Well, for all my big talking I only got one done. "Gimpy." And I have been meaning to cull him for a week. After processing I found that he did have a broken thigh bone that had sortof healed over, but he has no thigh muscle on that side. I have made a mental note to cull more quickly, that must have been painful for him and I feel badly waiting like I did. Live and learn. I did get great experience in setting up the equipment and I got a great scald on him so the plucker made him naked in 30 seconds flat.
I had a bit of a delay figuring out where to make the vent cuts and once I did it was a little weird getting everything out and separated, but it only took me about 15 minutes from picking him up to putting him in the fridge so I consider this a very good omen for when I get 'on a mission'.
I learned that I am a bit of a wimp on this killing thing. I did Gimpy pretty easily because I knew he needed it, but with the others I have to wrap my mind around the idea that I am turning them into meat, not just putting them out of pain. I also learned that chicken guts are harder to get out than turkey guts are. Overall I found out I can do it, just need to get into a harvesting frame of mind and knock the rest out. 1 down 22 to go.
