How many people ideal for processing?

[Skcup]

I'm going to be processing my chickens myself for the first time next month.

I have a line up of people who'd like to help. What is the ideal number of people/stations in your experience?

I have 40 birds. I will be giving each person who helps 2 birds so I'd like to keep the numbers down so I have a full freezer at the end!

I have one person who will be teaching me how to kill them - she is experienced. I have one other experienced helper and the rest of us have never done it but all want to learn. In total, I have the 2 experienced people, myself and 5 additional friends who've volunteered. So 8 bodies all together. I'd rather not give away 16 of my birds so I'd like to limit the number if possible.

What do you think?

 

[Nava]

I'll give some to the 2 people that know what to do, since they are going to be teaching you and the others can learn for free by watching, if they want to help that's good but if they want some chicken then tell them to bring theirs and they can prosses them there while learning.

 

[Buttercup Chillin]

Agreed. Or invite the other helpers over for a BBQ at a later time to share in the end result.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I think that many people would be too many. I guess you could have 1 for killing, 1 for scalding, 1 for plucking, 1 for dressing. That's kinda overkill if you ask me. I think 2 or 3 people would be plenty.

 

[CoopCrazy]

3 minumum is by far the easiest .. BUt more is always better

 

[CoopCrazy]

Quote:
Honestly I can tell you, you really need more then one person to dress and package.. Beleive me Poor Kathleen(Schultz) was having a heck of a time keeping up and she is fast at it.... You could honestly have the same person do the killing and scalding then slap it down on the table for the plucker, thne the plucker takes to the two dressers/packagers...

 

[lorieMN]

I do them myself,,I skin them,we dont eat the skins anyway and skinning goes way faster then scalding and plucking..doesnt take much more time for me to skin a chicken as it does for me to skin a rabbit.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Quote:
Honestly I can tell you, you really need more then one person to dress and package.. Beleive me Poor Kathleen(Schultz) was having a heck of a time keeping up and she is fast at it.... You could honestly have the same person do the killing and scalding then slap it down on the table for the plucker, thne the plucker takes to the two dressers/packagers...

Well, the way we always do it is kill and scald/pluck all the chickens, then put them in cold ice water (redundant

) to chill. Then dress them, then put them back in icewater as we dress them, then when they're all dressed we bag them. It's not like we're sitting around waiting, because by the time we pluck the last ones, the first ones are chilled and ready for dressing.

 

[Schultz]

Quote:
Honestly I can tell you, you really need more then one person to dress and package.. Beleive me Poor Kathleen(Schultz) was having a heck of a time keeping up and she is fast at it.... You could honestly have the same person do the killing and scalding then slap it down on the table for the plucker, thne the plucker takes to the two dressers/packagers...

Are you volunteering for the plucking table next time?

As fast as we were killing, scalding, and plucking, My poor wife sure did have a hard time proccessing by herself. I say definatly have 2 processing! It take much less time for the killing, scalding, and plucking

Rob

 

[schmism]

4 worked well for us... a fifth could have been put to work....

1 fetching birds from the pen and putting in cones, cutting knecks (we use 4 cones)

1 (me) ran the sclader (2@ time) and plucker (2x). IF the processing table was backed up id cut heads off and feet. if not i just dropped them on the table and went for the next 2 in cones.

2 peeps on the table but we could physically fit a 3rd on the line.

we (4 first timmers with a brand new setup) did 23 birds in 2 hrs processing time with about an hr on each end for setup and takedown. Our processing table was the slowest link in the line.

IMHO IF you had people that were experienced running the line, and were doing batches of 2 or more in the sclader/plucker then 40birds could be done in 2-2.5hrs

we used a 55 gal tub cut in half for pink water / clear water chill buckets. we were able to hold all 23 chickens easly (i could get 20 per tub) avg soak time was 1.5hrs before packaging. But this is one of the jobs that other 5th person can also do.