**Sort of poll** How do YOU process your birds?

[greyfields]

When I factored in gasoline, it was costing me $7/bird until a processor opened up nearer our farm.

I know some people in the midwest pay $1 per bird. I can't fathom it. Our feed is also around $13.50 per 50# with the ton discount. Everything is costlier in the PNW.

 

[97cv]

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Thanks for your response.

 

[Leslie In North Pole]

I think the local processor ran $3.50 a bird but our feed is at $20.95 (It has gone up $5 a bag in the past year due to shipping!) for a 50lb bag, I could never justify paying the extra price to have someone else do it for me.

Now a steer, I will send them to a processors to have them hung and quartered and then my hubby does all of the cutting (he was a meat cutter for 6 years) while I do all of the grinding, wrapping, and marking.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

This has been very interesting, here are the findings so far:

8 of you stated that you used or preffered slicing the throat.

3 of you stated that you used or prefered chopping off the head with some weapon.

3 of you stated that you break the necks somehow.

1 smart@$$ Greyfields stated that he brings his birds to a prosessor

LOL

Keep it comin' guys.

 

[HillCountryMomma]

Ya know,

The cost of processing is a big factor in why we are doing it at home. There is a place 'locally' that will process for $1 a bird. Hayes Farms, and they get good reviews. But it's a couple hour drive (it's Texas... local is relative!). We were considering it, but gosh, gas is so high! I don't want to add that cost into my birds, it would double their price! Turn a $6.something chicken into a $12 one easy, and then I'm just not sure it'd be worth it.

So, we do our own.

Grey, what is stopping you from doing your own? Considering that you are doing quite a few and selling for a profit I'd think an investment in a mechanical plucker would be in line. Are you handy? Have you visited the site with directions for building your own whizbang plucker? There is the issue of the initial investment, but over time processing your own would pay off I'm sure.

I tell ya, if I didn't have to pluck the darn birds I could sure knock them out quick! I'm seriously considering building a plucker.

Liz

 

[SandraMort]

Maybe it's just me but the video of the mechanical plucker was really uspetting.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Liz,
Grey brings his birds to a prosessor because in his state he needs to in order to sell them.


Sandra,
My husband thought the same thing and that it looked awfully harsh on the meat. I thought it looked like one of those carnival rides that you stand up in along the sides and it spins while the floor drops out, just gone terribly wrong

 

[dirtdoctor]

Um... what video did ya see?

If the bird was alive, well thats NOT RIGHT! Only dead birds get plucked alive. and they are just meat then.

Ya sometimes our meat has a name too.. but well we try to get over that.

Jack

 

[SandraMort]

I saw the video that was linked from here. I'm a lousy omnivore -- I think dead bodies deserve respect, too. I didn't know how it was done before today, it just upset me.

And yes, I step over ants.

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[SandraMort]

I just reread that. Dead birds are plucked alive?

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