First time processing

[Molpet]

I've found that if I clean the bird except for the lungs, and throw them in my cooler full of ice water until all chicks are processed, and THEN take the lungs out... It's much easier. Maybe they separate a bit from the bone as they chill?

Anecdotal, I know, but it really seemed to make it much easier.

I flush the carcass out with cold water and the lungs firm up, coming out easier

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I flush the carcass out with cold water and the lungs firm up, coming out easier

Now that I think about it, when he brings them inside I rinse the cavity with cold water before doing anything.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I started at about 7am and I finished the actual bird processing and bagging at about 7:30pm on day one. Now, I had to clean the plucker, dump blood and mucky water and some other cleaning as I worked, and I split and bar-b-qued four birds while working. Oh, and I ran out of propane while bagging...move giant stainless bowls with iced livers, gizzard, hearts, feet and remaining birds onto the house to finish bagging on the stove! I then had to do real clean up using just flood lights...topped the entrail bucket and fit it into a freezer (could not dig a hole at that time), disinfected my stainless tables and giant bowls, placed the wood frame that I had the cones mounted into the fire pit (it had too much blood splatter to salvage it)...blah, blah. I honestly cried and had to take a couple of short breaks to regroup during the day. Anyway, it was the next day before I completed the cleaning...pressure washed the equipment and patio, loaded the supplies into my GorillaCart and dragged everything back to the shed.

Hey, I live in Southern Georgia and plan to do this twice a year. I welcome help or a culling partnership (I'll share the harvest) next time May. This was my first rodeo and I feel good about the outcome, but I can never (well, maybe just shouldn't) do this by myself again.

Its nice to have help. DH cant do the culling because he hates himself afterwards. Our system is he get everything prepped and the water boiling and then goes inside while I do the culling. I use the broomstick method so it's rarely bloody and then the water pot doesnt get murky with blood. I then cover the bird up and he comes out and cleans it. We dont have an autoplucker so its quite time consuming. I can definately say though that having someone to at least cull the birds for you removes the emotional toil. I get all my tears out while hes cleaning and I'm watching TV so theres no overlap. You could always consider having someone process them for you. Either way what you did was very brave and beyond the call. You should be proud of yourself especially since they are SOOOO clean on your first try. My DH had to butcher 7 before he got them that clean

 

[U_Stormcrow]

...or you could just disrobe the beast if it happens to have particularly dirty feathers.

Still, you should ALWAYS have running potable water handy when processing birds.

and in the main, I find that if their diet is good, and they are in good health, and on good substrate in the run, they don't tend to have big accumulations of dirt, feces, etc on their hind ends - nothing that can't quickly be washed off - and while I'd not stick their feet in my mouth (we know where they've been), they shouldn't be caked either, just dirty. Again, quick wash.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

why do y'all remove the lungs? I'd never heard of removing the lungs until I joined BYC

We don't eat any if the organs, and I think my dad would freak out if he found one. He's the most city/store preferred of the family. He doesn't like when we cook rabbit because it looks like a little dog to him

 

[3KillerBs]

They look wonderful!

 

[Isadora]

This was a very emotional and labor intensive day, but I think it was a success.

Great job! Definitely labor intensive, but that chicken is going to taste so good!

 

[Novicehen]

If you swipe down the rib cage starting from the top of the chest cavity and pull towards the backbone, your fingers can get in between the ribs and you can scrape out the lungs more easily. I don't know if I explained that very well, but hopefully you can pass this along to your DH and it helps.

I started with removing all feet and heads then iced the birds. I was not concerned with rigor mortis setting in and hurrying to tuck legs. I also have small hands with long fingers. I reached in all the way up into the cavity, cupped the organs, rotated my hand slowly and pulled out all of the organs together. Maybe not the proper way, but it worked!

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I started the meat bird raising journey with 20. Nineteen made it to processing day.

Wow 19 in a day?! DH and I only ever do one at a time so they can "rest" in our fridge for a few days. How long did that take you? We average about 30 minutes per bird from cull to table

 

[K0k0shka]

Because that's how my mother taught me to do it.


Similar for me, but apparently you and I learned to do it slightly differently.

Now that you mention it, I can't see any harm to leaving the lungs, but it's just not the way I was taught to butcher chickens.

Makes sense. I was taught by my grandma. But grandma was very averse to doing unnecessary work, so she never did anything extra like that without knowing why or whether it was actually necessary