Did 2 roos (non-graphic pics) + very good deal @ Lowe's

[cjstanman]

Thanks, frugal! Your posting on how to do it, start to finish, was very timely for this first-time chicken owner.

My friend came over to lend a hand. She did the first one to show me how, and I did the second one. (We used the cone method.) I let her take the lead and probably next time we may try the scald+ice bath to minimize skin tearing. For me, the hardest part was catching the chicken - my friend grabbed the first one, and my husband the second one. I typically haven't handled them at all and they are surprisingly strong and flap a lot, ha ha! Here's the finished result:



I realized I didn't have a big enough pot to scald them in, so I figured I would look at turkey fryers. Lowe's had this one on display, but they didn't have one in the box. The very nice worker helped us and ended up selling us the display model for $35!! He helped us check it for missing parts and we think all it was missing was a strainer basket; I can call the manufacturer tomorrow to double-check if this model was supposed to have one. If it does, they will send it to me no charge. Heck, for $35, that made dunking these chickens very, very easy. It has a timer on it - once you hit the button, it will burn for 15 minutes and then shut off. A safety feature, I'm sure, for all the people who try to fry turkeys and mess up. I'm glad it's there, even for heating up water.



Thanks again for a great tutorial!

 

[ChanceRider]

Congrats on processing your first bird! We just received a shipment of 30 Cornish X that are out in our brooder... so, come February I'll be following in your footsteps!

We have a turkey fryer that I bought from Cabela's a few years ago, but without a timer. That's a pretty nice feature and a steal at $35!