I've "Perfected" My Butchering Process...

[Salt and Light]

Well, at least for me.

I've tried cutting off the head and I've tried slicing the neck. Both of these procedures have good and bad points. I just finished butchering 25+ meat birds and what I did was sort of the "best" of both. For me, the secret is killing the bird BEFORE slicing the neck and cutting off the head. I chose to kill the bird by simply giving the neck a quick twist and pull, either by hand or by swinging. The bird is throw into a tub where it flops around. At this time, I hose of the crap and dirt which has accumulated on the bottom of the bird. The flopping greatly helps this problem. After the bird is done flopping, it's hung upside down by its feet and his head is cut off.

There's only one thing I want to do differently. I want to throw the flopping bird into a washtub filled with water. I'm curious if this will reduce all the flopping and the occassional broken wing and/or bird flopping onto the ground.

I've come to the conclusion that owning meat birds is like owning a boat. The best day is when you get the birds (buy the boat), the next best day is when you butcher the last bird (sell the boat). Everything in between is expensive, messy and generally a pain in rear end!

 

[Bossroo]

May I make an observation and a suggestion... The heart needs to be still be pumping in order for the carcass to bleed out properly. When the bird stops flopping the heart has also stopped so by hanging the bird up then , the only blood that comes out is by gravity. Therefore after you wring the bird's neck, place it upside down into a cone to contain it's flopping, and immediately slice open it's neck or decapitate it and the still beating heart will pump the blood out of the carcass. .

 

[chicktwit]

My granma chopped off their heads & I remember seeing them hanging on the clothesline tied up by their feet flopping & draining. I think she might have strung them up 1st & then cut the heads off. That worked best for her.

 

[Salt and Light]

Quote:
I appreciate your input, but I'm not sure it's accurate. You can never drain all the blood out of the carcass. At best, you can drain the blood out of the arteries and veins. Regardless if the heart is pumping, organs and tissues (bone, muscle, skin, flesh) will still be well perfused with blood. It takes quite some time for that blood to drain and even then, I'm not sure that it ever does.

 

[arlee453]

We just dispatched our meaties on Saturday. We used the chop method, and then immediately held the bird by the legs head down into a 30 gal metal can to bleed and flop. Then used a tie around the feet to hang up the bird to finish bleeding out once the death throes were done.

I could tell that we got a lot more blood out of the meat when we hung up the bird for several minutes, than if we just went straight from the initial bleed out in the garbage can into the scald.

 

[jaku]

Quote:
I appreciate your input, but I'm not sure it's accurate. You can never drain all the blood out of the carcass. At best, you can drain the blood out of the arteries and veins. Regardless if the heart is pumping, organs and tissues (bone, muscle, skin, flesh) will still be well perfused with blood. It takes quite some time for that blood to drain and even then, I'm not sure that it ever does.

Sure, you'll never get ALL the blood out, but you'll get a lot more out with the heart pumping than simply letting it ooze out of a dead bird. I use the throat slice/leave hanging upside down method, and I've noticed a big difference even when we don't let them hang long enough. When drained, I get very little blood when gutting.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

The blood in the bones and tissue is not a big issue at all. The blood that your trying to get out is in the artery's that may rupture when the meat is frozen or cooked. It's not a very fun thing to bite into that bloody wing ding... This is from the bird not bleeding out. The best thing to do is put them into a restraint such as a cone. It keeps the bird clean, keeps the bones in tact, and lets the blood drain as the hear pumps the blood out of the bird.

You can kill anyway you want but when you chop, shoot, wring, or use co2 you are not getting the blood completely out of the areas that matter most. The most efficent way is to cut the artery under their beak.

 

[Salt and Light]

Quote:
I wish we had this conversation before I killed my birds! It would be interesting to measure the amount of bleeding that occurs between the two methods.

From and anecdotal perspective, I didn't notice any significant difference in the quantity of blood leaving the birds whose neck was cut while alive ~vs~ dead.

I will also add that the sudden loss of blood pressure that results from cutting their carotid arteries is going to stop their heart pretty quickly. Sure, you will get an initial spurting of blood but that quickly tapers off because the heart stops beating. Killing the way you suggest may result in a quicker draining of blood, but I'm not convinced it drains more blood. And, I do let my birds hang for a long time, regardless of which method I use to kill them.. This is definitely an important step, regardless of how they are killed.

Maybe someone can do an experiment!! <hint, hint>

 

[Brunty_Farms]

In the spring I will have to! LoL... but in the mean time I'm going to enjoy my cup of coffee at 9:30 in the morning.... reading these post and getting ready for March.......