tightening the feathers??

[v.cyr]

How exactly does chopping the chickens head off "tighten the feathers?...while I have seen severing the spinal column recomended if the throat is slit to "loosen the feathers"... doesn't chopping the head off sever the spinal column? ... I don't quite understand how it works.. we have always chopped the heads of, and I cant remember there ever being issues with plucking...

 

[galanie]

I've never heard that either method "tightens the feathers." Only that pithing by sticking a knife up into their brains just right "loosens" them. They're going to be just as much bother to pluck any other way.

 

[hydroswiftrob]

Just going to put my two cents in and parallel my job as a mortician for my basis.

Often times in violent deaths, there is a thing called instantaneous rigor. This is NOT the same as rigor.

Example: Suicide by gun shot: Often times the victims will have a grasp of the gun and it is a pain to pry it from them. They have yet to go into rigor, but the manor of death causes an extreme case of the tightening of muscles. This is also often times seen in car wreck victims, murders, etc.


However, little old granny who has had a great life and is at peace with the world is always very relaxed. There is a difference in the preparation of the bodies between the two.

Knowing this, I plan to dispatch my chickens in the most calm, non-violent way I can. Not because I think it is cruel to dispatch one way or another, but I know there will be a difference in the finished product of the meat.

 

[galanie]

You're probably right. But either way, there is rigor mortis that must be allowed for whatever way you do it. I've been told by a former mortician that now raises chickens that they can go through rigor mortis in the freezer, it just takes a lot longer. Or be set in the fridge for a few days first. Either way, it's gonna be there. I can see though, a more violent death causing them to sieze up some. Makes perfect sense. Personally I hold them and calm them and stuff then use the cone and slit the throat, after they've calmed back down in that. But just because it's the best way for me to do it. I feel better about it. So it's for me really more than for the chickens. I do feel that their passing is better that way. But again, that's for me. No one has lived through decapitation to tell us how it was. For all I know it's better. Seems violent to me though.

 

[v.cyr]

that might explain it... our birds are all pretty calm to begin with, and they don't usually mind being held... we handle them pretty gently and they are usually quite relaxed by the time we get to the chopping block...and we make sure that when we kill them, they don't see it coming( and the chopping block is on the other side of the house from the coop, so they don't see what happens to the other chickens we take out there)...

 

[hydroswiftrob]

You're probably right. But either way, there is rigor mortis that must be allowed for whatever way you do it. I've been told by a former mortician that now raises chickens that they can go through rigor mortis in the freezer, it just takes a lot longer. Or be set in the fridge for a few days first. Either way, it's gonna be there.

I never said it (rigor) wouldn't be there, I wanted to explain that instantaneous rigor is different from rigor. Everything that dies is going to experience some type of rigor, but dealing with instantaneous rigor is a problem that you can avoid if done properly. As for going through rigor in the freezer, I can't answer that because I always let it set in the fridge a few days first. I learned from processing and dispatching rabbits that the meat is best to let rest in the fridge before heading to the freezer.

 

[galanie]

You're probably right. But either way, there is rigor mortis that must be allowed for whatever way you do it. I've been told by a former mortician that now raises chickens that they can go through rigor mortis in the freezer, it just takes a lot longer. Or be set in the fridge for a few days first. Either way, it's gonna be there.

I never said it (rigor) wouldn't be there, I wanted to explain that instantaneous rigor is different from rigor. Everything that dies is going to experience some type of rigor, but dealing with instantaneous rigor is a problem that you can avoid if done properly. As for going through rigor in the freezer, I can't answer that because I always let it set in the fridge a few days first. I learned from processing and dispatching rabbits that the meat is best to let rest in the fridge before heading to the freezer.

Yes, I know what you said. I was just clarifying for those that might somehow, someway, think that it was a different kind.

This is going to sound really awful, so if you're easily grossed out by human mortician practices or chicken practices the same way, READ NO FURTHER.

The mortician person said that they were able to work the rigor out of bodies by working legs and arms around, and she was able to get it out of chickens the same way. And from her experience, that's what happened with chickens when she tried it. She was able to work it out of chickens the same way, but those frozen for a few months just didn't have it.