graphic slaughtering question

[ChickensRDinos]

Before I killed my first bird I watched A LOT of videos to try to decide which way I was the most comfortable doing it. I ended up liking this woman's method the best by far. She does not use a cone. If you want to be able to hold and stroke your bird through the process I think this is the way to go. She does a jugar cut and then pulls off the head. I really like her overall approach and philosophy.

Here is the link to her video. WARNING: this video does show the complete progress from live bird to stew. A bird is killed in this video. The video is in two parts so be sure to scroll down for both.

I used this method and have been happy with the overall results. Maybe not as time effective as some things but that was not my end goal.

http://www.treehugger.com/green-foo...tm_campaign=Feed:+treehuggersite+(Treehugger)

 

[Anna-MN]

When we first butchered ours, we under estimated how sharp our knife was. Accidentally cut the whole head off...whoops

It happened so fast we were in shock until the little bugger started spraying blood every where. Our neighbor was amused and asked us jokingly if we were having chicken for dinner. I was only slightly embarrassed. Now we tie their feet together, put them in a deep kill cone, and slit the main blood supply in the neck. Once we tried just to hang them by their feet- big mistake. It flapped its wings so hard it BROKE its wings. I felt awful. It's always a learning process and you have to take the good with the bad- you will not be perfect the first time you do it. It will take a few tries but once you've done it successfully you will never forget it! It is truly rewarding in the end.

 

[laura625]

Thanks again.
My two cents as to the gun tangent. I think that responsible gun owners.need to be aware that there are Plenty of. Horribly irresponsible and or untrained ones out there.
It is not necessarily 'one idiot and a freak accident'
that would cause someone to feel moved to remi d someone how far a 22 bullet can travel. Unfortunately this type of story is all too common.
so maybe. We should slow down on making assumptions either way.

As far as chicken slaughtering goes, this has been a very helpful discussion. I have read repeatedly, not on this thread) that dislocating the. Neck by hand ( without a stick) is very difficult to get right if you havent seen it demonstrated. So, I wont try to teach that to myself on a live chicken.
I have pretty much decided to go with
the way it was ahown on "Respectful chicken harvesting"
the video CHICKENSRDINOS suggested. ( i found it on youtube where it loaded better for me)It has the added benefit
of allowing me a first hand undertanding of what strength is involed in removing the head, without risking a bungled job.
I think this is similar ko what LillyD described The video really helped me understand the positioning .
I may be misunderstanding something about the broomsrick method, but I cant see my chickens remaining calm while i put thier chin on the ground and. Get into position.
Back to the tree hugger video,Can anyone tell me why she bleeds the chicken before breaking the.neck?
I do know how chickens.flap upon and after death. I do understand that heaitation ia.the.enemy. i understand how to commit to completing the deed.

 

[bruceh]

for me the best way to dispatch a chicken is a "kosher " kill or the slicing of the neck. it is very simple and effective.

to do it correctly go right below the jaw. take a very sharp blade, push it through the skin deeply and cut forward. hold the head at the angle opposite of the cut . the bird will bleed out. the bird is dead within seconds. by doing this the blood supply is cut off to the brain. yes the nervous system of the bird will react. so i use a killing cone. makes the job quick and easy.

 

[galanie]

Before I killed my first bird I watched A LOT of videos to try to decide which way I was the most comfortable doing it. I ended up liking this woman's method the best by far. She does not use a cone. If you want to be able to hold and stroke your bird through the process I think this is the way to go. She does a jugar cut and then pulls off the head. I really like her overall approach and philosophy.

Here is the link to her video. WARNING: this video does show the complete progress from live bird to stew. A bird is killed in this video. The video is in two parts so be sure to scroll down for both.

I used this method and have been happy with the overall results. Maybe not as time effective as some things but that was not my end goal.

http://www.treehugger.com/green-foo...tm_campaign=Feed:+treehuggersite+(Treehugger)

This is my favorite chicken killing video. I still use a cone usually but otherwise my approach has become identical to hers. I did kill one rooster that was too big for the cone in my lap.

 

[galanie]

Thanks again.
My two cents as to the gun tangent. I think that responsible gun owners.need to be aware that there are Plenty of. Horribly irresponsible and or untrained ones out there.
It is not necessarily 'one idiot and a freak accident'
that would cause someone to feel moved to remi d someone how far a 22 bullet can travel. Unfortunately this type of story is all too common.
so maybe. We should slow down on making assumptions either way.
As far as chicken slaughtering goes, this has been a very helpful discussion. I have read repeatedly, not on this thread) that dislocating the. Neck by hand ( without a stick) is very difficult to get right if you havent seen it demonstrated. So, I wont try to teach that to myself on a live chicken.
I have pretty much decided to go with
the way it was ahown on "Respectful chicken harvesting"
the video CHICKENSRDINOS suggested. ( i found it on youtube where it loaded better for me)It has the added benefit
of allowing me a first hand undertanding of what strength is involed in removing the head, without risking a bungled job.
I think this is similar ko what LillyD described The video really helped me understand the positioning .
I may be misunderstanding something about the broomsrick method, but I cant see my chickens remaining calm while i put thier chin on the ground and. Get into position.
Back to the tree hugger video,Can anyone tell me why she bleeds the chicken before breaking the.neck?
I do know how chickens.flap upon and after death. I do understand that heaitation ia.the.enemy. i understand how to commit to completing the deed.

She's just letting it die first. Theory being that breaking the neck is painful so she lets it get good and dead and bled out.

 

[silkiechicken]

Just a note on breaking the neck... if you do a clean cervical dislocation, you'll have a totally loose head and all the nerves connecting body and brain should be severed. The bird will instantly flap about.

 

[Matrix Escapee]

For any newbie that watched her video, her scalding time was VERY short. The feathers come off way easier if you scald longer than she did. She's right that you don't want to cook the bird and you do want to keep the bird moving by dunking or stirring, but a good 30-35 seconds at 145-150 degrees makes it SOOOO easy to pick feathers. Get your stainless steel meat thermometer which works great for water temp, so you know what your scalding temp is. We scald 3 birds at time in a thermostatically controlled scalder. We do 149 degrees for about 45-50 seconds. Count or use a timer if you want to make sure you don't overdo the scald. We use a timer.

 

[CluckyCharms]

I really think it's interesting to have your own "homegrown" chicken ( we love chicken for dinner in this house )...but I honestly can say without a doubt in my mind that after watching that video - no way could I ever kill a chicken. I guess we'll continue to buy them at the store.

 

[Wax Myrtle]

I really think it's interesting to have your own "homegrown" chicken ( we love chicken for dinner in this house )...but I honestly can say without a doubt in my mind that after watching that video - no way could I ever kill a chicken.  I guess we'll continue to buy them at the store.:/

 

I'm not going to try to convince you to grow your own. I really, really don't like processing my chickens. The killing is the worst part (even when it IS a nasty one who attacks very small children) but the processing isn't fun either. However, the meat is very, very good, I know how it was raised and treated. Most importantly, though, I know way too much about the commercial meat industry to want to buy more packaged chicken any more often than I have to.