How long does it take YOU to process a chicken?

[CDennis]

I didn't skin this time, figured for my first attempt on my own I should pluck just for the experience...

I will skin in the future.

 

[Herb 307]

I have about 25 chickens and I always invite help with the bonus of a free chicken . So I say we had about 3 people there to help. We used scalding and hand plucked then handed it over to the cutting team. It took us about 2 and half hours , Then a BBQ and beer after a great day . I do turkeys its the same , Great way to meet different people and a nice get together after...



Herb

 

[mrsbrcant]

Well, we just processed chickens for the first time last night. It took over two hours for the first bird, hand plucked. The second one went a little faster after we decided to just skin it. The plucking took the most time. How long should the bird hang to drain blood? I thought that would take at least 10-15 minutes. Gutting took less than 5 minutes. The chicken was a huge cornish cross male that should have been done about 3-4 weeks ago but we have been so busy at the fair with 4-H projects so he kept on growing. We finished up with a 9 lb bird no neck or giblets included in that weight.

 

[PotterWatch]

We can do 50 birds in about 3.5 hours. There are four adults (one killing, scalding, and plucking and three eviscerating), and two children (they check for pin feathers, remove the oil gland and feet). We do have a tub plucker and a whizbang scalder. We only have two cones though so that slows us down a little. I think when our two new people get a little more experience and we get a couple more cones, we should easily be able to get through 50 in two hours.

When I plucked by hand, it took me at least 15-20mins just for plucking. I am a slooow plucker by hand.

 

[Avalon1984]

We did 2 in about 2 hours including all setup. Plucking was a pain, there just seemed to be feathers everywhere. We had the hardest time with the wing feathers. Didn’t help that I got my hand stuck in the carcass for 5min while trying to gut. And...how do you remove the oil gland without taking the whole tail off? We took the whole tail off. The entire carcass looked a little bit like a massacre by the time we got done.

 

[ShadyHoller]

Quote:
Taking the whole tail off is fine. Snip, and you're done. Nothing to eat there anyway, and filleting the glands off just strikes me as unnecessarily difficult. But then again, unnecessarily difficult is how I do a lot of things, and if you look at my post on the previous page, you'll see how a chicken slaughtering routine can get pretty complicated.

 

[Avalon1984]

Quote:
Taking the whole tail off is fine. Snip, and you're done. Nothing to eat there anyway, and filleting the glands off just strikes me as unnecessarily difficult. But then again, unnecessarily difficult is how I do a lot of things, and if you look at my post on the previous page, you'll see how a chicken slaughtering routine can get pretty complicated.

I don't know, I thought I did pretty good getting my hand stuck in there... I loved your post though

 

[HOBBYFARMER78]

Last weekend we butchered 25 Cornish crosses. 6 adults and the help of a couple kids, and a whizbang plucker we had all of the birds in the cooler within 2-1/2 hours.(of course there was an hour or so of set up) Could probably have done them a little quicker but had some issues with keeping scalding pot at appropriate temp. Whizbang plucker is the answer, awesome accessory!

 

[Sabz]

I stand at about 20-25 mins per bird and have processed about 50 up to now (I mean in my whole life!)
I'm alone and nothing to heat water outside. Just one pot now.. Last year I had two large pots so I could rotate and didn't lose any time.. one MELTED on my stove!!!!! Literally, the red "plastic" covering the pot melted on my stove. Looked like candle wax all over.

Now I have to go heat water often and it slows me down. Also I have no table outside so I lay down a plastic and I do it sitting on the ground. Eventually my back aches and I take little breaks.

I' building a table with water so it will be easier next time (for the butchering part).
Still not sure about the best, cheapest way to heat water outside.

EDIT: that was hand plucking!! Building a plucker now, waiting to receive the fingers.

 

[LBKS]

The last time I timed it, I was down to about 30-35 minute per adult rooster while dry plucking, cleanup time excluded. That actually surprised me, it's a lot faster than when I started doing dry plucking. I'm sure if my scalding setup wasn't such a PITA it'd be faster to do it that way.