I did it, culled roos

[Judy]

Those pin feathers are why I liked doing the barred rocks least. In this family they have to be CLEAN so I sat and pushed them out with fingernails. Much less of a problem with BO, SS, RIR, NHR, and whatever else we did. Yes, you'll be surprised how much faster it goes after the first time.

The post about singeing (with a lighter) is true for those fine hairs that are sometimes left. That winds up getting done just before cooking here; easier to see them in the kitchen.

 

[LilChickCoop]

Mrs. K :

The website I went to, suggested having your water at 150 degrees, and dunking the bird up and down, then giving a test pull. If the least bit hard, dunk him again. I used a propane cooker ring to heat my biggest pot, (I can cook 30 lbs of potatoes in it, and do for branding) and it was a bit more than 150 for the first bird. And the video was right, first dunk, hard to pull, 3rd dunk, feathers came out very easily.

The feathers pulled off easily and in big handfuls, we did this in the garage as it was cold here yesterday. And placed most of the feathers in a brown paper sack. It really did not take a long time, maybe 5-10 minutes to get off most of the feathers, then you had to repick a bit. We did 5 and I didn't time it, but it was not as bad as I thought it might be. I watched the video on the youtube of a picker, and that did look slick, but unless you are processing a large amount of birds, not real necessary.

MK

It's too early for me this morning- I was actually starting to ask myself- how do you brand with 30 lbs of potatoes?

I should've gone to bed earlier!!​

 

[PolloAdoro]

So did you butcher them one after another, let them bleed out, then start dunking them in the water, or do you do 1 at a time start to finish?

 

[WildflowerJLH]

We are getting ready to do a few in a couple weeks. I would love it if you would post links to the videos and websites that you found most useful. I have looked at several videos, but I m a not really sure which techniques are most practical until we are doing it, KWIM?

 

[mulewagon]

Hurray for you!

Isn't it great to prepare your own food, literally from scratch?

A few things we learned:

1) Lighter breeds (white or buff) are easier to clean.
2) We used a five-gallon pot to scald, but really need a bigger one. The Orpington roosters are big even at seven months!
3) We have trouble standing for long, so we used a swingset frame to hang the scalded birds. Then we just sat in front of them to pluck, letting the feathers fall into buckets beneath.
4) We killed out by the pen, and washed the carcasses thoroughly several times with a hose, letting the water run through the body. Then rinsed them again in the kitchen before freezing.
5) We buried the guts, heads, etc deep, and laid a set of metal nestboxes on top. Then washed down the area well with the hose, to help dilute the blood smell. Haven't noticed any digging around there, so it must have worked.