OK people. I have finally got enough birds to butcher. And still fill the orders I have for live birds. Here is the crew I will dress out two birds from this group. The birds we will be dressing out are about 12 week old. And molting a lot. Here they are. (not all birds are twelve weeks old)
Dispatching: I hold the bird firmly and just pull the head off away from me. Then hold the bird firmly. Here are two birds beheaded ready to process.
The first bird will be fully dressed out. And the second will be breasted out. First we pluck the first bird.
THis is the bird plucked and burnded off the hair feathers. Lots of penn feathers on this bird. The bird was in molt.
Then cut above the vent and clean out the bird. I use my fingernail to clean out the lung ect.
Then Push thoumb in. And lift brest away from the bird. Like this:
Cut wings off at base and pull skin off of brest. The breast willl have fat aroud the sides. Take it off or leave it on. Its up to you. I like the flavor. And here is the breast in my hand. And the dressed out bird on the table.
Sorry to take so long to get this post done. Just had to make sure I could fill my orders for live birds. I could build more lofts and produce more birds for demand. But I plan to move within about 4 to 5 years and start over in a new place with some select pairs. I would love to hear some more feed back on the processing of the birds.
Wow thanks for posting,.My dad is polish so I went to poland with him a few years ago,one of the many animals he raised with his parents were pigeons,for meat.His dad had a nice sizedpigeon loft there were like 15 pairs of birds or so and I even got to see some babies.Im very interested in raising them.Im just wondering if theres any hatcheries that will ship adults.Perferably a good meat bird.