Killing, Plucking, Eviscerating, & Cutting Up Your Chicken - Graphic!

[Sunny Side Up]

The water should stay hot enough on its own for a while, long enough to scald & pluck at least one bird. You don't need to keep it perpetually hot outdoors while you work.

I got a nice big stock pot from FreeCycle that I use outdoors, it sets up on a few blocks for convenience. I fill that from other smaller stock pots I boil water inside on the stove. The boiling water is really too hot, I have to add water from the hose to bring it down to 150 degrees.

It's not too inconvenient to carry the pots back & forth from the house, usually my teenage son, who cannot bear to do any of the other business of butchering, is willing to at least tote the pots & keep new water boiling.

 

[notsostupidafterall]

Skin 'em as opposed to plucking. If you are doing only a few birds, it is so much easier. Roasters probably do better with the skin on, but we cut up the birds as part of processing and we don't like the skin on them anyway. So, just skin them.

 

[pixie74943]

I wanted to see how it was done
I saw how it was done
I will not be eating chicken for a very long time

 

[okiron]

Quote:
In that case you better not go look to see how other animals are butchered for meat, you'll become a vegetarian

 

[andorraclaim]

Quote:
Compared to the commercial slaughter houses that stock the fast food chains and super markets that was love. Respect during their growth, respect during their death. But it is a little gruesome, from the reality of it, for lack of a better term.

The sensitivity you show for the animal, even over a cold, lifeless digital medium like the internet, is indicative of your character.

Tell others how you feel, all the time, and eventually their will be less misery in both the animal and human worlds.

 

[hatchaholic]

Several years ago, my parents gave us one of those turkey fryers for Christmas. That is what I used when heating up the water. I just butchered 8 roos by myself. It was not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I heated the water to about 145, then dunked the roo for about 15 seconds. The feathers came out really easily. Then, for the pin feathers, my husband used a bernzamatic, or whatever those little torch thingys are called, to singe them. The hardest part for me was figuring out exactly where and how to cut, and removing all the innards without tearing the liver.

 

[Heyoehkah]

I would like to skip a step. I do not eat the skin. Is there a simple way to skip the plucking step and simply pull off the skin?

Thanks

 

[Sillystunt]

Quote:
Can i pay you to do mine...lol
GEESSHHH, i have a new respect for butchers

 

[henpeckedacres]

AWESOME AWESOME!! We just processed 10 and did a BUTCHER job on them

You have many more years experience

as this was our first time

I am going to bookmark this and have hubby read through the next time we raise up some Cornish. I do have 4 out of the 10 in the freezer , we had to discard 2 that apparantly got infections when we had a hen pecking incident, we ate 2 already and not sure what hubby did with the other 2.., I think he may have given the meat to family. We gave one a "pardon" and she is in the main coop now.., but what I hear these birds die young from heart failure anyways?

The way you make it look is EASY

Thanks for the great post!

 

[frugal]

Quote:
Thanks for the kind words. It's really easy to do your own birds.

I have my own plucker now and I'll be doing this years flock of meat birds in a couple of weeks. Here's a pic of them a few weeks ago:

Yummy!!