- Dec 1, 2009
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I am so excited, my husband and I processed four Ideal black broilers today in about an hour and a half. It was the first time for me, he had killed and field dressed birds from hunting and is the official fish processor of our household. I was just a tiny bit troubled about the killing part, so he did that, and I did the rest.
I know how much reading people's about other people's experiences helped me prepare, so I will share my experience here.
We made a "cone" out of a 1 1/2 gallon bleach bottle, rinsed and aired well. I cut the mouth of it big enough, and just cut the bottom off(this part is now the top, and the handle/mouth side is the bottom). We then punched a few holes in the top with a hole punch, and suspended the cone with chains from hooks in our garage ceiling. We had a 5 gallon bucket beneath it, where the cone actually hangs a few inches down inside the bucket, so the blood is caught inside.
My husband cut their veins, watched them until they bled out well(the cone needs to be a little deeper maybe?); then brought them to me.
I skinned them like in the youtube video from custerfamilyfarm.com. It went really well, surprisingly fast. I had watched lots of videos online, and it really helped. There were a few "gag" moments for me, but it seemed like once I cut the head off
, it was way easier. The skin was attatched a little better than I hoped, and I found(on the last bird, of course) if I just grasped the last wing feathers; after pulling all the rest of the skin and feathers off that wing; and pulled, I could pull the skin off with all the feather shafts still intact. When I cut like the video, sometimes I left some of the feather shafts in there. Some of the organs were tougher to get out than it looks in the video. I had the birds up about at chest level to me, and that made it so easy to work on them. I skinned them, gutted them and stuffed them in an ice water bath. Next time I will have more water in the ice bath, because the few feathers that got on the meat were really hard to get off. I think if there were more water and less ice, maybe they wouldn't have stuck so much. They still have a few slivers of feather, here and there, but I will try to remove it when I freeze or use them. After I skinned and gutted all of them, I took them inside and cleaned them out better in the sink, under running water. I removed the rest of the stuff I missed, and then put them in ziplock bags, and in a pan in the fridge.
I have a few questions:
I noticed I missed some liver looking stuff along the inside of the backbone, that just wouldn't seem to come out. I have seen this many times in store bought chickens, so figured it wouldn't hurt to leave it there, especially since the backs will be soup makings. Is this liver, or what? Was it ok to leave it in?
Is there a way to keep the teensy feathers from sticking to the meat, or a better way to get them off?
Things I would do differently:
Definitely get a lung scraper thingy(tomato or strawberry huller maybe) I used a teaspoon this time.
Use more water in the ice water bath to keep feathers from sticking so bad.
I guess that is about it. The birds dressed out at approx 2.3lbs each, and were about 10 weeks old. We are going to try to process 4 next weekend, and then the next, until we are done with the meat birds. Then we will probably deal with extra roosters!
Carrie
I know how much reading people's about other people's experiences helped me prepare, so I will share my experience here.
We made a "cone" out of a 1 1/2 gallon bleach bottle, rinsed and aired well. I cut the mouth of it big enough, and just cut the bottom off(this part is now the top, and the handle/mouth side is the bottom). We then punched a few holes in the top with a hole punch, and suspended the cone with chains from hooks in our garage ceiling. We had a 5 gallon bucket beneath it, where the cone actually hangs a few inches down inside the bucket, so the blood is caught inside.
My husband cut their veins, watched them until they bled out well(the cone needs to be a little deeper maybe?); then brought them to me.
I skinned them like in the youtube video from custerfamilyfarm.com. It went really well, surprisingly fast. I had watched lots of videos online, and it really helped. There were a few "gag" moments for me, but it seemed like once I cut the head off
I have a few questions:
I noticed I missed some liver looking stuff along the inside of the backbone, that just wouldn't seem to come out. I have seen this many times in store bought chickens, so figured it wouldn't hurt to leave it there, especially since the backs will be soup makings. Is this liver, or what? Was it ok to leave it in?
Is there a way to keep the teensy feathers from sticking to the meat, or a better way to get them off?
Things I would do differently:
Definitely get a lung scraper thingy(tomato or strawberry huller maybe) I used a teaspoon this time.
Use more water in the ice water bath to keep feathers from sticking so bad.
I guess that is about it. The birds dressed out at approx 2.3lbs each, and were about 10 weeks old. We are going to try to process 4 next weekend, and then the next, until we are done with the meat birds. Then we will probably deal with extra roosters!
Carrie
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