When is it not cost or labor effective to butcher?

[dudefromtampa]

Have you tried advertising them as black meat birds? There are ethnic groups that love silkie meat, not sure if that's the case in your area.

In terms of pounds of meat per hours invested, you're going to come out in the negative this time for sure. But, it's experience for next time. When you have that big Maran's offspring cockerels to butcher next year, you'll be a little more polished and things will flow

Good thinking. I plan on butchering next week. WIsh I would have been able to today (it was over 35 degrees) but got sidelined with 'honey-do' stuff.

 

[dudefromtampa]

Check out this guy's plucking invention...brilliant! Would be good if you're only plucking a small number of birds, I would say 15 or less. Way cheaper than a electric plucker. I looked at the drill-mounted plucker and after seeing this guy's bucket method, I think it would be more practical, at least for my needs:

I just watched it. Gotta agree that it's a darn fine idea. But seems like a lot of labor to get the feathers off. After the guy in the video was finished, there was still a lot of feathers still on the bird. I think I might purchase that drill attachment in the near future as I plan on having a dozen or so to butcher come early Spring. But for the batch I have to butcher now, I think I'll do it the old fashioned way and just pluck them out.

Thanks for sending the link pdirt.

 

[lazy gardener]

I can tell you that if I tried that guy's bucket method, my shoulders would be ripped out and I'd be facing an other shoulder surgery before the day of plucking was over. I find it much easier to hand pluck than the effort that the bucket appeared to require. However, the drill... worth investigating.

 

[donrae]

Totally agree on not using 22 ammo--we still can't hardly find any

My honey has used a pellet gun to take down roosters, but you've got to be a very good shot. Their heads are so tiny and in constant motion. Knife or hatchet is probably best for newbies.

 

[vbob99]

i prefer a machete style blade less chance of missing even by just a little

 

[Bossroo]

I OWN GUNS !!!!!! I believe that everyone that wants to own a gun has the RIGHT TO OWN A GUN , but be aware of how powerful a weapon it is and use it properly to hunt or self defense or enjoy the target shoot hobby. I am a hunter ! I hunt all the time !! I agree with you that the misguided anti gun whacos might use this post as a promo !!! Now, I only meant this post to those newbies and unfamiliar with guns that may see the original post of using a gun to kill a chicken ( or any other animal ) to eat as it is not as close and personal to use as a knife or hatchet and not knowing the trajectory characteristics of a .22 , pellet, bb , or a .45 to not mess with that STUPID idea. Now for the reason of posting my post ... when I was 19 years old, a kid that lived 2 doors away from our place decided to butcher 4 chickens for his mother to cook for dinner and freeze the rest of the spent hens. He used a .22 to shoot the chickens .One of the bullets missed my head by inches ( YES, I heard it go by my head and dropped to the ground like a rock ) and lodged in our house siding. I called the Sheriff who tracked down the culprit and charged him with discharging a firearm in an unsafe manner. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 days to community service.

 

[osbmail]

Getting off topic

 

[pdirt]

Quote:
It may be overkill, but it's worked better for me than anything else so far. I agree each person needs to find a method that they feel comfortable with. The pellet gun I used is the hand-pump type, which are not quite as powerful as the CO2 cartridge types, but it killed the chickens quickly and surely. Perhaps if I were raising Cornish Cross, with their tinier feathers, I would have had an easier time with the knife.

Quote:
I looked at the drill method, and perhaps it works just fine, once you get it all set up properly. The way the guy did this in the video is excessively hard on the shoulders, IMO. If I were to do it, I would do it standing up and use my legs and hips to power my shoulders, it's kinda hard to explain. It would probably look ridiculous to a passer-by, but would be far more energy efficient in terms of movement. I love the buck-it pluck-it method also because it requires no electricity.

Totally agree on not using 22 ammo--we still can't hardly find any

My honey has used a pellet gun to take down roosters, but you've got to be a very good shot. Their heads are so tiny and in constant motion. Knife or hatchet is probably best for newbies.

It doesn't require a good shot if shot point blank. I would take a chicken and calmly place their head on a 1/2" piece of lumber on the ground. I would gently stroke their neck or head until they relaxed a little (some would relax better than others). Then I took the cocked and loaded pellet pistol and quickly held it at the back of their head, aimed toward the opposite eye, and fired. There was no chance of missing the shot in that case and every bird was dead instantly. I don't think I ever found a pellet, so must have been still inside the cranium of the bird. Of course, a .22 would go right through. I don't even have a .22 and even if I did, I would prefer the pellet gun with the conical pellets. I haven't tried the blunt-nosed pellets, they would probably work, but the conical ones are meant to kill rather than maybe kill/maybe stun.

As for gun safety, yeah, there are idiots out there who've never learned proper respect for guns and should either learn or never pick up a gun again. I'm not advocating anyone using a gun, unless they feel safe doing so.

 

[CrazyTalk]

The only way a 22 is going to fly that far is if someone is being ignorant and firing the gun into the air at an angle to get the maximum trajectory, firing a 22 into the ground or even on a level plane at a target will not result in a bullet traveling this distance, the ballistics of the round and the laws of gravity prevent that.
I wouldn't use a 22 simply because the ammo is to darned expensive, a pellet rifle would be cheaper.

She isn't really wrong.

A .22LR travels at roughly 500m/s. On a level plane, at 4ft off the ground, it takes .45 seconds to hit the ground, and travels roughly 700 feet. If you point it at 10 degrees up, we're talking a vertical component of almost 75m/s, and it's going to take multiple seconds before it hit's it's apex. With nothing in it's way, it's going miles. It doesn't take someone pointing it up to the sky for a bullet to go a really long way.

There's really no reason to use firearms on your chickens.

 

[blucoondawg]

She isn't really wrong.

A .22LR travels at roughly 500m/s. On a level plane, at 4ft off the ground, it takes .45 seconds to hit the ground, and travels roughly 700 feet. If you point it at 10 degrees up, we're talking a vertical component of almost 75m/s, and it's going to take multiple seconds before it hit's it's apex. With nothing in it's way, it's going miles. It doesn't take someone pointing it up to the sky for a bullet to go a really long way.


There's really no reason to use firearms on your chickens.

I don't use firearms on my chickens though some do and that's they're choice I'm not going to lecture them not to. You are wrong about a 22 bullet flying miles especially with a 10 degree up angle. For one thing when ammo manufacturers claim max distance to be 1.5 miles which is far enough to be a bad thing anyways but the fact is the 22 doesn't have the power or the bullet weight to retain energy very well couple that with the resistance just traveling through air puts on a bullet and your not getting a mile out of a 10 degree up angle. The 22 losses too much speed too quickly, even with hyper velocity ammo the bullet drops close to 8ft at 300 yards with standard and high velocity ammo performing much worse. Air resistance, wind, and atmosphere conditions are going to make it tough for that little bullet to fly even the advertised 1.5 miles and if it did go that far it would be moving so slow by the time it got there that it would basically fall out of the sky with little energy to do any serious damage, not that that makes it a good idea to do dumb crap like shooting into the air and see what happens but I somehow think someone killing chickens in this manner isn't going to be shooting into the air. Also the bullet is going to be slowed and likely deformed passing through the bird which will seriously effect it's ability to travel extreme distance.