On killing cones and cutting throats

Fredster said:

I started out with smaller holes, but the chickens never made it in far enough for their heads to hang out. The cones are very narrow, and I ended up cutting off 6-8 inches to get a chicken to fit:

That picture is from when I was building the station and trying to get the cones cut right. The chicken is a full-sized Barred Rock.


Once bled and dead, I have cord to tie to the feet, and that will be looped over one of the hooks visible in one of the previous pictures up there. I've also got some really small bungie cords I may try.

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Fredster said:

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Fredster said:

Here we go. This started out as just a cone-holder where I could bleed the chickens out. A couple of days after I built it, I started thinking about adding some hooks to hang the chickens for plucking, as well as a flat table-like surface for the big cutting board I use during the evisceration.


The original thing was too short to use as a table, so I set it in the wagon. That makes it a touch taller than I'd like, but workable, and now it's mobile.

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Fredster said:

Thanks for the replies, guys. Looks like the left side is the spot. I built myself a processing station earlier this week, which I'll be trying out Saturday morning.


When my wife gets home (I'm at work), I'll get her to take a picture of the station and I'll post it. Hopefully it'll make things easier. /img/smilies/smile.png

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kflaig said:

I just butchered my first two chickens this week.


I was too cheap to buy a cone and couldn't find a small traffic cone so just made one out of a good quality gallon plastic milk jug.


I cut out the neck area of the jug enough to let the head of the chicken stick out. I then cut out three sides of the bottom to make a flap that I then turned up and screwed into a tree to hang.


It worked fine. The chickens were very quiet. No flapping, clucking, etc. even after I cut the carotids.


To cut the carotid arteries, I just positioned the head in my left hand so that my thumb was on the bottom of the beak with the back of the head towards my other fingers. I then stretched the neck out a little and turned the beak away from my body about 45 degrees.


I could feel the trachea with my thumb. I used a sharp box cutter to cut the tissue on the closed side of the neck down towards the base of the skull.


One quick slash and it was all over. The chickens just quietly hung there and bled out.

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