculture extension agent for help and local suggestions.
I encourage people to raise and process their own food. We do. For a successful outcome please do your homework before you commit to 100 birds.

Clarifications for post 24-
1. If hand plucking add 10 minutes to the labor time, and plan on sorely cramped hands and fingers by the end of the day.

2. Accidents can and do happen. I spent an afternoon having my left pinky sewed together. My wife drove to the ER.

There is a lot of good advice in that post, however, I think its better to foster ambition than to intimidate a new comer with all of the challenges. You're points are all valid though. She's diving into the deep end.

If you're dead set on plucking 100 by hand, which I advise against, you may want to start killing your biggest cockerels at week 7 so you aren't feeding past week 9. I just had a friend ask if I could postpone my harvest of 125. I said sure, if you're willing to feed them for the extra week. He declined when I told him it would cost $150 in feed to wait a week. Harvest age males will be eating about 1/2 pound each per day by day 50 and they are going to burn through feed in those final weeks.

Ive butchered before 150 in two days. I'm not new to that at all. I plan on butchering by hand, but not all on one day, that would be nutso! I'll start the bigger ones at 5 weeks, I have three days a week I can butcher and ill do what I can in a few hours time. Nit trying to work myself to death here! space is not an issue on 5 acres. We have an coop that are layers are moving out of this weekend into a mobile pen. Meaties will go in there soon. They are day 10 now, in my basement brooder. The smell isn't too bad, but it will be if they don't get out soon! We have a few 30 degree nights coming up, so early next wed they move out to the second garage (has power in case they need heat for a drop in temp) then they move to the coop.

My apologies mayrooni. I think we were all under the impression you were new to this based on your posts. Have at it and good luck.