42-day wonders

[Bossroo]

How is the chicken catching and packing done at night and how are they transported to the processor miles away ?

 

[jaku]

Quote:
I lot of times we'll give ours a good whack to the head with a 1x2, which stuns them enough that we can put them in the cones and cut the throats before they wake up. It makes that part a whole lot easier.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
You've never seen a chicken truck hurtling down the Interstate at 70 mph? They are loaded into crates with 10 birds per crate. The crates are then stacked on the bed of the 18 wheeler and strapped down. The processors either take them at night or take them in teh morning, in which case they wait in the crates until daybreak.

I constantly see the chickens along I-5 here heading to "Foster Farms". I always have mixed feelings. They're recently started putting boards over the sides of the crates so you can't "see" the chickens (although you still see the feathers flying to and fro). I think they realized it upset people.

On the other hand, it's likely the first (and last) time the birds saw the sunshine and smelled fresh air.

As far as the packing goes, there are "catchers" who grab typically 3 chickens per hand (they're held by one leg upside down). They're then handed off to secondary dudes (the cheap labor like me) who walks them over to the "packers" who stuff them in the crates. Someone else then stacks the crates. The barns I worked in all housed the chickens on the 2nd floor, so it was pretty easy to move the crates onto the truck. I'll just say it's not a gentle process.

 

[Bossroo]

Let me rephrase the question. How does a free range chicken get caught day or night, just how packaged and then transported to the processor miles away ?

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Well, it's a simple answer.... Greyfields answered it perfectly??

You first catch the chicken... put the chicken in a cage.... put the cage on the truck.... and then drive the truck to the processor....

I'm not sure what answer your looking for? If this doesn't answer it a little more detail will help.

 

[Bossroo]

Thank you Greyfields for your vivid description for the commercial proceedure. However, what is the typical proceedure for a homegrown free ranged chicken from the open field to reach the processor ?

 

[onthespot]

catch the bird, usually at night, put it in a cage, put the cage in the truck and go to the processor.

 

[KellyHM]

Quote:
Good point. I don't plan on stunning mine before killing them. But the processing plants that I have personally been to do electrocute them before slitting the throat. That's not to say they all do it that way, just the ones I've seen.

 

[greyfields]

Quote:
Oh, you mean non-industrial farm like ours? We just wait until dark. I climb in the tractor and hand them out to my wife. We put them in the back of our truck under the canopy, with hay for bedding. They spend their night in there. I have to leave at 6 am to have them to the processor no later than 8 am.

Of course, the kinds of processors that deal with farms our size, do not have assembly lines but most the work is by hand. Only the scald and plucker is mechanical.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Well I process myself, I catch all the birds that I want to process the next day and put them in the yellow poultry crates. I stack them up in the processing facility and process in the morning. But all of the catching is done at night as it keeps them calm.

If you don't process them yourself. You load them up at night the same way and take them to your processer. Most of the time (at least the ones around me) want the birds the night before so they can start early in the morning.