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

[Buster52]

I'm thinking about buying meat birds this year, but I just don't think that I can do the killing. I'm hoping to find someone that does the processing around here. I'm willing to split the meat. I'm new to the whole "thinking about chickens for meat instead of eggs" business, but the cost of food is horrible around here!! What type of chickens should I buy for meat?

Either Cornish Cross or Freedom Rangers would be good for a beginning meat bird grower.

And if you don't think you can butcher yourself, I think you should find someone to butcher BEFORE you order the birds.

 

[aoxa]

Yeah, he's not an employee. He is runs a contract farm and works with Salatin. An important distinction, I think.

And a fellow BYCer by the way.

And a fellow Okie, as well.

I should have said apprentice, which is what he calls himself

 

[Buster52]

Former apprentice. That was years ago.

 

[TeamKTDM]

WOW!! this was great, i have a rooster in a suburban house, and well, as you can guess, the neighbours have complained. I have had him since he was 3 weeks old, so dont want to really get rid of him, but the noise is preventing me from keeping him now. I decided, i may as well (since having spent money on food and upkeep and time) to eat him. And this is really great advice.
On a few points though, If i dont have a 'cutting cone' thingo. is it really all that important? and as far as most of the prep, as far as plucking prepareing goes,IS it almost similar to gutting/preparing fish? or is there something that oyu have to do (due to it being poultry)? I eat a lot of 'fresh' meat per say, but am jsut being cautious due to the poultry factor.

Thanks though for a great and detailed system

 

[garp94]

I don't have a cone. I tie their feet and hang them from a strong branch off a cherry tree in my backyard. I hold them on their back in my arms until they're relaxed, tie their feet then slowly lower my arms until they are hanging. They will flap a few times after I cut their neck, but so far they haven't broken any wings against the tree trunk.

I saw someone else on BYC used a flowerpot as a cone.

Good luck.

 

[3KillerBs]

I didn't get to finish up the "extra males for warmth" on Thursday but I did them today. I'm sure I got my noisy crowers -- the testicles in the first 3 were the size of kidney beans and the last 2 had testicles as big as their hearts. These 3 were serious lard-butts too -- big pads of fat in the gut.

With the "broomstick over the neck" method I had 3 out of 5 perfect kills and two that had to be done twice because I didn't have my weight fully on the stick so it slipped when I jerked up on the feet. I'm sure that even the misses were feeling no pain after the first try though.

Oddly, if you get a good internal decapitation you get a LOT more muscle spasms in a vibrating motion rather than the more erratic flapping of the others. As soon as the wings stilled I removed the heads to ensure a really good bleed.

Having something to hang them on would have been nice. They're fairly heavy to be just holding them upside down by the legs until they get still.

If we decide to do an intentional meat bird project I'll have to see if I can track down some equipment to borrow or rent. I'd have rather had plucked chicken but didn't want to have to take all day plucking them by hand.

 

[NikkiBoyce 2012]

It has been MANY moons since I processed chickens, so a couple of questions: Where can you rent a plucker? I grew up doing it by hand, but that looks much easier!! and Is there a site that shows a little more detail on removing the vent? I don't remember ever removing the tail, in fact I remember grandma liking the tail meat, so is there a special way to process that?

 

[aoxa]

It has been MANY moons since I processed chickens, so a couple of questions: Where can you rent a plucker? I grew up doing it by hand, but that looks much easier!! and Is there a site that shows a little more detail on removing the vent? I don't remember ever removing the tail, in fact I remember grandma liking the tail meat, so is there a special way to process that?

You can leave the tail, just remove the oil gland.



Remove The Oil Gland

The chicken’s tail has an oil gland on it that almost all people remove during the butchering process. I say almost all because I’ve heard of some who leave the oil gland on. To each his own. I cut it off. Here is a picture of the gland in question:



Removing the gland is easy enough. Simply position your knife above the gland, as shown in the above photo and slice down. It helps to hold on to it while cutting. You will see the gland itself as you are cutting. It stands out as a deep, yellow color. If one slice does not get it all, make another cut as needed to remove all the yellow.




And there you have it….



Here is another view of the gland being cut off.

 

[aoxa]

This is how I open up the back end:


Open Up The Back End

Now we come to the really exciting part of butchering a chicken, or at least the start of it. Before you can reach into the chicken’s body cavity and pull out its insides, you need to cut an opening at the back end.


My approach to this is to cut a small opening with the knife, then reach into the opening and tear it wider. The less cutting you do, the less chance there is that you’ll cut into an intestine or some other internal organ that you shouldn’t cut into.


So here we are at the posterior of the bird, with the knife in position to make a slice:



Directly below my knife in the picture is the cloaca of the bird. The cloaca is also sometimes called the "vent." Frankly speaking, it is the bird's butt hole. That is as frank as I will get.


Notice that I am pinching and lifting the skin above the knife. And notice also that my knife blade is angled up a bit. That’s what you want to do: lift the skin and slice up into the lifted part. By doing it that way, you avoid cutting into any internal organs. Here’s another view of the cutting position:



Now, in this next picture you can see that I have made a horizontal slice. I have cut through the skin and underlying yellow fat just enough to make a small opening into the body cavity.


Please Note: When you cut into the bird’s body cavity, no liquid should come out. If liquid (i.e. yellow-colored water) does come pouring out of the opening, the bird is sick. Throw it away. I have had this happen on two birds in ten years.



Here is another angle on the cut, showing just how much of an opening cut I make.



That’s all you need. Then you work your finger tips into the opening and enlarge it enough to get a grip on the top and bottom of the cut, as shown here:



See how I have two fingers on one hand and two fingers on the other hand in the body cavity and I am pulling the opening to make it larger? That’s what you do.


Here is where I need to warn you of something important. If the chicken has had access to food prior to butchering, there will be fecal matter (a.k.a, FEMAT) in its intestine. That being the case, when you tear the opening larger, you are going to put pressure on the intestine, and FEMAT will be forced out the vent.


FEMAT escape is disgusting but it is to be expected: FEMAT happens. When it does, stop what you are doing, position the bird’s back end under the faucet and thoroughly flush all FEMAT away, being very careful not to let it enter the body cavity. If you get FEMAT on your work surface, flush it away with lots of fresh water and a rinse of diluted bleach solution. Problem solved.


Here’s a picture of the body cavity opened up sufficiently:



Here’s another picture of the opened up chicken. My right hand is poised to plunge in. That’s the next step……





The extra skin left at the end - I cut in the centre and tuck the legs into it. Looks nice and pretty when packaged like that.

Like so:

 

[mrsamplias]

Thank you to everyone who posted about their experiences. We just processed our first two meat birds. We had this site open on our kindle at the processing table. All the reading and reviewing of your information and pictures helped tremendously! Thank you!