Tomorrow is the big day We have about 80-90 birds that we are going to butcher. We have 63 meat birds. As much as we change the bedding every weekend, they still love to lay around in their poop :/ Do any of you wash them before butchering? I was thinking of just putting them into the tractor tomorrow morning with the hose on sprinkle to get them cleaned up a little bit. Thanks for your help It's stressful being a newby
We first slit and bleed out, then dip them in a bucket of water before dipping them in the scalder. The thinking here is it does get some of the dirt and grime off the feathers in the cold water (which is easier to replace than hot water) before we scald, making the scald water last longer before it becomes too filthy to use. We use two scalders, so when the first is too dirty we can switch, emptying the first scalder so we can replace the water with clean and then reheat. There is a lag between the second and before the first is again hot enough to scald, but that gives me a chance for a break. Or more likely, assist the evisceration team. Anyway, the pre-dip helps just a bit with extending the time.
We don't wash before butchering. Actually, we mostly skin our birds, so it's not so much an issue. But if we don't skin, we just wash thoroughly after butcher, I think it'd be pretty hard and stressful on the birds to try to wash them before butcher. You can do a much better job after they're dead.
Thanks for all of the tips everyone! We got them all done in about 6 hours, with 8 of us out there. It went really smoothly with everyone having a job to do. We did 63 meat birds, 3 turkeys, 4 bantams, and 15 old laying hens.
