How do you mentally prepare yourself for the first butcher?

[bj taylor]

I make sure my equipment is ready, my knives are razor sharp, my birds are collected calmly the night before and are waiting in a cool and dark place and that there is no struggle or anxiety on butchering day.

what kind of place do you keep them the night before? my birds are pretty skittish. i haven't gone in at night to take them off the roost, so i don't know if that is easier or not.
i read one post where the woman fed them the night before so their crop was full & she found it easier to remove that way. most posts say they withhold food for several hours so the crop is empty.
i'm also wondering what kind of knife/knives i need & is a honing good enough or do i need some kind of sharpening stone?

 

[ScottnLydia]

Just keep them someplace where you can get ahold of them!

With regards to feeding/not feeding, I've done both. While getting a good hold of the crop is easier when it is full, it can be a little easier to burst if you are a little too aggressive like I can be, not like that's the end of the world.

On the other end, everyone says not to feed for 24 hours so that the colon is empty. That thing is NEVER EMPTY!!! It may have more solids or more liquids, but it ain't never empty! Cut around the vent until it is free and tie it off with a tight knot with cotton twine, then make sure that is at the lowest point until everything (innards) is pulled out. That way, should there be any accidental leakage, it will be in the sink, not in the bird!

Yehaw!

~S~

 

[Beekissed]

what kind of place do you keep them the night before? my birds are pretty skittish. i haven't gone in at night to take them off the roost, so i don't know if that is easier or not.
i read one post where the woman fed them the night before so their crop was full & she found it easier to remove that way. most posts say they withhold food for several hours so the crop is empty.
i'm also wondering what kind of knife/knives i need & is a honing good enough or do i need some kind of sharpening stone?

In my last place of residence, if it were warm weather they would be caught up at night and placed in the cool, dark cellar. In regular temps, they would be caught in the night and trussed, then left in the coop with the rest of the chickens but they would be below in the bedding, of course, and the others would be up on the roosts.

Where I live now, they will be trussed at night and placed in our large outbuilding where it's cool and dark.

It's always easier on the bird to be caught at night and to lay calmly, awaiting processing. I saw a video on UTube of a man actually teaching folks how to process and I had to laugh~you could tell he knew nothing about processing other than what he had read or saw somewhere...and it was wrong. He entered into the chicken run and chased the poor bird all over the place, finally caught it and then went on to explain about how he was doing the actual killing was designed to keep adrenaline out of the bird's meat! Maybe he used up all the adrenaline during the chase?

I don't withhold feed the day prior...my birds only get fed once a day anyway, each evening. Crop full, crop empty...it doesn't matter. As the previous poster mentioned, that poop is going to be there anyway. The crop contents will be emptied and fed back to the other birds anyway, so there is no waste of the feed and it doesn't hurt the bird to have a last meal.

I just use my kitchen knives~RADA~stainless steel. They are just sharpened on a regular knife sharpener that I keep right on the processing table with me for touch ups.

 

[m.kitchengirl]

I agree with what Beekissed says.
I found that another comfort to me when I processed my roosters was that I knew they were happy, healthy & lived a good life, and that I have eaten and prepared many chickens in my day without as much thought as maybe we all should have about the process. In a way t felt good to be there from the beginning to the end, rather than picking up a cryo-vac bag & never thinking twice.
A good stiff mint julep right before helps too.
I had a favorite rooster, so I did him first. That way there was no turning back when it came time to do the second one.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:

I just bet it would!

 

[Anna_MN]

Thanks for all of the excellent advice! This really has helped. Keep on posting- I'm sure it will help others too! I'll make sure to let everyone know how Friday goes and maybe post some pictures.

As far as a drink before hand- best advice I've ever heard. I might have to do a few kamikazes before I grab that first bird

 

[Christie Rhae]

We killed our first 3 roosters last month. I watched all kinds of Youtube videos. I had everything ready. My hands were shaking as I scrubbed the outside sinks, filled pot with water, tied my ropes, etc. My husband did the actual killing. I had the three of them hanging there and when my husband picked up the knife and said "ok here we go" I screamed and ran around the house. lol I could not watch when he actually killed them. But I did everything else. Plucking was actually the funnest part. It took me 45 minutes to get all the guts out of the first one. By the third one I had it done in 10 minutes.
Afterwards I really felt like we had accomplished something. What a trip! My husband and I had never killed an animal except fish. Now we feel more prepared for the 50% roosters we will probably be hatching over the next years. Not worried at all about extra roosters.

As a note, we cooked up one of the roosters that night for chicken soup and dumplings. Don't do that. It is too weird. I couldn't eat it. Turns out you are supposed to let the meat cure or something for a few days in the fridge. That might give the horror of the days events time to fade as well. lol

 

[bj taylor]

here's a remarkably dumb question. to truss the birds up at night - you just tie their feet together w/twine or something? are they able to stand?

 

[Beekissed]

I use baling twine most of the time. Sometimes they manage to stand when they are trussed, but mostly they just lie calmly on their sides. I don't tie it so tight that it cuts into their legs but just tight enough it doesn't slip off their feet...that has happened a time or two and it's a pain to catch those birds again to process them with the rest of those waiting to die.

 

[Buster52]

First ones were Leghorns. That made it easy.

Mean little buggers.