Well, I'd processed a few spare roos back in the summer by just skinning and harvesting the meat I wanted off the birds, but I think I can consider us well and good into the meatbird club now...
We processed 23 meat birds (only lost 1 after the initial couple-day-old stage) and 7 spare ameraucana roosters on Saturday.
Thankfully we had a friend come and help us - he was a BIG help and we were able to get all 30 done in about 5 hours. Considering that he was the only one who had done the complete butchering process before I figured that wasn't TOO bad.
It was not as bad as I thought - I was dreading the plucking, but following the 140-150 degree rule and we had very few broken skin issues and the birds plucked very easily.
While it was chilly here on Saturday to do the processing I sure was glad it wasn't hot and we didn't have any flies to worry about. We also didn't need to worry about keeping the meat chilled quickly - with temps in the 40s it wasn't bitterly cold for us to work, but we were able to get the meat chilled down with cold water and put on ice and not worry about spoilage from the heat.
The biggest problem was finding room in the freezer for all those birds! We got all of them in except one, and he was Sunday dinner last night - and SO yummy!!
Thanks to all the good advice from my BYC friends! We will be stocked on chicken now at least through spring.
I'm not sure if I'll do another batch in spring, or maybe wait until fall again. I wouldn't want to do processing on the scale we did it on Sat when the weather is warm.
We processed 23 meat birds (only lost 1 after the initial couple-day-old stage) and 7 spare ameraucana roosters on Saturday.
Thankfully we had a friend come and help us - he was a BIG help and we were able to get all 30 done in about 5 hours. Considering that he was the only one who had done the complete butchering process before I figured that wasn't TOO bad.
It was not as bad as I thought - I was dreading the plucking, but following the 140-150 degree rule and we had very few broken skin issues and the birds plucked very easily.
While it was chilly here on Saturday to do the processing I sure was glad it wasn't hot and we didn't have any flies to worry about. We also didn't need to worry about keeping the meat chilled quickly - with temps in the 40s it wasn't bitterly cold for us to work, but we were able to get the meat chilled down with cold water and put on ice and not worry about spoilage from the heat.
The biggest problem was finding room in the freezer for all those birds! We got all of them in except one, and he was Sunday dinner last night - and SO yummy!!
Thanks to all the good advice from my BYC friends! We will be stocked on chicken now at least through spring.
I'm not sure if I'll do another batch in spring, or maybe wait until fall again. I wouldn't want to do processing on the scale we did it on Sat when the weather is warm.
