Worried about slaughtering...

[reallemons1]

I heat water till just before boiling. Then I hang the chicken by the feet on the clothesline being sure they are well spaced appart and cannot hit each other or a pole. Depending on how many I have to process and how much help I have it may be as many as 6 -8 birds. With a very sharp bucture knife I remove the heads, moving quickly so not to get splattered on. I let them bleed out about 5 minutes before taking them down. They are then dunked, plucked, feet removed, and procesed. All scraps are put in a trash can and buried in the garden. Meat gets soaked in cold water a few hours before packaging.
Wouldn't stun them, might cause brusing of the meat.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

Quote:
In our homesteading book, they use the killing cone but they kill the brain directly, by driving the knife into the brain, and then severing the head after...

 

[hdchic]

In our homesteading book, they use the killing cone but they kill the brain directly, by driving the knife into the brain, and then severing the head after...

Now that is an idea I hadn't thought of....seems just as humane with less struggle/flopping.​

 

[Creek-Chub]

Perhaps not as quick as hanging them and doing multiple birds at once, but I'll give you folks the "third world" method. Learned it in Madagascar, it's simple, and it works.

Left foot on legs. Right foot on wing tips. Knife in left hand, chicken head in right hand. Slit throat, and let it bleed out. Finish severing of head, and proceed with the rest. Sounds sort of harsh, perhaps, but the folks that have problems with a "flopping" chicken may actually have an easier time with this. The flopping is kept to a bare minimum.

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

That actually sounds pretty do-able! I did one by myself and it was tough...

 

[NC chicken man]

Well yesterday we helped a friend process 75 broilers my first time and i took part in every part of the process from putting them in the cones cutting the necks scaulding putting them in the plucker and dressing them ,going to 75 more next week i thought i done pertty good ,we are in the process of building our own equipment to do our own processing here at home should be finished in about three or four weeks ,we have 150 peeps coming on the 15th and can't wait to do our own birds.

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

75 in one DAY? That's amazing - I don't know how people do it...of course a plucker would help. For me that was the longest, hardest part. Good luck with your birds!!