Getting Ready to Process

[quiltnchik]

Another good thing to do is what Monarc23 posted about: thunk the back of their heads on the counter before snipping. With the ones my DH and DS processed, the thunk against the counter killed them instantly, so the snipping was then painless. Just a thought...

 

[ksukristin]

wow the thunk on the counter killed them? I read Nikki's thread but i thought it just knocked them unconscious for a second.

that is super interesting...

congrats on making it through your first experience Kristi- I hope that if I ever give this a try and I will be as brave as you!

 

[jetto]

We considered the thunking but we did the deed out in the barn- and we didn't have a hard enough surface handy. We may try a different area next time so we can try the head thunk thing. One nice thing about processing right in the barn was the birds didn't get overly upset- no moving them to the house, etc. I only had one puke which kind of surprised me.

Oh no- not brave! Just knew we had WAY too many boys and something had to be done. Kristi

 

[fitzy]

i used to use a breaker bar for thumping rats because my snake was too chicken to strike at them while moving, but wouldn't eat dead food......stupid snake! Oh well, it was easier than force feeding her.

 

[Chotii]

What I can't figure out is, what do you do with all the offal? The feathers, heads, guts, and everything not edible? I suppose if you live far enough out in the country and/or have enough land, you just dig a pit and bury. But what if you don't? Can you *really* just throw that sort of thing in the trash?

When I was a kid, my uncle would go hunting quail and/or doves. He would bring them home, use his thumbs to split the skin on the breast, push it to the sides with his thumbs, then grab the whole breastbone/meat and tear it loose. He didn't do anything with the rest of the bird. He just used his hands for the whole process. No gutting even.

I have no idea what he did with the rest of the carcasses.

 

[ken429h]

Quote:
I just time processing to the night before garbage pickup (Thursday...my quail are getting scared

)and throw the offal away.

I guess it depends on how you dispose of garbage.

What your uncle did was what I call "Pluck The Brest Out". It's the fastest way to process the most meaty part of a dove, the breast. I have another term for it but I don't want to go there. When I was a kid, we always plucked feathers and gutted doves. We burned the offal, because that's the way we disposed of our garbage back then.

Ken

 

[fitzy]

Quote:
chuck them on the burn pile if one is building, or just toss them into the burn barrel with some other trash and toss in a match!

 

[Chotii]

Oh, that's not permitted where I live. I'm not even sure you can throw away dead animals, I'd have to check.

Now, where I grew up in Eastern Washington, we had a burn barrel, AND a burn pile, and frankly we had acres and acres of woods everywhere around. Drag the offal away, dump it in the woods; the coyotes would take care of the problem in a hurry. I even knew of unofficial and official dump sites for dead animals - pits for the roadkill deer the DOT picked up, and places where local farmers took dead animals including dogs. I saw a blue heeler there once with a bullet hole in its forehead, together with goats, sheep, even a horse. The coyotes just cleaned it all up.