Harvest Day Workflow and Timing

[skoboxer]

I have raised and processed about 50 cornish cross every summer for several years. I do all the butchering myself as my family does not share my enthusiasm for homesteading. (Of course, they all show up at dinnertime!) It usually takes me 3 full days to process all 50 from start to freezer. I am hoping to improve my time this year and was looking for suggestions or tips -- anything to be a little more efficient. I do have a yardbird for plucking and a 3 cone setup on a sawhorse for the dispatch. This usually means I'm catching 3 and going through the whole process three at a time until I'm finished. I'm wondering if I can bleed, scald and pluck a bigger group (25 at a time?) and then move to cleaning and chilling in cooler. It just means that some of them will be sitting for longer between plucking and cleaning. That's the part that worries me. I'm pretty fast but I don't know if I'm fast enough to do it this way. I would appreciate any tips. Thank you!

 

[Mwhit]

I’m in the same boat as you, I process by myself. With a plucker, 27 birds took me around 9hrs totally finished.

I used to be a really big waterfowl hunter, and it could sometimes be 6 hours or more before I got home to clean the birds I harvested. This was in the middle of winter with temps in the 20s-30s, but I think it’d be fine as long as you could chill them quickly. I’d be curious on anyones answers as well because I feel like I’m inefficient at times.

 

[JeffPr]

Personally I would stick to processing them in smaller batches.
1 you get guts out quicker and they cool faster
2 you never know what comes down the pike and you have to stop processing.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

Personally I would stick to processing them in smaller batches.
1 you get guts out quicker and they cool faster
2 you never know what comes down the pike and you have to stop processing.

x2

 

[Isadora]

Sorry you have to do all that by yourself. My husband and I tag team everything and have found lots of ways to be efficient. But it certainly does help to have an extra set of hands.
One thing he makes sure to do is to kill the next set ( We usually kill in batches of 4 or 5) and let those bleed out while we're finishing the gutting of the current batch. That way we're never sitting around idle. There's always more birds ready to process.

 

[Penpal]

You might work on four instead of three and see how that works out.

50 / 3 = 16 +...... 50 / 4 = 12 +.

I don't think a little more time between plucking and cleaning is going to hurt anything.

 

[FunClucks]

From start to finish, it takes me about 2 hours to dispatch, scald, pluck, eviscerate, and part out the bird. Then I put the parted out bird into gallon ziplock bags and put them in a cooler with ice. I don't have a Yardbird plucker. In March in Alabama, so maybe 50-65F while processing, although there was a cold snap and we had some ice on the cutting board around week 9. I do one bird at a time, and haven't had any trouble with spoilage. Processed 25 CX from 5-9 weeks old by myself, dispatched them one at a time.

This might give you an idea of how long you can stretch it between dispatch and on-ice.

I'm totally impressed and a bit jealous that you can do 50 in 3 days by yourself!!!