Standard equipment for processing?

[feff94]

I have processed a couple times and it has evolved every year! So what do you all need when you process?

 

[bj taylor]

i'm hoping you get some action on this thread. i would love to read the answers.

 

[AZBootsie]

I just use a sharp knife, a big canning pot and an old paint bucket to catch blood.

 

[bj taylor]

haven't done it yet. i'm planning on 1. killing cone. 2. super sharp knife. 3. turkey fryer set-up for scalding 4. an ice chest for cooling 5. several buckets 6. processing table of some sort. 7. bowl to collect body parts for stock 8. twine to tie the bird's feet 9. bags to hold processed birds

am i missing anything?

 

[feff94]

This year I am planning on making a drill style homemade plucker, so hopefully that will go well, also I use food saver bags and vacuum seal them.

What kinds of bags work best for freezing?

 

[beckyjo]

This year I am planning on making a drill style homemade plucker, so hopefully that will go well, also I use food saver bags and vacuum seal them.
What kinds of bags work best for freezing?

This is my first time with meat chickens too. I have plans for everything except the plucker. Ordered the intructions for the Whizbang plucker, but have run out of money after buying all the other necessities. What is the drill still homemade plucker? sounds interesting! much cheaper I assume?

 

[wsmoak]

A table at waist height is very important. I did a few rabbits on a regular outdoor table and my back was killing me afterwards from bending over.

My table is made of hardware cloth and 2x4's. I got the idea from a rabbit processing video on YouTube, and I like the way it keeps the carcass from sliding around, and keeps everything clean. After 2-3 birds if the flies are bothering me from the bits that fall through to the ground, I just pick it up and move it.


A very sharp knife to cut the throat.


I use Wusthof kitchen shears [these] to do almost everything else. They have a little notch at the base that helps when cutting off the head, etc.

Killing cone. (I need to make more, I only have one...)

Small bucket to toss offal into while eviscerating.

A trash can with a lid to store the offal, placed some distance from your primary processing area.

Garden hose with a spray nozzle. Extra credit if you rig up a foot pedal or knee activated valve to turn it on. My wrist/forearm got tired of squeezing the sprayer.

While I have an outdoor propane stove, I switched to a bucket heater to heat the scalding water. My stove has high pressure burners, (it's intended for water bath canning) so there is no low temp, it wants to BOIL the water. Unless I have someone assigned to babysit the stove and keep the temperature right, I prefer the bucket heater.

Large aluminum stock pot for scalding.

Rotary plucker and drill. I just ordered the Whizbang plucker book and hope to make one of those someday.

Melon scraper (cheap substitute for lung scraper)

Large cooler and LOTS of ice. (But keep the ice separate so you can layer birds and ice.)

shrink bags and a separate stock pot to dip the bags. (This does go on the propane stove because it wants water that's almost to the boiling point.)

Hanging scale, notepad and pen to record weights. (I weighed them after bleeding out.)

Hay string/twine to hang them on fence posts while waiting their turn. More killing cones would be better.

A plan to dispose of the offal. I buried it last time, and that did NOT work. I used post-hole diggers and buried it 2+ feet down, and some creature dug up every single hole. And then it did it again after I filled them back in! I hear you can compost it, but that seems even _more_ likely to draw unwanted creatures.

-Wendy

 

[feff94]

I found a YouTube video that explained how to make a chicken plucker that you can mount on a cordless drill. I will post when I am finished.