What plastic should I hang?

[2buckskins]

I'm planning on hanging some plastic behind my kill cones so blood doesn't get onto the wall, should I get something from home depot or will garbage bags work?

 

[95yj]

its plastic... i can't see why a double lining of trash bags wouldn't work. you may have to replace it fairly frequently though.

 

[Shireshome]

I have processed only a few times, but if the bird is in the cone and you have a tall trash can under I can not see why there would be a need for the plastic. The amount of blood is so small and they can't really move in the cone. Have you done this before and found a need for it? If so then another option would be to simply cut the throat and have someone else come right behind you with a grocery/trash bag or even a feed bag to place around the chicken until it stops bleeding. Happy processing!

 

[journey11]

I don't know, cutting the jugulars, we get a lot of spatter. I hang my cone on the side of my barn. Man, that dried blood is hard to wash off! Never thought of tacking up some plastic. For as high as I hang my cone to be a comfortable working height, a trashbag probably wouldn't be long enough for me. I keep 4 mil clear plastic on hand to cover my tables with that we work on, so maybe I'll get out the staple gun and tack a little up behind the cone too. Do we have a *duh* emoticon? Wish I'd thought of that! Thanks!

Figure you could also save up a few feed bags and use those. And they're free!

 

[2buckskins]

Feed bag's are a great idea! Thanks journey!

 

[Kudzu]

Can you just chop the head off and not worry about nicking the jugular and letting them bleed out. I have never done this before, I have no problem with slicing the head off, but I don't want to have to wait while a bird bleeds out. Again, can I just chop the head off?

 

[journey11]

There's no one right way, really it's a matter of perference. I've come to prefer cutting the veins in the neck without removing the head...also not cutting into the windpipe. I get good results getting the bird completely bled out and blood doesn't get sucked into the lungs making more mess. You don't have to let them bleed out completely, but you get better quality meat and better storage quality because blood will spoil faster and taint the meat (plus it's really annoying to cook up some beautiful fried chicken and have globs of cooked blood oozing out of the end of your drumsticks.

)

If you want to really contain the mess, there is still the English method of dislocating the head from the neck. The veins should still break and the blood will pool in a blob in the neck area. Neat and tidy really. I personally don't do it that way because it is hard to get the technique down, but done right is actually the quickest, cleanest and most humane way to do it. I saw a tutorial on it by Harvey Ussery (sp) who writes frequently for Countryside magazine. He has a blog, it might be on there, although now I can't remember if I read it in print or online.

 

[PatS]

We have been processing our chickens and turkeys for a season and a half. We usually have used a cone with either plastic garbage can liners or very old towels (which we only use for chicken chores) on the wall under the cone. (I prefer the plastic, but DH likes using the towels and he does the laundry so who am I to argue.)

Let us know how the scalding goes with the ducks. I remember my dad dry plucking after hunting when I was a very young kid, and it didn't seem to take too long.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

My home-made processing station is an old metal yard swing frame on which I bolted a board and attatched the cones. Even though it's free-standing, I still don't like to have the blood spattering around, fearing it will attract vermin or predators. So I always hold the head after slitting the sides of the necks so I can keep it from flopping around and direct the blood into the garbage can below. Even then there sometimes is a bit of a splash. If I were doing it on the side of a building I'd want to protect it too, with something easily thrown away or hosed off. You could use a shower curtain liner from a dollar store to go cheap, it could probably be re-used many times before it got too worn. I like the idea of the plastic feed sacks, tack up several as far as you think the blood might go.