Tell me a bit about your set up when you butcher, please.

[mama24]

You'll get faster. I have only had dual purpose layers until this spring. It took me almost 2 hours to do one bird the first time I did it. I did my 4th bird, first CornishX last night, and it took me about a half hour from start to finish. I do it all myself. I think it wouldn't take me much longer to do several birds at once if I had a good set up. As it is, I put a nail in a tree, tied the legs together, slit the throat, and hung the legs on the nail to bleed out. Then I took it in the house to finish up everything else (I had a large pot with me to put the bird in so it didn't bleed everywhere during transfer.) I wouldn't want to do more than maybe 3 at a time in the house, though. I think it would get too messy with more than 3. I had a very easy cleanup doing just one. Just a few stray feathers and lots of blood on my sink. And I had to hose of the tree and the ground right there to get rid of the blood.

 

[BarefootMom]

We did 22 chickens on Saturday- took me and my husband around 3 hours from kill time to freezer

Supplies needed:

Chicken Plucker
Hot Water Bath Canner--used for scalding
kitchen stove
small table
double basin washout tub
garden hose with sprayer
bleach
2 knives
large cutting board
5 gallon bucket
freezer bags
sharpie marker
2 people

We did the chickens in 3 rounds.

Killed 7 chickens by stepping on their heads and pulling (not the most humane but it works--be sure to be wearing rubber boots)
After they bled out we took them in the house and scalded them
Take birds back outside and turn on plucker-hold chicken over and pluck feathers.
Take to sink and rinse and get anymore feathers you see. Drain water and rinse again.
Take to cutting board-cut neck off and save, cut out craw- make a slit in butt and pull open chicken- remove insides. Be sure to cut the butt off. Cut legs off. Rinse out in clean water. When ready dry them off as best as you can, put in freezer bags, label, and put in freezer. Start over.

The last 8 chickens we cut up and I canned the chicken breasts- froze the wings and thighs, and used the backs and all the necks for broth.

this little video shows our plucker and shows the setup at the end. Video quality isn't that great since it was taken with my digital camera. not my video camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A70oCCs56Hs

Hope that helps. And FWIW I didn't know didly squat about processing before we started-but it really wasn't that bad and seemed like a breeze once we got started.

 

[ngamtnman]

I've only done 7 birds total so far (3 and then 4 a few months later), but plan on processing 40-50 this fall. It took 2 of us 4 hours to process 3 birds the first time and only 2 hours to do 4 the next. I think the most important things about your set up is getting the scalding water the right temperature and having sharp knives. I think next is having a good area setup to do th gutting, etc. Someone recently gave me an old cast iron double basin kitchen sink, so with it I'm going to build a chicken processing cart. I plan on building it big enough to where I can gut, cut the birds up on a built in large cutting board, wash, weigh and bag all from that one spot and put it on wheels so I can tow it around with a lawn mower or atv.