Butchering help

[Torinik]

Hello all,

I've been reading your posts on BYC for years now and found a wealth of information. I thought I'd share some of my experiences to reciprocate what I've received.
When it comes to butchering, this was a common thing when I was a child/teenager that we didn't really give a second thought, back then. Because of life and participating in the rat-race I had to re-learn this once seemingly simple skill. I remember the first time, after so many years, being quite upsetting in contrast to the times in my youth.

This is what I found.
Make sure you're in a firm state of mind. You are going to take a life and it will happen regardless. If you're nervous, uncertain or hesitant, the bird will pick up on it. You don't want to impart that on the bird. Pick it up, gentle but firm, and take it away from the others. I hang the bird by the feet and don't use a cone. No pros or cons here, this is just how I do it. The bird is usually very calm when this happens. I gently stretch its neck with my left hand. This also works for people who want to use a hatchet, it kind of hypnotizes the bird and it will leave its head stretched out on the block for a little while. I hold its head gently in my left hand, the bird's chest facing me, find the vein I want to sever and make an incision of about 5mm (which is about a quarter inch, I'm guessing). This takes practice and knowledge, more on this in a bit. Usually, at this point there's no reaction, it just hangs there and bleeds out. My left hand remains gently around its head, ready to grasp firmly when the bird flaps its wings so it doesn't go all over the place. After it has flapped a few times, it folds its wings back and it's over.
I think this is about as humane as it gets. There's no reaction (most of the time) to the incision and once it's cut the birds blood pressure drops dramatically. Anyone who got out of a chair too fast and felt a faint spell knows you're not really there, the same applies to the bird.

Now, for some very detailed information. There's a pamphlet issued by the U.S. department of agriculture on February 4th, 1915. Titled: How to kill and bleed market poultry.

Here's a link, https://archive.org/details/howtokillbleedma61penn_0.

Hope this helps.

Edit. The pamphlet describes cutting the vein from the inside. Since I don't have the proper tool to do that and don't have to carry the carcass to market, but instead process it on the spot, I perform the incision in the same location from the outside.

 

[trainman]

I use a pvc pipe cutter. Like this, a lot of hardware stores carry similar
https://www.theisens.com/products/a...IDEcqxxwJcrguyCe4VNep95rVbcB2vl8aAr6REALw_wcB

Hey,that sounds like a good way. I usually use a sharp knife but it's hard getting through. A PVC cutter should make that job faster. Thanks for that tip!

 

[LilyD]

We have a mixed flock of chickens. Six months old. We had three roosters and we decided to butcher and eat.
We gve a killing cone, but something is not working. I have watched numerous videos and butchering books with detailed pictures. But I feel like I am doing something wrong.

When I go to kill the bird, I feel like I am not finding the artery. I slice quick and deep. I am using a fishing filet knife. Sharpened for the occasion. The knife was purchased from my local farm store, specifically recommend for chicken butchering. When I slice into the bird, blood comes out as I would expect. But the chicken doesn’t die. It’s not just that it is flapping, which I know that birds do when dead. But I can still feel a pulse. And the bird open and closes its eyes. It takes me many minutes to keep cutting until it is really dead. What the heck am I doing wrong? It is bleeding out fine... so it seems. But I don’t seem to be killing it quickly or humanely.

After the butchering is complete my chickens still had quite a bit of dark blood, like clots, on the neck.

The easiest way I have found to make sure I'm at the right spot is to hold the head with the hand I'm not cutting with and run my thumb along the jawline. That's where you want to cut just below the jawline on the neck. I tried regular knives and then settled on a razor knife. The others were just not sharp enough since chicken skin is tough and the feathers dull the blades very fast. The razor blade stays sharp longer.

When it starts getting dull I just replace the blade and then use until dull. You can resharpen them as well but if you are in the middle of processing it's easier to just replace and keep going.

Once the cut is made on both arteries right and left side the bird doesn't die immediately. They do pass out due to blood loss, if you've ever had a really bad cut you know there is very little pain once the blood loss starts and you feel disjointed and a little bit apart from yourself. Within around 30 seconds the bird will start twitching and tensing. When they pass the nerve endings all fire at once and that is what produces the tensing and leg kicking wing beating behavior. The bird is already gone at that point.

Hopefully this helps.

 

[aart]

So you might not realize from descriptions but it takes real time for a brain to die. First the body needs to pump blood out of the body and brain and then the brain has to stop working. THEN you stop getting a pulse. You may just be finding that the reality, that it takes a minute or so for a chicken to actually die-die of blood loss, is longer than you were expecting. Fast but hardly instantaneous. People favor cutting the veins only BECAUSE you still get that pulse. It bleeds the bird out more thoroughly because the heart is pumping all the blood out of the body.

Exactly!
I slice both sides of neck right under jawbone.
shown very clearly here
Never actually timed it but bet it's 30-60 seconds before death throes stop.
I learned in labor just how long 60 seconds can seem.

 

[LilyD]

Exactly!
I slice both sides of neck right under jawbone.
shown very clearly here
Never actually timed it but bet it's 30-60 seconds before death throes stop.
I learned in labor just how long 60 seconds can seem.

I think from the time I do the cuts to the time they start twitching and kicking their legs is about 10 -20 seconds. It really doesn't take long at all. Working very closely with first response for people they said that any time you cut a major artery blood pressure drops which causes loss of consciousness and then death shortly after.