Most important aspect of butchering?

[Andrea72]

We have never butchered chickens before. We have a dozen RIRs we are raising though for meat. What is the most critical piece of advice you would give us? They are 9 weeks old. Thanks!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Besides having help, #1 IMHO, have the sharpest knives possible. When my knives get dull, I get so frustrated cause I cut myself more than the chickens.

Prior to processing, I like having them on real clean bedding so the birds are very clean. If plucking rather than skinning, ave help keeping the temperature of the water right. I prefer 145 degrees. A scalder helps but I prefer a turkey fryer because the scalders I've seen are preset and sometimes don't maintain. When a long flight feather pulls without resistance the bird is scalded to perfection.

Have ice, some bowls for livers, gizzards and hearts, a means of rinsing the bird, have buckets for evisceration and feathers, towels/paper towels to wipe your hands and utensils.

Make sure you get the lungs completely out and that's hard to do with your fingers.

Hopefully others will chime in.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

Don't forget to let the meat rest! That was my noob mistake. I was excited and cooked my first chicken the same day. UGH! It was horrible. It had the texture of squid. I was so sad but later learned I was supposed to let the meat rest in the frig for three days before cooking. oops.

Other than that just be confident and use a steady hand and a sharp knife.

Good luck!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Don't forget to let the meat rest! That was my noob mistake. I was excited and cooked my first chicken the same day. UGH! It was horrible. It had the texture of squid. I was so sad but later learned I was supposed to let the meat rest in the frig for three days before cooking. oops.

Other than that just be confident and use a steady hand and a sharp knife.

Good luck!!

X2. Wow, that was my first mistake also. Sorry I didn't mention it.

 

[jecombs]

My husband and I butchered our first batch this weekend. Definitely have a helper with you. I don't think he would have been able to do it as quickly if I had not been there to help. Watch lots of videos. I liked wrapping our birds in a towel to hold them still... kinda like you would swaddle a baby. It seemed to have a calming effect on them and made it easier to contain them.

 

[Sally_O]

We just did our first batch yesterday, 45 CX. Off the top of my head:

TOOLS.

1. Sharp sharpen-able knives so no ceramic. We got ceramic and they don't hold that sharp edge for long at all! I've read people use box cutters for the kill which sounds like a good idea. Replaceable razor blades.

1a. Sharp good-quality poultry shears to cut off heads and feet.

2. Cones -- we'll use traffic cones next time and cut the hole to suit. I think you can buy them at Lowe's or Home Depot. We used 12" planters and those just do not hold the body well at all. You need a cone it can't jump out of! Our CX were too big for the cones we bought online.

3. Whiz Bang plucker -- we made a drill plucker. After 5 birds, we drove an hour to a friend's house to borrow his whiz bang. SO worth it. We will make our own for next time.

4. Wire basket (my idea -- maybe someone has a better one...) for your tools on the cleaning station so you can hose off and not wash them overboard.

5. A place to keep the killing instrument AT the killing station: a hook, or table nearby.

6. Plastic aprons and rubber boots. Surgical gloves.

7. For 45 chickens: two 30-gallon trash cans with bags to hold chickens, 5 22lb bags of ice total, 1 cup of agri-salt for each container.

8. For the scalder, we used a 30-gallon galvanized trash can set on concrete blocks over a turkey fryer grill, long meat thermometer (from the bbq section at walmart, about a foot long). Worked perfectly! The scalder was big enough so that the water was able to stay at a constant 150 degrees throughout.

BE PREPARED

1. If you do this outside, it gets muddy. Decide where you will hose off and have that be somewhere you don't have to walk. You'll be hosing off the cleaning station and lightly hosing during the plucking, whether you do it by hand or whiz bang.

2. The chickens take longer to die then you'd like. Not only was this emotionally draining, this is where the choke point was. We thought it'd be cleaning, but it was killing. The four of us found ourselves waiting for birds to die...

3. They jump around a LOT during the final death throes. You will get blood on you and surrounding areas. Next time we will have the killing station farther away and rigged up to do 5 or six at a time.

4. You don't need gloves for the scalding... it's hot, but not dangerous. I wouldn't hop in, of course. Haha, trust me, you won't want to -- it gets disgusting!!! I held a foot, dunked for awhile, then held the other foot and dunked.

MISC.

We got two big bowls of livers, hearts and necks. One 2-gallon stew pot full of heads and feet.

We will shrink wrap with our food saver on Wednesday am, so they will be in the salty ice water from Sunday 8:30 to Wed 8:30am.

--

Good luck. Keep us posted. We learned how to do this watching youtube videos and a lot of help from this forum. Looking forward to hearing what more experienced people recommend!

 

[Andrea72]

Great info! At what age would be best to butcher? They seem awful scrawny to me despite their age. And they eat well. Just figured they should be pretty fat first.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I go anytime from the first crowing to 20 weeks. DPs usually need to be about 14-16 weeks.
I also pull them from pasture about 2 weeks before the deed to soften the legs up a little.

 

[settingdusk]

When you hang them upside down in the kill cones and cut them, let them bleed all the way out. The meat comes out better. Oh and once the head is off, the chicken feels nothing its just residual nerve impulse. Oh and one last thing, don't name a chicken your going to eat. It makes it harder.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

If you behead or cut the throat the bird dies right away but it will continue to twitch and move. This can be a little unsettling if you are not expecting it but know that the bird is dead and if not suffering. This is normal.

I also agree with watching videos. That really helped me know what to expect. I watched A LOT of them. There are so many ways you can go about it. I don't do enough birds to have a whole set-up so I do everything by hand.

This was my favorite video if you are looking for some. WARNING: may graphic for some. (part one shows how to kill and part two shows very well how to break down.) This not the quickest method but I was happy with it overall.

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/how-to-kill-a-chicken-video.html