Pithing - WHAT am I doing WRONG??!?!?!??!??

[Golden Egg]

Is it a superpower that select people are magically born with?
I just spent 7 hours processing 6 roosters (and I haven't even cleaned up yet).
I TRIED and TRIED and TRIED. I looked up every link on the 'Net discussing the subject that I could find, I practiced on dead chicken heads, and afterward I am almost certain that I hit the "sweet spot" on AT LEAST one or two of the live ones. Some were very hard to pluck, some not so hard, but none were anywhere near as easy as people say they should be after pithing. "Oh," they gush, "the feathers just slip out! Plucking is a breeze!"
GAH! I have spent hours today bent over dead chickens, yanking out glued-in feathers. I'm sick, sick, sick of it. And we have only 6 chickens in the fridge to show for all that work.
Thankfully, none of the roosters seemed to suffer much, so I'm not emotionally distraught on top of everything else. I am just MAD!
Please, do not suggest that I scald and use a plucking machine. I still want to learn how to "pith."
Yes, it must be a magical superpower and I am not one of the lucky few.

I feel a bit better now. Thanks for reading my rant. Any advice on pithing appreciated.

 

[katbriar]

This may be discouraging, but I don't know anyone that piths. I think that it's a myth about it being easy and making the feathers just fall right out.

 

[enola]

What is pithing?

 

[Happy Chooks]

What is pithing?

Pithing is where you take an instrument (similar to an ice pick) and push it up through the roof of the mouth into the skull cavity to kill them. I've never done it myself, but have known someone that does.

As for plucking, it's easiest if you boil a big pot of water with a couple squirts of dishsoap. Get it boiling, then dunk the bird and swish it around to get the water between all of the feathers, then pull it out. Do the wing and tail feathers first, as they are the toughest to get out. The rest of the feathers should be easy. If not, dunk again. The key is keeping your water hot enough if you are doing multiple birds.

 

[ChaoSS]

Is it a superpower that select people are magically born with?
I just spent 7 hours processing 6 roosters (and I haven't even cleaned up yet).
I TRIED and TRIED and TRIED. I looked up every link on the 'Net discussing the subject that I could find, I practiced on dead chicken heads, and afterward I am almost certain that I hit the "sweet spot" on AT LEAST one or two of the live ones. Some were very hard to pluck, some not so hard, but none were anywhere near as easy as people say they should be after pithing. "Oh," they gush, "the feathers just slip out! Plucking is a breeze!"
GAH! I have spent hours today bent over dead chickens, yanking out glued-in feathers. I'm sick, sick, sick of it. And we have only 6 chickens in the fridge to show for all that work.
Thankfully, none of the roosters seemed to suffer much, so I'm not emotionally distraught on top of everything else. I am just MAD!
Please, do not suggest that I scald and use a plucking machine. I still want to learn how to "pith."
Yes, it must be a magical superpower and I am not one of the lucky few.

I feel a bit better now. Thanks for reading my rant. Any advice on pithing appreciated.

I have yet to pluck any chicken, but I imagine that if that is what you've heard, it's been a bit of hyperbole.


The method of dispatch isn't going to make the feathers just slip out. Nothing is going to make plucking easier, per se. It's just that certain methods, where the chickens get stressed out, could make plucking more difficult. So, doing it just right may make it as easy as possible, but not necessarily easy.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Reply, I've used the pithing method when slaughtering my chickens for the past three years. I like knowing that they are brain dead within a second and that any twitching or flapping is a nervous system reaction rather than pain or fear. However, I haven't seen the promised feather loosening response either (although since this is the only way I've done it, I have nothing to compare it with). Once properly scalded, most of the featherss more or less wipe off easily, leaving the wing and some of the tail feathers to be pulled. Here is a great link on how to scald a chicken for plucking: http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-properly-scald-chicken-my-never.html. I am fairly new to all of this, having only raised meat chickens for two summers before this one and I can generally take a live chicken from the tractor and have it ready for the ice bath in 15-20 minutes.

I realize this doesn't really answer your question, but hope it was helpful anyway.

 

[LindaB220]

What is pithing?

I read old books on Google/books. Search for processing poultry. Lots of free poultry books. Pithing is what they used to do decades ago. Put a thin blade in the small nook in the roof of the mouth. Rather than go up, go to the farther back of the skull. Shove in and give a 1/4 twist. Immediately cut their throat, either inside or out and let them bleed out. It does work. In one of the books I read an old guy had done it for forty years, and could kill, pluck and process in under 2 min. But he had done thousands.

Now understand, this is heresay. My chickens are not old enough to try this on yet. But I'm gonna. (Try at least).

 

[LindaB220]

In case you don't know the spot to hit to pith look at this drawing. The brain is straight back from the eye.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/883355/lightbox/post/13444968/id/6334107

 

[enola]

The picture doesn't load.

 

[LindaB220]

Funny it does for me. Why not copy and paste or type it out. It's worth your time.

Let me try it again:


https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/883355/lightbox/post/13444968/id/6334107