First time processing

[KimKat33]

Hello everyone!

Come spring I think I am going to raise some meat birds. I plan on starting with some chickens, then eventually working my way to ducks and turkeys. However, I have a few questions.

The first is what equipment do you guys use? I know there are plucking machines, and I think I eventually want one, but not for the first time.

What, if any, shears/scissors/knives do you guys use? What other equipment/supplies?
What does your setup look like?
Should you weigh the chicken after its innards, feet, and neck are gone? Or just when the innards are gone?
What temperature do you put the water to make plucking easier?
What do you guys do with the extra unwanted items?

Any tips/tricks?

 

[The_Desert_Druid]

It's such a great experience raising your own burbs.
1. I use a Havalon knife. they have interchangeable blades that are as sharp as a surgeon scalpel. This way I know the cut I make in the neck is the cleanest it can be and they feel no pain
2. I use a kill cone attached to an old inground basketball hoop pole that goes over grass. Aside from that we normally have 2 tables. A plucking station and a processing station. As for how they are raised see my post. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/raising-meat-birds-in-the-burbs-a-how-to-guide.1602527/
3. I start weighing them from 3weeks on. I normally only weigh them on processing day before slaughter and subtract by 2 lbs after final process. But that's just my preference and you can absolutely weigh them before and after.
4. 150ish
5. Everything goes into a bokashi compost bin designed to compost meats. Then I trench compost it in my garden plot where it breaks down. Then I grow veggies over it . Blood, Guts, Feathers everything goes into the garden.

Tips and Tricks: Remember to find a place to put them for 24 hours. Then you can break them down or freeze them. I have an old chest freezer with an adapter that can keep it at 40 degrees.
For space saving I break down the males and wrap them in serving portions. Then I save like 4 small females for whole storage. My friends found out the hard way it can be hard to store 20 8lb bowling balls in a freezer.

Have a plan for the poop.. seriously.. they poop so much and people underestimate that.
Enjoy the experience!

 

[KimKat33]

It's such a great experience raising your own burbs.
1. I use a Havalon knife. they have interchangeable blades that are as sharp as a surgeon scalpel. This way I know the cut I make in the neck is the cleanest it can be and they feel no pain
2. I use a kill cone attached to an old inground basketball hoop pole that goes over grass. Aside from that we normally have 2 tables. A plucking station and a processing station. As for how they are raised see my post. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/raising-meat-birds-in-the-burbs-a-how-to-guide.1602527/
3. I start weighing them from 3weeks on. I normally only weigh them on processing day before slaughter and subtract by 2 lbs after final process. But that's just my preference and you can absolutely weigh them before and after.
4. 150ish
5. Everything goes into a bokashi compost bin designed to compost meats. Then I trench compost it in my garden plot where it breaks down. Then I grow veggies over it . Blood, Guts, Feathers everything goes into the garden.

Tips and Tricks: Remember to find a place to put them for 24 hours. Then you can break them down or freeze them. I have an old chest freezer with an adapter that can keep it at 40 degrees.
For space saving I break down the males and wrap them in serving portions. Then I save like 4 small females for whole storage. My friends found out the hard way it can be hard to store 20 8lb bowling balls in a freezer.

Have a plan for the poop.. seriously.. they poop so much and people underestimate that.
Enjoy the experience!

Thank you for the information!

I have heard of people who will not freeze their processed chickens immediately due to rigor mortis. Could I if I wanted to or does that mess with the texture? Does it make it tough? Should I store it in the fridge for a day or something??

Edit: I have been looking at raising the grey ranger from Meyers hatchery. I do not like how cornish sit and eats so people are saying this is a good meat bird that acts like a regular chicken to some extent.
Would I need to clip their feathers??? Or would they be ok if I put up the chicken electric fencing? I would like to be able to move them around my pasture, but if they are going to flutter over the electric fence things then I am going to have to figure out something.

 

[The_Desert_Druid]

I could not tell you if it does or does not since I always wait the 24 hours. I can tell you every time I asked that same question I was told to wait. Maybe someone else has some different input. I have heard it does make it tougher than if they were not allowed to rest

 

[Apis mellifera]

Any tips/tricks?

Check with your local cooperative extension, some offer poultry processing classes.

 

[Penpal]

The first bird we processed was tough. This is when we learned they need to set in the refrigerator for 24 hours before freezing.

I don't think they will fly over a 4 foot high fence. Muscle is heavy and they have lots of it.

 

[Bobmc914]

The first bird we processed was tough. This is when we learned they need to set in the refrigerator for 24 hours before freezing.

I don't think they will fly over a 4 foot high fence. Muscle is heavy and they have lots of it.

I disagree slightly. We raised some of Moyer's chicks hatchery choice broilers, not cornish cross, and I had to rescue one who got stuck on top of the netting over the run. The fence around the run is 4'.
A few caveats though:
This was at maybe 5 weeks or so, and our chicks were raised by a broody hen so they were probably more forage-y and adventurous than most. I agree they are not good fliers. Some of ours struggled with the roost height. One's slept on the floor after about 8 or 9 weeks, and they are clumsy and often kind of crash to the ground face planting when they try to fly down off the roost.

As an FYI they dressed out mostly around 5.5 to 6.5 lbs at 11 to 11.5 weeks. That's no guts, no feet, no necks.

 

[Penpal]

If he got stuck, then he didn't fly over. I had a RIR rooster get stuck in the netting because he ran into it. Neighbor's dog in the middle the night running loose was the catalyst. I agree they may TRY to fly over the netting. RIR and Australorps can fly over the netting.

 

[Jim_1978]

Hello everyone!

Come spring I think I am going to raise some meat birds. I plan on starting with some chickens, then eventually working my way to ducks and turkeys. However, I have a few questions.

The first is what equipment do you guys use? I know there are plucking machines, and I think I eventually want one, but not for the first time.

What, if any, shears/scissors/knives do you guys use? What other equipment/supplies?
What does your setup look like?
Should you weigh the chicken after its innards, feet, and neck are gone? Or just when the innards are gone?
What temperature do you put the water to make plucking easier?
What do you guys do with the extra unwanted items?

Any tips/tricks?

Here's a few pics from one of our butcher days. I try to keep my scalding water btw 145-150 degrees. We hand pluck, no plucker. I don't weigh anymore but when I have I weigh after innards and feet are gone. We use the hatchet and wooden block kill method. You can see our block in one of the pics. No scissors/shears just a couple of Victorinox 6 in. semi stiff boning knives which you can see on the table in one of the pics. Great knives for whatever you're doing whether its cutting up deer/hogs/chickens or fileting fish. We love them. We have leftover cattle feed tubs that all the unwanted stuff goes into. Once we're finished, dogs get all they want to eat and rest gets dumped on our property for the coyotes to enjoy. We get them 25 at a time. We can butcher all 25 in about 1/2 a day, but we try to spread it out over a couple days so it's not so time consuming. Maybe one evening we do a 7-8 and the rest the next morning.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Check out the sticky section on the meatbirds thread. There is some useful stuff there. I found this guide to be very useful for my first time processing. I actually printed it and had it on the evisceration table with me.

As far as procedure and equipment, I would love to have a drum plucker one day but we are urban chicken keepers, doing small batches of 6-7 chickens twice a year. It's just more affordable to hand pluck. Or, last time we tried out a drill attachment plucker that did speed up the job, but it wasn't exactly fun getting blood on our faces from the spinning motion. I'd probably use it again though... just with some sort of face shield.

We use the tried and true axe and stump beheading method for the kill, and we put the chicken in a bucket to flap and bleed out. As far as knives go, our best knives have been boning knives I bought from McMurray, but you can get them in a lot of places. The Dexter brand is really good, but off brand is fine as long as you can get it very sharp. Dull knives are extremely dangerous, so have a professional sharpen them if you don't have the means to sharpen at home.

You weigh the chicken after it is gutted and the feet are off. That is called the "dressed weight".

I would recommend ageing the bird in the fridge for 24-72 hours before freezing because that way rigor has passed and the meat is ready to eat when thawed.

It's a really great thing to raise your own meat, especially in times like this when things can feel a bit uncertain in the world. You can also feel good that you are eating humanely-raised meat. We are all here for you if you have additional questions. My first meat birds were last fall and the people of BYC helped me learn so much.