Freedom Ranger Skin Tearing when Processing - Help

[SandyNest]

We have processed the first batch of our Freedom Ranger chickens yesterday and had some issue with the skin getting ripped up in the plucker (Whizbang type of plucker). They are roughly 12 weeks old, so I believe they are old enough. Has anyone had this issue?? Is it the breed, or perhaps we don't have the scalding process set just right? This is our first year processing our own birds and first year with Freedom Rangers.

Thanks for any suggestions!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

It sounds like over-scalding. If you scald too long in over-hot water the skin tears really easily. Different people will tell you different water temperatures and different times to leave them in the water. I’ll let others tell you what temperatures and times they use.

I skin mine now instead of plucking, but when I did scald and pluck by hand I didn’t worry too much about water temperature. When the wing feathers start to come out pretty easily they are ready. But I never worried about the skin tearing either. I cut one up into serving pieces as part of my butchering process so skin isn’t important to me. My wife likes them skinless.

 

[SandyNest]

Thanks for the information. We're setting up right now to process the remaining birds, so we'll give that a try and hope for some nicer looking outcomes!!

 

[SandyNest]

Thank you Ridgerunner! We lowered our temp down from 150 to 135/130 degrees and it worked perfectly! Birds came out looking like store-bought straight out of the plucker. No messed up skin. I'm especially excited because hubby wanted to go back to the Cornish X (which was our first batch of meat birds earlier in the summer), instead of the Freedom Rangers. I was so wanting to stay with the Freedom Rangers because they are built, well......much closer to what I think a chicken should be.