gooseapplefarms
Chirping
Did 10 cornish cross this morning by myself. Took about 2.5 hours from kill to chill tank total, not including setup time. 30 minutes for kill, scald, pluck, 2 hours to clean. I gotta work on my cleaning skills, for sure. I only have 2 kill cones, so that added some time to the first portion. My cleaning table was just a little bit short for 10 birds, so there was some crowding. I didn't scald the legs long enough, had some yellow skin I had to cut off by hand after removing the feet. I let these birds go a little bit long, dressed weight without necks or organs have been 6.5 to 7.75lbs (I haven't weighed them all yet), and two of those was more than my drum plucker could handle if one gets wedged.
I got some inspiration from this video:
This guy has it down to a science. ~20 minutes for 8 birds though he doesn't keep the gizzards. I think I could do 6 in similar time with my setup if I add some additional kill cones.
They're chilling in the cooler ice bath until tomorrow, then I'll bag, weigh, and tag them. I've got to invest in an ice maker or otherwise figure out a convenient way to make block ice because 10 birds is costing $15 in ice, and that's $1.50 per bird, too much there.
My goal is to get to 40 chickens per month processed 8 months out of the year. That's 20 per month for my family, and 20 to sell. If I did them all in one day, by myself (ideally I'll have some help), I should be able to do 7 x 20 minute batches of 6 birds, for 140 minutes total plus setup, cleaning, and bagging.
These birds are all going in the freezer whole, but once my chamber vac comes in, I'll probably start parting the larger ones up. I decided to go with a chamber vac due to bag costs. 1k bags cost between $40 and $100, depending on size (around $0.04-$0.10 each). Whereas foodsaver style vacuum bags can cost 5-10 as much, greatly adding to the packing cost.
I got some inspiration from this video:
They're chilling in the cooler ice bath until tomorrow, then I'll bag, weigh, and tag them. I've got to invest in an ice maker or otherwise figure out a convenient way to make block ice because 10 birds is costing $15 in ice, and that's $1.50 per bird, too much there.
My goal is to get to 40 chickens per month processed 8 months out of the year. That's 20 per month for my family, and 20 to sell. If I did them all in one day, by myself (ideally I'll have some help), I should be able to do 7 x 20 minute batches of 6 birds, for 140 minutes total plus setup, cleaning, and bagging.
These birds are all going in the freezer whole, but once my chamber vac comes in, I'll probably start parting the larger ones up. I decided to go with a chamber vac due to bag costs. 1k bags cost between $40 and $100, depending on size (around $0.04-$0.10 each). Whereas foodsaver style vacuum bags can cost 5-10 as much, greatly adding to the packing cost.
