Sanitation?

[Bryce Thomas]

I asked my high school AG teacher on how to butcher chickens as I have no clue what your supposed to do and he said I should be careful eating them as they could have worms and parasites. Could I get sick even if I properly cook a chicken? Also, please tell me on everything that i'm supposed to do after slaughtering the chicken. I am totally new to cooking, butchering, eviscerating and literally everything with eating birds.

 

[Kiki]

I asked my high school AG teacher on how to butcher chickens as I have no clue what your supposed to do and he said I should be careful eating them as they could have worms and parasites. Could I get sick even if I properly cook a chicken? Also, please tell me on everything that i'm supposed to do after slaughtering the chicken. I am totally new to cooking, butchering, eviscerating and literally everything with eating birds.

Worms and parasites are not usually in the meat part of the chicken that gets eaten.

 

[iwltfum]

Interesting for an ag teacher to say that. I've been getting splashed in the face with raw poultry for years during butchering days, 10+ times per summer and Ive never picked up worms or parasites. If you ate some part of the digestive system raw, maybe but... please don't do that.

That being said, I have no idea how old you are. Please do your research talk to your parent/guardian, and know what you are getting into because you *can* make mistakes that might make you sick.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I asked my high school AG teacher on how to butcher chickens as I have no clue what your supposed to do and he said I should be careful eating them as they could have worms and parasites. Could I get sick even if I properly cook a chicken?

He's right in that the chickens could have parasites or diseases. So could any of your pets. You could even get something just walking on soil while barefoot. "Could" covers a lot of territory, about anything could happen. That doesn't mean it will, but it could. So learn how to manage it, don't let it scare you. So, an excellent question.

There is a real chance the chickens could have a disease or parasite. (Worms are a parasite.) Many of those parasites or diseases won't bother you but some can. It is a good warning. You are not going to catch something after it is cooked, the risk is when you are handling raw meat or even from the feathers and internals. You could get salmonella just handling pet chickens, you don't have to be butchering them to do that. Anything is possible but you'll notice most people don't get salmonella.

So how do you manage it? Wash your hands a lot. Keep your work area and tools clean as you work. Sanitize the work area before you start butchering and especially after you are finished. I use a weak bleach solution, not only outside where I work but also in the kitchen when I work with raw meat in there. A hose where you can spray water is essential to me outside. I rinse the chicken off a lot. I don't know who cooks in your family but they probably handle raw meat or fish a lot. The same risks are there with that raw meat.

Also, please tell me on everything that i'm supposed to do after slaughtering the chicken. I am totally new to cooking, butchering, eviscerating and literally everything with eating birds.

You could write a book on any of those topics. The length of some of my posts some people probably think I do. There are many different ways to do any of those things so try finding threads on here about those topics and ask specific questions about them. I can tell you how I do things but I'm sure Kiki, Iwitfum, and everybody else does some of them differently.

You can handle this.

 

[Bryce Thomas]

Thank you very much, you seem very intelligent on this subject. Do you have any info on how to skin them? I don't have a plucker. Any info on what to do after? I dont know what im supposed to do after. Thanks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

As I said, there are many different ways to do any of this. I'm sure there are articles with photos on this forum that show how some people skin them, probably different to the way I do it. Also, you don't need a plucker to pluck them, many pluck by hand. That kind of depends on how many you are doing. If you are doing several a plucker is handy. If just one or two it may not be worth setting it up and cleaning it after.

Many people leave the carcass whole, I cut mine into serving pieces and use the carcass to make broth. Some people only use the breasts, thighs, and drumstick and may cut those away without eviscerating. One of your decisions is how do you want to prepare the meat.

The basic tools you need to skin them are a sharp knife and a surface to work on. I find running to be really useful. I use poultry shears to make certain cuts where cartilage or bones are involved to keep the knife sharp.

First I remove the feet. The head is already gone. After I remove the feet I make a cut across the belly big enough to get my fingers in, then I start pulling the skin off by tearing it. One hand pulls toward the head, the other toward the tail. With relatively young birds the skin pulls off pretty easily. As they go through puberty the cockerel's hormones cause connective tissue to grow that makes skinning harder. This connective tissue helps connect the inside of the skin to the body as well as joints to each other. I find this starts becoming a factor with cockerels around 16 to 20 weeks of age. An old rooster can turn you off from ever skinning again. I sometimes use a knife to cut connective tissue.

The wings are a problem. Some people just cut parts of the wings off and don't bother. There are three sections of the wings. The first part next to the body isn't usually too bad. The second part that has the flight feathers are a pain. I use a knife to start the tear to make it easier to pull that bit off (you should see what I mean when you try it). Sometimes with an older bird I wind up cutting that entire flight feather connection off. I don't bother with the wing tip and just cut it off. It's not worth it to me.

Another hard part can be the legs, especially the bottom of the drumstick. I sometimes split the skin down at the bottom to make it easier to pull it off. Having the feet cut off helps too. Another potential hard spot is the top of the back, especially on the older birds. For some reason the skin likes to stick to the backbone. I sometimes use a sharp knife to help peel that off. Your young flexible strong hands may find some of this easier that somebody with old arthritic hands.

That's basically it for skinning. My next step if to eviscerate the bird. There are different ways to do that, a lot depending on whether you want a whole carcass or pieces and what pieces.

As for what to do after you need to age it until rigor mortis passes. That could be two days or more. You want the joints to move freely and the meat to be really limber. Some people age it in the fridge, others in an ice chest. It needs to stay cold so bacteria can't grow. You are dealing with raw meat so sanitation is important. After that, you freeze it or cook it.