New to the thought of butchering

[championny]

Thanks for the support. I may try one to butcher myself, but I was reading another post and realized I do have a butcher down the road I may inquire. They have a lot of people and say they sell live chickens for butcher, but perhaps they may take these guys out for me?

My grandfather did it growing up on his farm and it seems like one of those things you have to try. It sure beats the grocery store prices and its fresh!

 

[BirdBrain]

If you get straight run, you don't have to butcher them all at once. They are cheaper than all males or all females. I bought 50 straight run cornish rocks from Ideal (by the way they matched Privett's price and I saved even more that way) and they sent me 54. 6 died along the way due to different things (one got layed on, a couple get ascites, one or two got too hot) and we butchered 48. If you are going to do that many in a day it is a big job. However, the males were ready at 5 weeks ( some like to let them go longer, but the meat is better to me at that age) and the females at 6 weeks. So, roughtly half were done each week.

We only plucked about 6-7 of them (for roasters) and skinned the rest and cut them up in parts (this really reduced the freezer space they occupy as well as makes preparation at cooking time less). We did this at my folks ranch where the buzzards are used to picking up meat scraps Mom puts out. They are the funniest thing. They are there in like 20 minutes or less after you put something out, so there is never any smell and they are funny to watch. They are quite happy to help us out with the skin and guts and the coyotes carried off the feet.

We had a very large cooler that we filled half way full with water and ice. When we were done cleaning out and washing each bird, it went into the ice water and chilled for a few hours. That gave us time to get the job done on the others and then go have lunch and take a break. Then we came back in the afternoon and cut and packaged them and stuck them in the freezer. With my Mom and I working it wasn't too bad a job at all. We have a dozen more to do next weekend that they were giving away with bags of feed at the feed store, so this project has lasted longer than we originally planned.

You can easily do this yourself. Just a word of warning, you probably won't want chicken for dinner that night. If you want chicken soon, plan to put one in salt water and let it sit in the refrige for a day or over night.

I hope things go well for you!!

 

[Steve]

Darn it...wish I would have read this post before naming my meat birds.

I named them Sunday dinner, Chicken dinner, Chicken and salad, Chicken and green beans, Chicken and dumplings....ya know, they aren't responding very well to the names I gave them.....

 

[MissPrissy]

I had a couple named Fried, Steve!

We had chicken and dumplings yesterday!

 

[Steve]

Quote:
Well you just know i will be asking you for that recipe....

I just went down to the brooder.....they didn't respond well to "Fried" either.

In the 3 days I have had them there is already a 'big" difference in the size of them compared to the 2 barred rocks pullets that share the same brooder.

Thinkin I still need about 10 more ......

 

[MissPrissy]

I plan to do 100 in the fall.

 

[Run-A-Muck Ranch]

For the last 2 years I have been helping my mom butcher chickens. We did 125 the firt year and 150 the second.
I have the job of cutting off there heads.
My hubby who doesn't handle blood all to well was the one to catch the birds. We had one person doing the plucking (with a plucker machine). Then 2 people taking out the insides and another person in the house bagging up the birds.
It went pretty smoothly.
The first year it took us about 6 hours to do the whole job inculding cleanup. The second year we did more birds and actually had one less person and it took us about 3 hours including clean up.

The birds were raised down at my mom's. She was the one to feed and water and care for the birds. But we all pitched in financially to help with the raising and what not.
She never named the birds. At the very end as we were catching them I would say well here is "Turkey" or this one is "Goat", what ever I could come up with for names that were NOT chicken related. Made it a little more fun to see who could come up with names for the birds.
No one really got attached to those birds so it really wasn't a big deal.

on a side note....
I never know some of the noises these birds could make until butchering day...I say to all that I have that I heard a few of the birds say "help me" when they screetched out as we were grabbing them.

The first year we butchered one of the people catching the birds had grabbed one by the neck and it's head literally fell right off. Never was cut or anything. He came out of the chicken pen with the head in one hand and the body in the other. I never in all my days knew that could happen. He wasn't even rough with it. went to go catch it and grabbed around the neck and when he went to go lift up the head fell off...

 

[championny]

I heard some people just pull the head off instead of cutting it off.. I think that is kinda strange but I guess it works for some people. My grandfather says to do it the traditional way: chop off the head and bleed it out.

Ideal is out of Cornish rocks for now, so I will wait until they get some in.

 

[UncleHoot]

Quote:
Generally, though, I think they slit the throat first, bleed it out, then pull off the head after it's dead.

 

[MissPrissy]

If you are going to pull the head off I hope you are very strong. It'll take some work. I suggest cutting or chopping.