Processing chickens in Northern Virginia

[JamyangLhamo]

I have nine chickens that will be ready for processing in mid June, but, the woman who was going to teach me how to, well, behead and pricess them has passed away. Does anyone know someone I can either hire to c=do this or will teach me to do it? Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[cromschickens]

Youtube has some amazing videos. I know that sounds funny but, I had 10 cornish crosses and I had never processed chickens either. The way I did it was to bind their feet together and hang them from a board attached to a tree. I then used tree trimming shears to remove their heads. That worked well, with two people as one person has to run the shears and the other to pull slightly on the head. After that let them bleed out and then dunk them in hot water, ours was not boiling but around 150 or so. I dunked them ten times each and then one dunk in a five gallon bucket of cold water. This worked very well and the feathers came off easily. After that with a good sharp knife trim the neck and feet, then gut the bird. I found the easiest way was to start on the top side of the bird. There is a thing called and oiler, you will know it when you see it. Anyway, above that I cut lightly until I had cut through the skin and could see it's guts. Then I continued my cuts around it's anus, then work your hand in there and pull everything out. Also I forgot to mention when trimming the neck you will need to remove the crop. It is the food sack, it will be on the side of the neck right up against the breast of the bird. Once you get all of that done it is inside to the sink for a final rinse and remove any and all remaining pin feathers and vaccuum seal them them freeze. This was the first time I had ever done this and we were done with all ten in less then 3 hours including clean up time with two people. I would do it again and infact we are we just got 10 more from a local farm store. The birds taste great and we raised them and it was fun. I hope this helps, like I said watch the videos, I am a visual learner. Good luck.

 

[nunlef]

Hi, we had a rooster get mean with my daughter a few months ago, and I learned through YouTube. I messed it up a little, but it was the plucking part that got me. I will be renting a plucker from Dawson Gap farm this summer when we do our meat birds. He is in Hillsboro, VA (that's loudoun county). He also invited me to go to his processing day, you could probably email him and ask to attend. I think he said it was going to be near the beginning of June.

Anyway, that guy is super nice and helpful (btw, I also buy my food from him now- great feed and not really much more than southern states). The website is pretty good, and can be googled easily.