What about the aftermath?

[cw]

try using hydrated (mississippi) lime that should cover any blood scent you would have left and is farly cheap. I say hydrated and not ag lime because the concentration of actual lime is diff. Be careful with the hydrated lime cause it will kill any plant.( like grass) and raise the ph considerably

 

[redhen]

thanks!...

 

[Salt and Light]

Quote:
In my opinion, the amount of blood from butchering chickens is very small. Even if butchering a bunch of birds, just leave the blood on the ground. It will congeal and either another chicken, dog, cat etc will take care of it.

This is pretty "gross", but my egg layers hang out when I butcher the meat birds. They will literally drink the blood from a bird that is bleeding out.

 

[jaku]

Quote:
Yeah, that's the truth- mine from the spring are still there.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
In my opinion, the amount of blood from butchering chickens is very small. Even if butchering a bunch of birds, just leave the blood on the ground. It will congeal and either another chicken, dog, cat etc will take care of it.

This is pretty "gross", but my egg layers hang out when I butcher the meat birds. They will literally drink the blood from a bird that is bleeding out.

I agree completely. We feed almost all the inards to our other birds.
They devour it. The heads and bigger chunks just go in a gabage bag.
Chickens are natural carnivores and scavengers. That's just the way it
is.

The biggest hassle are the feathers since my homemade plucker makes
quite the mess. We just rake those up and throw them away.

The blood can be drained into a bucket but we just let it go on the
ground. Sunlight/UV takes care of any splatters.

I know of no processors in CT and I have looked. My boss in Boston
takes his bird to one but they charge $5 a bird. No thanks. Processing
is part of the experience.

You may consider a smaller order at first. 25 is a lot of birds depending
on how big your family is and how much freezer space you have.

 

[willheveland]

Quote:
Lime it ... Will

 

[Southerngirl]

We have a processing table with a sink set up outside that we hook the waterhose to. One side of the sink has a drain hole that we put the wheelbarrow under to catch the entrails. On the side of the table we have nails driven to hang the birds after we kill them. We zip tie their legs together before we kill them and then hang them on the nails to bleed out. Under this area we put a half a bag of pine shavings to catch the blood; when finished we scoop this in the wheelbarrow and take it to the compost pile in the back pasture. Lime is an excellent choice to deal with any "smells" too. I also keep a jar of vic save to put under my nose when processing !!!

 

[Run-A-Muck Ranch]

We have been butchering chickens for the last 3 years now. We do it in Oct. About a week before Halloween. At the 'kill' spot there is usally blood on the ground and stump. When the birds are hanging to drain we have 2-4 holes dug for the blood to drain into. The feathers are plucked by hand onto a large plastic sheet. The end trails, heads, feet, orgins all have a place. The heads in a bag with the feathers. The neck bones, feet, and wings(if removed) go together (someone takes those for their dogs). Then the livers, hearts, gizzards go together for cleaning and someone else takes those for eatting. The rest of the end trails get tossed out. We bury everything left over. The blood drain holes are filled back in with dirt, and any extra feathers and or mess (because you will get this) is raked up and it's all buried. There usually isn't to large of a mess and in 3 years have never had a problem with preditors digging up the remains. We usually have 3-5(if lucky) people helping on butchering day. We butcher anywhere from 125-200 birds at a time and it takes about 4-6 hours to do by hand. We have speed on our side!!!(or at least I think that's fast)