Inexperienced processing q

[SandraMort]

I did two birds this time -- I won't be making that mistake again. Until I"m more competent, I'll stick to one at a time!

I scalded the birds and the wing feathers came out, so I thought I was done, but when I sat down to pluck, it really was a lot more work than I expected. I don't know if I didn't do them long enough, would that have helped them come out more easily? When carress and I did the roos that she brought over, the feathers practically wiped off! I ended up putting the wings in the reject pile as I didn't have enough energy to deal with defeathering them.

I also ended up skinning the birds after giving up on defeathering, then cutting the leg/thigh quarters and boneless breast off before gutting, so nothing would be wasted if I punctured the gut or anything. The breast was far smaller than I anticipated, so I'm thinking I wasted a lot of meat on the frame maybe? I'm just not sure. These were colored rangers, about 10 weeks old, and more than 5 lbs live but I don't know by how much since my scale only weighs up to 5.

What do I do differently next time? I've got to take the majority of them to the farm to do in one swell foop, but do want to practice with a few of the other rangers and my three cornish crosses.

 

[patandchickens]

Did you end up keeping and cooking the carcass even after you took the major gobs of meat off it? there would have been a lot still on there. Even on the wings. If you get bored with plucking by the time you get to the wings you can just skin them

IMO even if you accidentallly punctured the intestines you would not be wasting anything, you just wAsh it off really well is all. Still WAY cleaner than supermarket chickens <g>

Anyhow congrats on a good first go

Pat

 

[SandraMort]

I took all of the stuff I couldn't deal with (frames, feet, wings, etc) and put it in the freezer to deal with another day. I will either make it into soup once I skin/defeather or pass it on to the BARF woman. I've got 4 dozen more birds in the barn that need to be processed, though, so I'll have *PLENTY* of soup bones if I do pass this batch on to her.

I threw out/composted the inedible stuff.

 

[jvls1942]

you could have dipped the chickens again after you noticed that the feathers were still tight.

when you dip them, swish them around and get the water through the feathers and to the skin... the breast feathers are the most difficult to scald.. concentrate on these and the rest will sort of take care of themselves..

.....jiminwisc.......

 

[SandraMort]

Yeah, I'd dumped the water prematurely, I guess. Thankss!

 

[jvls1942]

we never dump the water until we are all done.. then we use the hot water to prewash the knives and work table etc..

 

[pdpatch]

Leasons we learned about processing chickens and turkeys:

re dip if the feathers have difficulty coming out.

Start plucking the feathers with larger quills, as these are the most difficult when the bird cools down.

Buy, make, or have some one make a plucker for you.

If you don't have a plucker, get help plucking, my son and daughter were the primary pluckers this year until I finally got a plucker made.

Like you said before don't do to many at first, the first few batches we did was 3, 6 , then 8. Each time it got easier as we went.

We don't do a full clean up until all birds are processed.

Read, read, read this forum. I have gotten a lot of tips about processing chickens and turkeys here, that I was never exposed to before processing wild fowl. But then again what works for one person may not work for some one else.

Tom