Butchered first chicken- did I do it right?

[rjohns39]

I raise white and brown egg layers but I haven't gotten enough yet to sell. There are strange people out there who seem to think that only white eggs are clean, while others think only brown are fresh. STRANGE!

ETA: My mom actually called me to ask if it was safe to eat a blue egg. ARG

 

[Molpet]

I am just trying to break even on feed by selling a few eggs and providing meat and eggs for myself... might be close since the heritage chickens at the farmers market went up to $7 LB and turkey $10.
I can not legally sell meat unless a USDA processed it.

oh well it is still cheaper than traveling
and good daily exercise

 

[Parront]

I am just trying to break even on feed by selling a few eggs and providing meat and eggs for myself... might be close since the heritage chickens at the farmers market went up to $7 LB and turkey $10.
I can not legally sell meat unless a USDA processed it.

oh well it is still cheaper than traveling
and good daily exercise

Farmer's market here they sell home-grown eggs, brown ones, $5.00/doz. They sell meat if you go to their place, not at the market.

 

[jvls1942]

for those of you who don't know what a Whiz Bang plucker looks like.
this is the latest one that I have built.
It is chain and sprocket driven by a 1HP electric motor.
the wooden frame is solid clear red oak.
all mortise and tenon construction.
no a nail or screw in it .
there are 8 screws holding the plastic barrel to the wooden frame at the octagon shaped top.
I designed the chain and sprocket assembly . it reduces the 1725 rpm of the motor down to 192 rpm at the feather plate.
there are 125 rubber fingers in this plucker..
there are several pluckers on U tube if you want to see one in action.
the small wheels on this one came off of an old wheel chair.
I already used the large wheels on the garden cart I built..

we used to do 200 meaties over a weekend
100 each day. but the kids grew up and grandma and I don't need that many any more..
........jiminwisc......

 

[Molpet]

I raise white and brown egg layers but I haven't gotten enough yet to sell. There are strange people out there who seem to think that only white eggs are clean, while others think only brown are fresh. STRANGE!

ETA: My mom actually called me to ask if it was safe to eat a blue egg. ARG

around here people think brown eggs are more nutritious

 

[Parront]

around here people think brown eggs are more nutritious

I like white, they are all the same inside!

 

[rjohns39]

There's a thread out here that started with the whole brown vs white conversation. college students decided that since ( I kid you not) white layers had two different tracts for eggs they were cleaner than brown egg layers who only had one tract, the tract that poop comes out of. Ok, those of us who raise chickens know that the eggs and poop comes out of the vent--but we also know that eggs come from one side and poop the other. It's kind of crazy what people think they know...

 

[Redhead Rae]

How do you do 150 birds in a day? I can barely manage 3 in 2-2.5 hours. I can't spend more than 2-3 hours at a time on slaughtering birds because I have a 15 month old who still nurses. I get help with the plucking (we hand pluck after scalding) but I do the slaughter (bleeding the bird out) and the evisceration by myself. On average, it takes me 20 min a bird to eviscerate. My best time was 15 min but I cut the bile sack and and lost all the innards but the heart. I normally save the heart and liver. I do the gizzard sometimes, but it is such a pain in the butt to clean. Everything else goes in our maggot bucket. I also take shortcuts that most people don't (breaking the backbone and popping the hips out of socket to get better access to the innards). I also have a dickens of a time getting a proper knife to stay sharp enough to do what I need. I switched to using disposable surgical steel blades on a folding handle which usually makes it from slaughter to evisceration of 3 chickens. Of course, I've only done 34 of my own birds (well 33, I walked my mom through the process on one) so I'm sure I'll get better with time. It is just a slow process. It used to take me 45 min to an hour to eviscerate a bird when I started. I've only done roosters so far. We've only had chickens for 1.5 years at this point so our older hens are still in their prime laying years. Next fall we'll probably be turning our leghorn cross hens into dog/cat food. I'm planning on keeping my Dominique and Dom cross hens around for awhile longer because they are great at training roosters how to behave themselves and they are good stabilizing influences in the flock.

 

[MamaHen11]

Another question- When resting the chicken, do you put it in a airtight bag, or do you leave it in the fridge air, or do you brine?

 

[rjohns39]

I've done it two ways. Overnight in ice water in the coolers or in a shrink wrap bag in the fridge.