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

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: My dad used to, wax in the hot water pot and I sure hope they process duck a different way now! I can still smell duckwax! gagggggg

I am praying someone comes to buy all these baby ducks I just hatched too! OMG

 

[fisherlady]

hmmmmm interesting! Gosh I took so much for granted! lol Thank you so much for sharing!

What age were these birds?

The ones listed on my butcher post were 6 and a half weeks old.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Chicks whens the day scheduled now?

 

[Sally Sunshine]

I may not be taking my two OE roos to auction or processing! (DH just had surgery and will be down for a month or two so I am not doing it alone with children, no no no)
Anyways, I listed them free on CL and a guy emailed he wants roos for his 12 hens! I hope he gets them as they are spoiled boys and very friendly too!

 

[fisherlady]

I may not be taking my two OE roos to auction or processing! (DH just had surgery and will be down for a month or two so I am not doing it alone with children, no no no)
Anyways, I listed them free on CL and a guy emailed he wants roos for his 12 hens! I hope he gets them as they are spoiled boys and very friendly too!

fingers crossed that they can go to a good home... good roos deserve flocks for themselves!

 

[Alaska Fowl INC]

We processed a few of the meaties on Sunday, we picked 4 who were either very large already or seemed lethargic and were cause for concern for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) We isolated them early in the morning in a crate covered with a sheet and placed out of the sun and away from the coop area so it was quiet.
We had all of our equipment gathered and used a couple of coolers to prewash and chill the birds in. As Sally said, prewashing the birds in warm, soapy water with bleach added sure makes for a cleaner process over all. So once the birds were bled out they went from the cones to the prewash cooler.
Birds resting in the crate....

We used an outdoor fryer with a black canning kettle for the scald water, it is very touchy for controlling the temps though, so you have to keep it very low and use a thermometer to get an accurate temp. 150 worked for us. The cooler with the warm, soapy water is seen here to the left.
Our cone stand, we also use a nail into a tree to hang the cone on if we are only doing one or two rooster culls... The birds can bleed into the black tub but for the initial cut we hold a coffee can under their head until any muscle contractions are done, Our stand holds 8 cones, but we only use 2 or 4 at a time usually, especially since it is just the two of us doing the processing.

Tub plucker with hose attached. Works great for processing multiple birds, but hand plucking works fine if you aren't doing a large number of birds or you have a few helpers. This falls under the 'convenience' list rather than a necessity list. Can be rough on the birds if you aren't doing 2 or 3 at a time, it seems to work best that way.

The kettle set up, needs to be a stable/flat area out of the wind for best control over temps.

a couple of must haves for us.... very sharp knives and a nylon rope with a slip knot set up on either end for looping over the feet (another pic of the hobble set up below)


After dispatching in the cone, the bird is taken direct to the prewash...

A close up of what I call my 'hobbles'... this allows you to firmly keep control of the bird and be able to swish it around in the pre wash and then the scald water without having to get your hands near the water. It also provides a good way to carry the bird from cone to wash to scald to plucker, etc. Their legs can be slippery and it is worse when your hands are wet or tired. They hobble I made is one piece, so you can hang the bird from it simply by hooking the rope over something and we used it to weigh the birds before and after processing.

A squirt of soap in the scald water and a few swishes was all it took. I overdid the first one and it caused the skin to tear. Submerge and swish a couple of seconds and then check to see if the wing feather pulls out. When a wing feather pulls out without problem then you are ready for plucking. Also, if you have any unusually large birds leave them till last so you don't overflow the water and end up having to reheat fresh water to bring it back to being deep enough for the other birds (you can just remove a few cups of water to lower the level so it doesn't over flow with the large birds) . It only took a few minutes with this set up to heat the water, but it would still be a pain to have to stop the process because the pan over flowed.

Toss them in the plucker and let it do it's job...

The majority of the feathers flush out into a pile for clean up later.


Here is the big fellow processed. He was 10 lb 2 oz live weight, and dressed out at 7 lb. We use a fish fillet table to cut up the birds, we place a 5 gallon bucket lined with a garbage bag under the hole in the table for handy disposal of parts while we are working. and have the hose there for quick rinsing of bird and table.



The birds are currently resting in our spare fridge, will package probably tonight. The big one we will bake like a turkey on Thursday probably.

As a reference, most of the birds were between 7 lb and 7 lb 8 oz pre process weight. After process they were in the range of 4 lb 12 oz and 5 lb 2 oz. Very nice birds for only 6 1/2 wks old.

That is some nice looking birds there.

SIR!
I was gonna purchase the plucker...just to make things easier...But the wife seen the price and to ship...was close to a $1000 once it made it to me (Fairbanks Alaska)

She convinced me to just pluck...Hmmm
I got 28 birds to do...

I might try two weekends. Let the slower ones go a week longer Memorial Day weekend will be 9 weeks.... I figured it will be about $8.32 a bird feed wise. That is more than the local retail store get for "So Called Free Range Birds "

Those seem to be about 3 to 4 lb birds..I am hoping for 5 to 6 lb when bagged
.If i wait much longer ..it will be cutting into my salmon season...I am gonna have these guys gone well before then. They take much more work than my layers.They eat & drink 2 to 3 times much.
Salmon Season you ask..?

This yr I have a chance to work a friend of mines dad's fish wheel.

.In the Copper River.
So no more standing on the slippery rocks tied off to a rock for safety< NOT ME
If you ever tried smoked salmon .<MINE I SMOKED

Then you will love Copper River Reds....Best stuff in the world..I have some and will trade. Is that ok to post here..?

If not Let me know how to do it.



Does anyone know where to get those quick dip shrink bags for birds? I Have been doing a search and coming up with the wrong bags

.

 

[fisherlady]

That is some nice looking birds there.

SIR!
I was gonna purchase the plucker...just to make things easier...But the wife seen the price and to ship...was close to a $1000 once it made it to me (Fairbanks Alaska)

She convinced me to just pluck...Hmmm
I got 28 birds to do...

I might try two weekends. Let the slower ones go a week longer Memorial Day weekend will be 9 weeks.... I figured it will be about $8.32 a bird feed wise. That is more than the local retail store get for "So Called Free Range Birds "

Those seem to be about 3 to 4 lb birds..I am hoping for 5 to 6 lb when bagged
.If i wait much longer ..it will be cutting into my salmon season...I am gonna have these guys gone well before then. They take much more work than my layers.They eat & drink 2 to 3 times much.
Salmon Season you ask..?

This yr I have a chance to work a friend of mines dad's fish wheel.

.In the Copper River.
So no more standing on the slippery rocks tied off to a rock for safety< NOT ME
If you ever tried smoked salmon .<MINE I SMOKED

Then you will love Copper River Reds....Best stuff in the world..I have some and will trade. Is that ok to post here..?

If not Let me know how to do it.



Does anyone know where to get those quick dip shrink bags for birds? I Have been doing a search and coming up with the wrong bags

.

Hi, thanks for the comments...

We got our plucker at a discount because it had been used at a demo and the fellow didn't want to truck it home. So took a bit of the pain out of the payment, but is still more of a 'want' than a 'need' for most home processing uses. There are plans that can be bought for a rather simpler 'home made' version if you are mechanically inclined. I think it is called the 'Whiz bang plucker', if that's the wrong name I'm sure someone can correct it.

Our birds are already cutting into camping season, and walleye season starts to really heat up on Erie soon, so we are glad our meatie flock is about ready to finish out. Figure about 30% loss from live weight to bagged weight. That isn't exact, but gives you an estimate to work with for target weights.

Your salmon season looks like it would be a real adventure! We love to fish, though chicken projects have been cutting into our fishing time. At least now our chicken projects are starting to put as much meat in the freezer as our fishing!

Can't help you on the shrink bags, though I'm thinking we will be looking for some in the near future also. I think they talked about the suppliers for them earlier in the thread, try doing a search on bags in the 'search this thread' block above....

 

[Wax Myrtle]

Alaska Fowl, I will trade you all my extra ducklings for some of that smoked salmon! OMG, that looks tasty....

I have seen shrink bags, but for the life of me cannot remember where. I use plain bags as I process for my own freezer only.

The fish wheel looks cool. Is there a weir involved?

 

[fisherlady]

Found it!
I knew it had been discussed earlier in the thread!
Try this site.
I think it was also mentioned that Meyers hatchery sells them too? So check with probably any hatchery that sells the meat birds and I've recently seen an add for pluckers and scalders and other processing equipment in the right hand column of these pages, so anywhere that sells butchering supplies probably carries the bags also.

I ordered my bage's from this place called http://www.cornerstone-farm.com And the labels too the bags are sooooo easy to use it literly takes 2 seconds in boiling water or 180 no longer or you will start to cook the bird . you place the order and check out thru pay pal and the order ships pretty quick .

 

[tadpole98]

processing day is saturday.. The cornish cross are getting so big they are dying.. only week 7!! Gonna go ahead and do it before they all die. At the same time I have to process all of my other roosters from separate batches except for 5. I cant choose!!!