Cincinnati area - Butcher who will process chicken?

[Shadywood]

Does anyone know of a butcher who will process your chickens for you, in the Cincinnati / north Kentucky etc area?

we need to start managing our flock, and I have no desire to do it myself at this point!
Thanks!

 

[gtaus]

I don't live anywhere near you, so my advice, in general, is ask the local feed stores that sell chicken feed if they know anyone who processes chickens. I have heard that some Amish communities might have a chicken processing business. If there are any larger commercial egg laying farms around you, they might process their chickens on site and could give you a quote.

Having said that, if you have to pay someone to process your chickens, then you might not realize any profit from raising your own chickens. My local processing business (90 miles drive one way) charges about $3.00 per bird. It is much cheaper for me to buy chickens at the superstores than raise my own and then pay to have them processed. On the other hand, there is great satisfaction in raising your own chickens and putting them on the family table for supper.

Good luck in finding a processing company and I would love to hear your experience with them if you decide to go that route.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Those are good ideas. Many feed stores have a bulletin board where you can post a notice.
You can try calling your county extension agent, they might know of a business or even a person. Depending in the business and their licensing, crossing state lines might be an issue, but that can depend on whether it is a licensed business and what volume they do.

If you can find the Ohio and Kentucky state threads in the "Where am I? Where are you!" section on this forum you can chat with your neighbors.

 

[gtaus]

You can try calling your county extension agent

Yes, our local county extension agent is also the head of the local 4H poultry program. He is a wealth of information and I first found him by contacting the 4H program. All those kids raising chickens for the fair might be sending some of their birds off for processing.

@Shadywood Let me add that butchering a chicken yourself is not that difficult. You might be able to find someone locally that will teach you how to process your own chickens. Back in the day, I got a book from the library on butchering chickens, but today there might be some good YouTube videos.

I raised 50 meat chickens one summer, and Dear Wife and I butchered them ourselves. That was just too many for us all at once. We would not do that again. Plucking that many chickens by hand was very slow. An automated chicken plucker would take most of the hard work out of the process, but those machines cost a lot of money. If you plan on raising many chickens over years, then a chicken plucker would be a great investment and pay for itself over time.

If you only plan on processing a few chickens at a time, then it's not too bad to manually butcher them yourself. IMHO, it always reminded me where my meat comes from and I always had some respect for that process. I do understand if you don't want to butcher your chickens yourself, but just wanted to encourage you to maybe consider trying it out before you tell yourself that you can't.

It occurs to me that I don't really understand your situation and how many chickens you "need to manage" at any given time. If you could add a little color to your plan and expectations that might help fine tune the advise you might receive.

 

[Hopulence]

Yes, our local county extension agent is also the head of the local 4H poultry program. He is a wealth of information and I first found him by contacting the 4H program. All those kids raising chickens for the fair might be sending some of their birds off for processing.

@Shadywood Let me add that butchering a chicken yourself is not that difficult. You might be able to find someone locally that will teach you how to process your own chickens. Back in the day, I got a book from the library on butchering chickens, but today there might be some good YouTube videos.

I raised 50 meat chickens one summer, and Dear Wife and I butchered them ourselves. That was just too many for us all at once. We would not do that again. Plucking that many chickens by hand was very slow. An automated chicken plucker would take most of the hard work out of the process, but those machines cost a lot of money. If you plan on raising many chickens over years, then a chicken plucker would be a great investment and pay for itself over time.

If you only plan on processing a few chickens at a time, then it's not too bad to manually butcher them yourself. IMHO, it always reminded me where my meat comes from and I always had some respect for that process. I do understand if you don't want to butcher your chickens yourself, but just wanted to encourage you to maybe consider trying it out before you tell yourself that you can't.

It occurs to me that I don't really understand your situation and how many chickens you "need to manage" at any given time. If you could add a little color to your plan and expectations that might help fine time the advise you might receive.

I'll 2nd this one. I was VERY hesitant to butcher my own chickens, but when looking at the time to get them in bins and drive to a butcher/farm, then drive back to pick them up PLUS the cost of doing that (fee & gas), I realized I just had to do it myself.

1st one was very hard to do. Was shaking for about 30 minutes afterwards. After that, it gets easier. And you know how humane you can dispatch the chickens you raised for weeks.

Trust me - You can do it! Take it from a city boy for over 30 years until moving more rural a few years back. It will give you much more respect for your meat's prior life as an animal.

 

[Acre4Me]

Does anyone know of a butcher who will process your chickens for you, in the Cincinnati / north Kentucky etc area?

we need to start managing our flock, and I have no desire to do it myself at this point!
Thanks!

King and sons poultry are in Bradford Ohio. So, north of you. Check out their website -looks like some changes in 2020/21 so, might not fit your needs.

whitewater processing came up in a search (Harrison, oh, so in your backyard). However, give them a call bc might only do turkeys.

 

[AZN]

King and sons poultry are in Bradford Ohio. So, north of you. Check out their website -looks like some changes in 2020/21 so, might not fit your needs.

whitewater processing came up in a search (Harrison, oh, so in your backyard). However, give them a call bc might only do turkeys.

I have a roo I guess I need to process... did you find someone in Cincinnati?

 

[Acre4Me]

I have a roo I guess I need to process... did you find someone in Cincinnati?

No, I don’t live in Cincinnati myself. The other option is to sell via Craig’s list, or find a livestock auction (use Google). This is how I rehome some chickens - sell at auction.