Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[shelbydog]

Hi everyone!

Haven't been on in awhile, so I am way behind on posts.  Today is the mass chicken execution at my house-- not looking forward to it.  My husband wants to skin the 10 chickens so we don't have to pluck them, and I don't really want to help with much of the processing besides once the bird looks like that from a store so I think I will let him.

To save on freezer space I have been youtubing deboning chicken all morning and came across this link, which I've never seen before.  I don't know if it would work without the skin since that kind of holds it together, but this looks pretty cool.  They debone the chicken whole then you can wrap it up and stuff it or whatnot.  They also said they do that for Thanksgiving turkeys which would be fun to try!  The guy makes it look easy, I'm sure its not, especially as a newbie, but I will have to try it out sometime.  Thought I'd share

There is a Cajun store in my town that sells partially deboned chickens that are stuffed with pecan stuffing, crawfish stuffing, and cornbread stuffing. They are delicious!

 

[dutchbunny83]

BC-- Haha I didn't know that was a real thing! I remember a few years ago they had the guy from MADtv doing his impression of John Madden and he was always eating turducken I thought they made it up!

Shelby-- that sounds AMAZING!!!!

I would assume you need to keep the skin on it, no?

How do you guys process chickens keeping the skin without the big expensive machines? We do ours outside and I don't have anyway to scald them unless I reboil a pot of water between each one I guess. I've seen those attachments you can buy for a drill to pull feathers.

 

[3 NH reds]

That is how they make turducken: they put a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck inside a deboned turkey.

I have always wanted to try thatbut it sounds like a pain. I might check out the deboning video.

 

[DaveMorey]

I used a canning kettle for scalding. I heated in the house in the stove and then put it in my gas grill to maintain the scalding temp. We hand plucked the few that I processed last time but I am building a whizbang plucker for the meaties that I am raising now.
I definitely will be trying the deboning on some of my birds. The video was great. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Beekissed]

I've deboned one of my CX and I also deboned a store bought turkey....our home raised, free range CX won't be as easy to debone as what you see in the vid, as they have a little more texture and strength of tendon than these commercially grown birds. The turkey was easier to do than my CX!

Here's the vid I learned on...much better angle and an interesting accent to boot!

 

[BCMaraniac]

BC-- Haha I didn't know that was a real thing! I remember a few years ago they had the guy from MADtv doing his impression of John Madden and he was always eating turducken I thought they made it up!

Shelby-- that sounds AMAZING!!!!

I would assume you need to keep the skin on it, no?

How do you guys process chickens keeping the skin without the big expensive machines? We do ours outside and I don't have anyway to scald them unless I reboil a pot of water between each one I guess. I've seen those attachments you can buy for a drill to pull feathers.

Dutchbunny....I am not advertising, but here is a place that actually makes and ships them:

http://www.cajungrocer.com/

I do believe they leave the skin on them......and sometimes leave the turkey drumsticks on as well?? Not absolutely sure about that.

 

[BCMaraniac]

I've deboned one of my CX and I also deboned a store bought turkey....our home raised, free range CX won't be as easy to debone as what you see in the vid, as they have a little more texture and strength of tendon than these commercially grown birds. The turkey was easier to do than my CX!

Here's the vid I learned on...much better angle and an interesting accent to boot!

Bee, Thanks for that video! I am going to try that.

Yesterday, as you know, we got into a discussion about capons on the fermenting feed thread. I think with deboning I may do a controlled clinical trial, as they say in medicine, next year:

1. Hatch chicks.

2. Caponize some of the cockerels, and leave some intact.

3. Separate the two groups.

4. Keep track of the feed used for each group

5. Butcher intact males at some predetermined age....say 6 months. Then continue to feed the capons and butcher them at some predetermined age....say 9 months.

6 In each instance, debone the birds, and weigh the meat from each one.

7. Calculate the cost per pound of finished deboned chicken.

This might actually give us a more concrete idea of cost/benefit of capons versus intact roosters in terms of meat quantity and cost. The quality of the meat, of course would be a more subjective finding, so would not be addressed.

I just might do this.......

 

[Beekissed]

Would it be a fair assessment between intact males and neutered males if the neutered males get to live 3 mo. past processing and be fed for that much longer? I would think the only correct assessment between the birds would be fed the same thing, processed at the same times, in order to get an accurate assessment of the differences between the two on taste, fat, weight, tenderness, etc.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Would it be a fair assessment between intact males and neutered males if the neutered males get to live 3 mo. past processing and be fed for that much longer? I would think the only correct assessment between the birds would be fed the same thing, processed at the same times, in order to get an accurate assessment of the differences between the two on taste, fat, weight, tenderness, etc.

Okay, we kill roosters at a younger age to have a better quality of meat than on an older rooster, even though if we let them grow there will be more meat. We caponize roosters to be able have a better quality of meat, but a bigger carcass.....which requires a longer growout. So if we want to determine the cost of meat per pound, then we grow the roosters to their normal processing age and the capons to their normal processing age, and then determine the cost for the feed for the amount of meat we get.

Deboning the meat would take the weight of the bone out of the equation, because if a capon is older its bones will weigh more than the young roosters, and we are really only interested in what the meat costs us to raise. Capons have better feed conversion because they concentrate their energy on growing, not chasing girls or fighting.

So if the cost is comparable in terms of the amount of meat, and the quality of the meat is as good as or better, AND you an get more of the meat on a single carcass, then it would seem to be a good option for anyone who wants a plumper bird on the table. And keep in mind that when this was routinely done birds like the CX were not available, and the market for capons was highest around the holidays, when a larger group of people were usually fed. The math worked out perfectly for the farmer, because spring hatched capons were ready for processing at the Thanksgiving/Christmas season, when demand was highest

So, yes, it would be a fair assessment.

 

[Beekissed]

I really don't see how. If you took two groups of any bird and fed one group longer than the other, you'd have more meat and weight on the carcass, whether you retain the bones or not. To do an accurate experiment your control group would have to have the same conditions as the studied group except for the one factor of being caponed. To feed the caponed group longer and then claim they put on more weight and have more fat would be an obvious conclusion....if you fed a non-caponed group longer they too would have more fat and weight then the group killed 3 mo. prior. That's kind of a no brainer and not a real assessment of meat on meat. One was grown longer and fed longer...of course it's going to be bigger and fatter!