Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[ChaoSS]

I think every woman on here just fell in love with you!

It's interesting to me that between here and a rabbit forum I'm on, most of the posters seems to be women. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm a little put off by how many women say that their husbands can't stomach the processing of the animals.

I'm sure back in the day when people processed all or almost all of their own food, most men did a fair amount of killing and gutting animals. All part of the whole providing for the family deal. Makes me wonder where we've come as a society.

 

[Kassaundra]

I don't get the guys who can't kill an animal.... seems we have lost a bit of the ways of our ancestors.


Anyway, if you are skinning, should I assume you aren't scalding? Scalding seems to make the skin come off a bit easier. Are you cutting the feet off and then skinning or trying to get the skin down far enough and then cutting the joint?

Other than that, sometimes when skinning something it won't simply pull off, it's easier to pull on the skin and gently use the sharp knife to cut the skin away. I would slice straight down the leg and then work down and outward from that cut, if that makes sense.

I skinned these b/c they weren't my easy / peasy NN. These guys had feathers that had feathers!!!! Insane amounts of feathers!!! I did not scald. I cut the feet off then tried to pull off the skin over that joint. Getting it to the joint was no problem, just over the joint and off the leg. I did end up cutting most b/c I couldn't pull hard enough, but that mutilated the end of the leg, still very edible just less "pretty"

 

[Tomtommom]

It's interesting to me that between here and a rabbit forum I'm on, most of the posters seems to be women. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm a little put off by how many women say that their husbands can't stomach the processing of the animals.

I'm sure back in the day when people processed all or almost all of their own food, most men did a fair amount of killing and gutting animals. All part of the whole providing for the family deal. Makes me wonder where we've come as a society.

Women are the ones dealing with the vomit, the poop and all the other nasty stuff that comes out of kids. We cook and clean and do laundry (which can be downright nasty). We know what needs to be done and we do it. Not that we don't have our reservations.

That said, the gentlehearted "trophy wife" isn't going to post on a meat thread

The kind that has a few pretty chickens in an Eglu.

My husband helps me with the killing, but I prefer him to be out of the way when I'm cleaning the bird. He likes to look and take pictures and that's ok, but his 'help' is usually no help at all.

(We're in the South though, lots of guys hunt here.)

 

[Kassaundra]

It's interesting to me that between here and a rabbit forum I'm on, most of the posters seems to be women. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm a little put off by how many women say that their husbands can't stomach the processing of the animals.

I'm sure back in the day when people processed all or almost all of their own food, most men did a fair amount of killing and gutting animals. All part of the whole providing for the family deal. Makes me wonder where we've come as a society.

I think it is whatever works for individuals or families. I KNOW I don't want to be cast in the role of the dependent housewife, barefoot and pregnant, waiting for my man to come home to give him his slippers and have a hot meal on the table. So I don't try to force him into the role of the man must go out and kill food and be the archetypal "man's man".

We have had 22, almost 23 years happily together b/c we don't expect each other to be anything we are not.

 

[ChaoSS]

Yup, I' would try the scald next time, along with using the knife to help separate the skin. Not so much just cutting the skin off, because that would mutilate it, but more using the knife to just help as you pull the skin off.

You're right though, the joints can be difficult to get the skin off. Looking at some of the pictures of chickens ready to go into the oven you see on here, I think a number of people do just cut off everything below a certain point. At some point it's not meat anyway, it's cartilage and tendons, so I think some people just cut there and remove everything from the bone.

If you are not leaving the skin on, I'd imagine you aren't baking it anyway? Baking without the skin doesn't seem to work well for me, just seems to dry it out, and if you are cutting it up and frying it or something like that then who cares if you mutilate it a little bit?

 

[Kassaundra]

Yup, I' would try the scald next time, along with using the knife to help separate the skin. Not so much just cutting the skin off, because that would mutilate it, but more using the knife to just help as you pull the skin off.

You're right though, the joints can be difficult to get the skin off. Looking at some of the pictures of chickens ready to go into the oven you see on here, I think a number of people do just cut off everything below a certain point. At some point it's not meat anyway, it's cartilage and tendons, so I think some people just cut there and remove everything from the bone.

If you are not leaving the skin on, I'd imagine you aren't baking it anyway? Baking without the skin doesn't seem to work well for me, just seems to dry it out, and if you are cutting it up and frying it or something like that then who cares if you mutilate it a little bit?

Thanks if I ever skin again I'll try and scald. But the next ones will be my awesome NN and I will pluck them.

 

[Kusanar]

It's interesting to me that between here and a rabbit forum I'm on, most of the posters seems to be women. Nothing wrong with that, but I'm a little put off by how many women say that their husbands can't stomach the processing of the animals.

I'm sure back in the day when people processed all or almost all of their own food, most men did a fair amount of killing and gutting animals. All part of the whole providing for the family deal. Makes me wonder where we've come as a society.

I don't have chickens yet and I doubt I will be raising any for meat. I have read this entire thread because I'm curious and I like to know how to do things in case I ever want to. Now, if I could talk my dad into killing them for me, he's raised chickens for meat and it wouldn't bother him in the least to kill them, but I'm the girl that plays with groundhogs, pets wild deer, and got upset when someone hit a bear near my new farm that I will be putting animals on because it was "my bear" (didn't cry or anything, was just a little sad) even though it may have ended up being a threat to my pets later.

I don't think that my boyfriend would kill the chickens either, if one was hurt he probably would, but not a healthy one.

That being said, I have no problem processing deer, my dad shoots, guts and hangs, and then I come in to help skin and cut it into managable chunks. I've been helping process deer since I was little. I guess it's all in where you were raised and how you feel about animals as a result.

 

[Tomtommom]

I don't have chickens yet and I doubt I will be raising any for meat. I have read this entire thread because I'm curious and I like to know how to do things in case I ever want to. Now, if I could talk my dad into killing them for me, he's raised chickens for meat and it wouldn't bother him in the least to kill them, but I'm the girl that plays with groundhogs, pets wild deer, and got upset when someone hit a bear near my new farm that I will be putting animals on because it was "my bear" (didn't cry or anything, was just a little sad) even though it may have ended up being a threat to my pets later.

I don't think that my boyfriend would kill the chickens either, if one was hurt he probably would, but not a healthy one.

That being said, I have no problem processing deer, my dad shoots, guts and hangs, and then I come in to help skin and cut it into managable chunks. I've been helping process deer since I was little. I guess it's all in where you were raised and how you feel about animals as a result.

I fish bees out of the pool, I catch spiders to release them outside, I have caught mice in the house and drove them out to the country, I haven't emptied the kids' pool in months because frogs laid eggs in it... every lost dog in the neighborhood knows to find me.

It's all about mindset. Don't become overly attached to what you plan to eat.

Day old cockerels are tossed out like trash, used as packing peanuts to ship day old pullets... instead I offer them a good life with a moment of "Oh crap!" at the end. I feel good about that. Deer live much, much better lives than your average meat cow. Circle of life and all that jazz.

 

[Kusanar]

I fish bees out of the pool, I catch spiders to release them outside, I have caught mice in the house and drove them out to the country, I haven't emptied the kids' pool in months because frogs laid eggs in it... every lost dog in the neighborhood knows to find me.

It's all about mindset. Don't become overly attached to what you plan to eat.

Day old cockerels are tossed out like trash, used as packing peanuts to ship day old pullets... instead I offer them a good life with a moment of "Oh crap!" at the end. I feel good about that. Deer live much, much better lives than your average meat cow. Circle of life and all that jazz.

True. I do most of that too... I even caught a 1 eyed toad at work and took him outside and put him in the grass at the cow pasture near the parking lot.

I just don't think I could actually kill them. I watched one of the videos on here of a fairly large operation where one guy killed them and let them bleed out as he went to another one, as he got to full cones he pulled them out and someone else put them in the scalder and plucker and on they went, I think I could do any of the further down the line jobs, just not the actual killing....

 

[cmchickens]

So those that skin, just how to you get the skin off the leg at that last joint, where you cut the leg off at?????? I pulled w/ everything I had, and I am not a weak person and I just couldn't get it.

I'm not sure of the proper procedure for skinning, I only know the way my dad taught me. I cut the skin down one side of the breast and pull the skin away from the side. Then I push the leg (foot already taken off at the joint) up. So the knee is bent. I work my finger around the leg, at the joint of the leg and thigh. Sometimes I need to use a knife to cut though the clear/whitish membrane. Once I can get my finger all the way around the leg between the meat and skin, I push a couple more fingers in the hole. Then, put one hand on the side of the bird and with the other pull the skin down, towards the end of the leg. It should peel off, inside out. When you get all the skin off until the end of the leg, give one final hard pull and the skin will come off over the end of the joint. That is the best I can describe it. Maybe I'll try to get pictures next time I process a bird.