How to professionally harvest an aggressive roo

[Kris5902]

Thanks just glad I could help. When we have brined the most we've done is 4-6 hours. After that we take them out and shrink bag them. They end up looking great. We actually bought a medium turkey killing cone and small turkey bags and some of our large fowl English Orpingtons and crosses almost don't fit in the bags.

Then we rest them in the fridge for 3-5 days. Again we've done as many as 7 days and had no trouble.



Have you made a thread on how you butterflies them? I would love to see it if you have. Any photos?



Thanks.
Also I totally love what you said about unattended threads and if it's okay I may borrow that sometime. LOL

I would only add one thing in that by getting totally side tracked we come up with many other great topics and new thoughts on the original topic, when we finally come back to it.



No one has mentioned it but you can use a little dish soap(I would recommend dawn because we all know it's gentle and not going to hurt the bird) okay okay my bad terrible joke but in all honesty we do all know it's very safe. That and you rinse the carcasses when finished anyways.

It can cut the smell and it also helps clean them a little I've even heard of people putting a couple tablespoons in of bleach in a big stock pot/canner. I think that's a bit much but we have done the dish soap before. We like the apple blossom because we usually have that scent but also it's a nice fresh scent.

Remember just a little soap! Also wet feathers smell no matter if they're washed or not. It's the same as a wet dog.

It's actually recommended adding a little dish soap to scalding water for ducks as it helps the water penetrate their feathers.

Also don't forget heritage birds unlike Cornish cross are harder to eviscerate because they're older(so there's more connective tissue) and they have (I forget) I think they're called filia after plucking. They're covered in little hair like feather things. These generally disappear when cooking but can be burned off if they bother you.

Also don't ever ever ever process a molting bird expecting to pluck it. We did once when a 12-14 month old rooster molted early. We didn't see it until he lost his head- that is to say he had been bled and then the head romoved. It was awful. The first time we ever tried skinning a bird and it was so awful(picture a bird hanging from a clothesline on an extremely windy day as the temperatures plummeted in advance of a cold spell that they didn't predict) DH2B grumbles and scowls if I even mention skinning a chicken lol.

Borrow away... It’s good! I agree on the getting sidetracked is often beneficial

I will have to say they skin better on the table than hanging, pluck or remove the wings as best you can. Remove the feet below the drumsticks. Start at the back cutting the skin down the backbone, push your fingers underneath the skin and “peel”, there’s no really point skinning the wings. Husband is a butcher, but is having difficulties describing it well. It sounds to me very similar to loosening the guts from the body cavity when eviscerating. You may want to pluck the back a little first so you can get a clean cut down it. I might see if I can get him to demo it and take pics, but I don’t have any birds that have volunteered too heavily for freezer camp ATM. We would have to buy a store bought and it’s not quite the same.

 

[chickendreams24]

Borrow away... It’s good! I agree on the getting sidetracked is often beneficial

I will have to say they skin better on the table than hanging, pluck or remove the wings as best you can. Remove the feet below the drumsticks. Start at the back cutting the skin down the backbone, push your fingers underneath the skin and “peel”, there’s no really point skinning the wings. Husband is a butcher, but is having difficulties describing it well. It sounds to me very similar to loosening the guts from the body cavity when eviscerating. You may want to pluck the back a little first so you can get a clean cut down it. I might see if I can get him to demo it and take pics, but I don’t have any birds that have volunteered too heavily for freezer camp ATM. We would have to buy a store bought and it’s not quite the same.

Thanks!

When you get the chance I'd love to see how you guys do it!

I always read down the keel. It wasn't a very young bird like I said but it was really the mind numbing cold made it worse. The whole thing was terrible. I was having to hold the bird with one hand because the wind had picked up so much. It ended up with DH2B holding the bird with one hand and cutting with the other while I worked on the other side cutting. It's a small miracle we didn't lose any fingers. The wind had picked up to be more than 35 mph. I think there were flurries that night. It was a bad day to be processing and we quit after that bird was the second we did that day.

At the time we didn't want to contaminate our evisceration table which is why he was hanging. That was also when we hand plucked.

Now we have a home made drum style plucker that DH2B built. Much faster.

Not perfect but lots better.

Although I never hated plucking as long as the scald is good it can be kind of cathartic I think. But I guess I'm weird.

Also we would love to hang out with your husband and learn some butchering skills from him. DH2B and I have done quail and are also getting rabbits soon. We also got some deer and an elk last year from a friend and that has been fun learning too. They are in primals in the freezer.

 

[aart]

All unattended threads will be hijacked, digressed from and expounded on until we forget what the post was originally about! It’s what we do here on BYC... but that’s ok, eventually someone remembers to ask the OP back for an update!

Actually many times it's not ok, downright rude by forum etiquette standards.
Every topic thread turning into a chat thread kind of defeats the purpose of a forum, IMO...future searchers of topic info are lost in the chatter.
At least this one stayed on the topic of slaughtering.

 

[aart]

Also don't ever ever ever process a molting bird expecting to pluck it.

OhMan, that's for sure...did a few hens last fall, ended up skinning when parting out.

 

[Mosey2003]

There is a definite good way to skin and a bad way to skin. Starting on the back is a VERY bad way, I learned. What you want to do is lay the bird on it's back, make a slice across the breast skin, and then pull the two halves up towards the breast and down towards the legs. Then do the wings and over the neck, do down over the legs, THEN flip the bird over and pull the back down to the legs from the top. The wings are a real *****. I suspect they may be easier if done when the bird is hanging from the legs, and THEN put it on the table. If I ever skin another I'm gonna try that. It's hard to get purchase on a slippery bird.

 

[DaWookie]

how do y'all usually rest a bird? i was thinking wrapped in a open gallon ziplock inside a large glass dish. ive also seen people suggest just lightly wrapping it in wax/butchers paper.

 

[chickendreams24]

how do y'all usually rest a bird? i was thinking wrapped in a open gallon ziplock inside a large glass dish. ive also seen people suggest just lightly wrapping it in wax/butchers paper.

We rest ours right in the shrink bags we will then freeze them in. Usually we shrink the bags and then rest them but if it gets late we will rest them in the bags unshrunk.

Sone people rest them in coolers full of ice water. Personally I don't care for that. When a bird carcass is submerged in water its subcutaneous tissues absorb water and get really thick and gooey this water then comes out later. If they are resting in water they're literally sitting in bloody nasty water unless it's changed very often.

 

[aart]

We rest ours right in the shrink bags we will then freeze them in. Usually we shrink the bags and then rest them but if it gets late we will rest them in the bags unshrunk.

Sone people rest them in coolers full of ice water. Personally I don't care for that. When a bird carcass is submerged in water its subcutaneous tissues absorb water and get really thick and gooey this water then comes out later. If they are resting in water they're literally sitting in bloody nasty water unless it's changed very often.

Pretty much the same here, except I part mine out after a final cleaning and do not use shrink bags, just gallon ziplock type freezer bags.
Totally agree with not resting in water and resultant 'gooeyness'.

 

[chickendreams24]

We have parted out a few birds but usually don't part out the heritage birds until we cook them. Also parted out birds are put if freezer bags instead of shrink bagged.

We also do one final good rinse before we bag the birds as well.

So glad I'm not the only one that thinks a waterlogged chicken is kind of icky.

 

[aart]

We have parted out a few birds but usually don't part out the heritage birds until we cook them. Also parted out birds are put if freezer bags instead of shrink bagged.

We also do one final good rinse before we bag the birds as well.

So glad I'm not the only one that thinks a waterlogged chicken is kind of icky.

I part them out right away so they take up less space in freezer and they thaw a bit faster.
I would think it would be easier to shrink them after rigor passes?