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Quote: I would say that you're ok- I would highly advise against doing this, but if something came up and you had to, I think you'd be fine eating the bird.

Quote: Well, that should have bled him out fine I would have thought. The only thing I can think of is that if you cut the head off, the heart stops beating (besides some electrical movement,) instantly, which leaves a bit of blood behind, whereas cutting the jugular vein allows the bird to...

Quote: Could be- how did he kill it?

Quote: Haha, til they stop bleeding! Should take a few minutes for all the dripping to stop.

Quote: Detergent- just squirt some in. The amount doesn't really matter much. If you're cooking the meat during your scald, your water is probably too hot. There isn't ONE temperature, rather a range. I set my thermometer at about 143 degrees, but anywhere from 130 to 160 works- the cooler...

Quote: Looks to me like it's just a turkey fryer filled with water, unless I'm looking at the wrong pictures??

Quote: I both brood and raise them in the same pen. I had a much smaller area cordoned off inside the pen when they were smaller. My pen is portable so I can change locations each year. As with all of your stuff, that looks like a very nice setup- is it hard to keep clean? Is it fully...

Quote: Thanks for the kind words. It's really easy to do your own birds. I have my own plucker now and I'll be doing this years flock of meat birds in a couple of weeks. Here's a pic of them a few weeks ago: http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/gallery/brooders/brooder_5.jpg Yummy!! Is that...

Harley's girl : Um....call me silly but what do you do with the feet? You wouldn't....gulp *shivers*...um...eat them would you? The feet have a ton of collagen in them, so when you add them to stock, it really thickens it up. In some countries, I'm told, you can get fried chicken feet on...

Quote: I found making a Whizbang plucker a really fun project. I don't do THAT many birds, but I hated plucking- it took me about an hour per bird by hand. And, I'm not willing to invest that much time to learn to do it faster. Two done in 15 seconds with the Whizbang!

I didn't clean the feet prior to making stock, however- does that matter? Actually, I "cleaned" them (scrubbed and cut off the toenails,) but I didn't skin them.

Quote: I make stock with the feet- just add them to the bones and veggies. So much connective tissue and collagen- makes the thickest stock you've ever seen!

Great thread! I have wondered about an ice water bath after scalding, before plucking, to prevent skin tearing, but I'd heard that would make the feathers re-stick. Do you have any problems with that? Does anyone else cool them before plucking?