- Thread starter
- #41
CommonRookie
In the Brooder
Processing:
At 8.5 weeks we processed the bulk of the birds. We didn't kill them all mostly because it took forever and got dark before we could get to them but I anticipated this and selected the largest birds first so the remaining birds could grow out. About 8 of the birds were under 5 lbs at this point and I was looking for 5 lb minimum live weight even from the hens so it was good to let them finish out anyway.
We took away food the night before butcher day. This really makes things MUCH cleaner and easier.
Killing was done using milk jugs as kill cones and slitting the neck, behind the ear, on both sides. A deep cut was far better than a shallow one and the birds bled out quickly. I wanted to try pithing but found cutting arteries to be simple and effective. There are a good number of videos on youtube demonstrating how we did it.
We let the birds bleed out for 10-15 minutes.
We then scalded them in hot water. We played with a lot of temperatures and learned a lot along the way. THE KEY TO EVERYTHING is the right temp and time. We found that 150 degree water was the best. We were working with a large stock pot heated to 150 with a little dish soap added. We would dunk the bird, shaking and swirling for 4-5 seconds and remove and pull a wing feather. We repeated this process until the wing feather came out with VERY LITTLE effort. This often took 5-6 dunks and sometimes more as the water cooled.
The water was the scourge of my day. I don't have a turkey fryer so we were making trips from the stove which slowed things down a great deal. We were only able scald 3 maybe 4 birds before the water was too cool to work. This was by far the biggest pain in the ***** of the day. A larger vat and heat on location would have cut our time in half.
Plucking was variable based on how well we scaled. the feathers would rub right off if we did it right, others would require a LOT of picking and cleaning up. If you find your birds are taking a long time to pluck you need to adjust your scalding method. A properly scalded bird took only a minute or two to pluck clean.
At this point we removed the heads and feet.
We gutted the birds and saved the hearts, livers, and gizzards. gizzards were much easier to clean when chilled in ice. The livers would take on a pale color when sitting in ice water so i'll look for better was to keep the dry and chill them on the next batch. Removing the head before gutting meant that we didn't have to fish around for the crop. It simply pulled through the body cavity with the rest of the organs as long as you had a grip on the esophagus. We hosed off the birds inside and out and tossed them in an ice bath in a cooler where they stayed for the rest of the day while we processed the rest.
We opted not to brine at this point.
That evening we took the birds inside and allowed them to drip dry while we packaged them whole in poultry shrink bags. The bags were about 30 cents per bird with zip ties and they packaged up nicely.
At this point we put them all back in the cooler and let them rest for 36-48 hours on ice before moving them to the freezer in batches. I had put some jugs of water in the chest freezer a couple of day prior to the chickens so there were some heat sinks in the freezer.
The only issue i ran into was that a little water seeped through bags over the time they were resting in the ice bath for 2 days. This introduced more moisture than i would have liked in my finished product and I'll figure out a way to prevent this in the future.
We had a family bbq 3 days after we butchered and the birds were excellent without a brine.
I made some awesome pate out of the livers and froze the hearts and gizzards for later. We made stock from the necks and some of the feet and froze the rest of the feet which i can't wait to fry up like they do in china.
The finished birds, without any necks or "giblets" in them ranged between 7.5 and 3.7 lbs.
Changes for the future:
In the future i will undoubtedly rent a plucking machine. Plucking is miserable work. I had one on order for week 7 but that was too ambitious and had to cancel to let the birds go to 8 weeks.
I will likely plan to butcher at week 9 on my next grow to give any runts a chance to catch up and account for the slight decrease in growth rate with my cheaper/lower protein feed. Even with an additional week of feeding I will still come out way ahead on price per bird.
I like a 24/7 feed schedule as it reduced competition at the feeders and I saw no problems with unhealthy birds. This may have something to do with their ability move around freely in a larger enclosure.
Hawk protection is a must for us and for a particularly bold red tail fishing line did nothing.
I'll solicit more helping hands on butchering day and trade them chickens for labor. I had a friend helping but i think 3 people or more would have made everything go much smoother.
At 8.5 weeks we processed the bulk of the birds. We didn't kill them all mostly because it took forever and got dark before we could get to them but I anticipated this and selected the largest birds first so the remaining birds could grow out. About 8 of the birds were under 5 lbs at this point and I was looking for 5 lb minimum live weight even from the hens so it was good to let them finish out anyway.
We took away food the night before butcher day. This really makes things MUCH cleaner and easier.
Killing was done using milk jugs as kill cones and slitting the neck, behind the ear, on both sides. A deep cut was far better than a shallow one and the birds bled out quickly. I wanted to try pithing but found cutting arteries to be simple and effective. There are a good number of videos on youtube demonstrating how we did it.
We let the birds bleed out for 10-15 minutes.
We then scalded them in hot water. We played with a lot of temperatures and learned a lot along the way. THE KEY TO EVERYTHING is the right temp and time. We found that 150 degree water was the best. We were working with a large stock pot heated to 150 with a little dish soap added. We would dunk the bird, shaking and swirling for 4-5 seconds and remove and pull a wing feather. We repeated this process until the wing feather came out with VERY LITTLE effort. This often took 5-6 dunks and sometimes more as the water cooled.
The water was the scourge of my day. I don't have a turkey fryer so we were making trips from the stove which slowed things down a great deal. We were only able scald 3 maybe 4 birds before the water was too cool to work. This was by far the biggest pain in the ***** of the day. A larger vat and heat on location would have cut our time in half.
Plucking was variable based on how well we scaled. the feathers would rub right off if we did it right, others would require a LOT of picking and cleaning up. If you find your birds are taking a long time to pluck you need to adjust your scalding method. A properly scalded bird took only a minute or two to pluck clean.
At this point we removed the heads and feet.
We gutted the birds and saved the hearts, livers, and gizzards. gizzards were much easier to clean when chilled in ice. The livers would take on a pale color when sitting in ice water so i'll look for better was to keep the dry and chill them on the next batch. Removing the head before gutting meant that we didn't have to fish around for the crop. It simply pulled through the body cavity with the rest of the organs as long as you had a grip on the esophagus. We hosed off the birds inside and out and tossed them in an ice bath in a cooler where they stayed for the rest of the day while we processed the rest.
We opted not to brine at this point.
That evening we took the birds inside and allowed them to drip dry while we packaged them whole in poultry shrink bags. The bags were about 30 cents per bird with zip ties and they packaged up nicely.
At this point we put them all back in the cooler and let them rest for 36-48 hours on ice before moving them to the freezer in batches. I had put some jugs of water in the chest freezer a couple of day prior to the chickens so there were some heat sinks in the freezer.
The only issue i ran into was that a little water seeped through bags over the time they were resting in the ice bath for 2 days. This introduced more moisture than i would have liked in my finished product and I'll figure out a way to prevent this in the future.
We had a family bbq 3 days after we butchered and the birds were excellent without a brine.
I made some awesome pate out of the livers and froze the hearts and gizzards for later. We made stock from the necks and some of the feet and froze the rest of the feet which i can't wait to fry up like they do in china.
The finished birds, without any necks or "giblets" in them ranged between 7.5 and 3.7 lbs.
Changes for the future:
In the future i will undoubtedly rent a plucking machine. Plucking is miserable work. I had one on order for week 7 but that was too ambitious and had to cancel to let the birds go to 8 weeks.
I will likely plan to butcher at week 9 on my next grow to give any runts a chance to catch up and account for the slight decrease in growth rate with my cheaper/lower protein feed. Even with an additional week of feeding I will still come out way ahead on price per bird.
I like a 24/7 feed schedule as it reduced competition at the feeders and I saw no problems with unhealthy birds. This may have something to do with their ability move around freely in a larger enclosure.
Hawk protection is a must for us and for a particularly bold red tail fishing line did nothing.
I'll solicit more helping hands on butchering day and trade them chickens for labor. I had a friend helping but i think 3 people or more would have made everything go much smoother.
