First time processing

[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

 

[CNJ]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that the hot bath water is gross. I was wondering if anyone washes their birds before dipping it in the hot water bath? I thinking about letting them sit in two inches of water for a few hours before killing them..

 

[Molpet]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that the hot bath water is gross. I was wondering if anyone washes their birds before dipping it in the hot water bath? I thinking about letting them sit in two inches of water for a few hours before starting.

Some people do hose them off.
Rigor starts about 30 minutes so you'd have stiff birds if you wait for hours

 

[CNJ]

Some people do hose them off.
Rigor starts about 30 minutes so you'd have stiff birds if you wait for hours

This is right before I kill them. The poop on their belly and dried poop on their toe nails got to me.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that the hot bath water is gross. I was wondering if anyone washes their birds before dipping it in the hot water bath? I thinking about letting them sit in two inches of water for a few hours before killing them..

Its never struck me as gross but my birds arent covered in feces and we dont submerge the feet. Letting them sit in 2 inches of water before culling? Why? Doesnt make much sense to me. You wouldnt be removing any feces from the feathers by doing so and good luck having the bird willing to do this. If you were that concerned about it get the hose ready and after it is dead do so

 

[3KillerBs]

This is right before I kill them. The poop on their belly and dried poop on their toe nails got to me.

Chickens hate being wet. Assuming you could force them into it, this would be a traumatic and frightening process for them.

That's not only bad from the POV of making the end as humane as possible but also stress has undesirable effects on the meat.

 

[NatJ]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel that the hot bath water is gross. I was wondering if anyone washes their birds before dipping it in the hot water bath? I thinking about letting them sit in two inches of water for a few hours before killing them..

Maybe you could give them extra-large amounts of fresh bedding in their pen each day for the last few days before you kill them. That might give them a chance to clean their own feathers & feet and be cleaner by processing day.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

Maybe you could give them extra-large amounts of fresh bedding in their pen each day for the last few days before you kill them. That might give them a chance to clean their own feathers & feet and be cleaner by processing day.

Or better yet, chop off the feet, pluck and wash your freaking hands before touching anything else. You should always have running water when processing and never let feces contaminate the meat.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

We use a wet rag on the feet of really nasty ones, but other than that, we only do 2 or 3 max at a time (It still takes us about an hour a bird, but we also hand pluck) so the water doesn't get very dirty during scalding besides a few drips of blood

 

[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.