cutting up meat birds-what to use???

[juice]

Hello, I have only been raising meat birds for a year and this last batch are all frozen. I usually roast them because I don't do well with cutting them up.
My hubby wants to cut them up for me so I can have more variety in cooking the birds. My ???? is this-what do you use to cut them up? Scissors/knives is what we use twice now and it seems like alot of work. Is that normal? Or is there a 'chicken saw',electric device that we could get(second hand of course

to cut them up quicker and cleaner? Thanks, juice

 

[Bossroo]

A SHARP boning knife !!!! The electric knives are just a waste of time and money.

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

I use a small meat cleaver that DH sharpens it does a beautiful job

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

A sharp boning knife and poultry shears, if you have some. It seems intimidating at first but once you start, it's pretty simple.

 

[Slywoody]

I use a good sharp knife on the wings, legs and thighs. I whack up the breast and the back with a large antique meat cleaver. Some times i even whack the thighs in half with the cleaver. I named my cleaver, " Big Baby". I keep an edge on it like a razor.

 

[saddina]

I use a serious pair of poultry shears, not the kind you see at walmart, but a pair from a restruant suppily store. Use them to part out chickens, cut thru duck rubs, butterfly quail, even a goose or two. That and a small cleaver (japanese style) get me thru butchering.

(helps that mr saddi is a nut job who sings sweeny todd while beheading....)

 

[Burbs]

Here's a good link that takes you through the process.

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/97/Cutting-Up-Chicken

All I use is a good heavy knife.

 

[prov31gal]

several years back our vary small church had a huge fundraising chicken bar-b-q to restore an old one room school house on the property.
we just bought whole chickens and did them all in the hall with poultry shears, i think some women just had kitchen shears. or kitchen scizzors. i always just use kitchen food scizzors.
imagine, 5 women with plastic aprons, one of them 200 months pregnant (me) all sitting at plastic picknic tables cutting up hundreds of chickens. super fun.....no.... but we did have a good time, and no one had any trouble with just shears. it took only a few minutes per chicken , we cut them up the spine, cut off wings and legs and thighs.....not too bad, i think regular kitchen shears would do the job just fine. and i agree with bosroo, those electric things are a huge waste of money!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I have a friend who uses a regular hacksaw to divide the breast in half. Otherwise, a good pair of scissors & a knife should work fine. Once you learn just WHERE to cut, through the joint not through the bone, it should be easy.

Enjoy!

 

[dancingbear]

Once again, Frugal to the rescue. This is an excellent pictorial guide to cutting up a chicken. Done correctly, it's easy, and takes about 5 minutes. Please note that older birds are a little harder than the young broilers, because the bones are more developed, and so is the connective tissue. But even so, if it's "a lot of work", you're doing it wrong! Hope this is helpful.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=109587