So I got up around 6.30 to find that dh had been up for an hour, setting up the area to process the meat birds. :drop: He is one motivated guy.

I'll take pics later but he screwed a 2x6 into the side of our cow shed, hanging a magnetic knife hook for the knives, the killing cone, and a rope with makeshift "shackles" for holding them for plucking. Underneath, a big garbage pail for blood and feathers.

Then a folding table covered in a clean tarp, cutting board, thermometer, and our propane campstove with our largest stockpot on top filled with water and at the proper temp.

Compost heap nearby for easy cleanup of guts, feathers, etc. (Buried deep in a large compost pile - farm-sized.)

Learning as we go: we took away food yesterday morning. Bad idea. Them some hungry, stressed birds. You only need to take it away for 6-12 hours. So last night would have been fine. I feel bad. :eyes: We only did one and he had to run out for supplies and they are hungry.

More learning as we go: our biggest bird, the one we did first, barely fit in the killing cone. Bit of thrashing after he cut the neck (the reflexive moving - it definitely died quickly.)

I had to step back and hold my breath - watching that part was very hard for me. Dh was a trooper. I don't know if I could have done it myself, honestly.

Scalding: needed a bigger pot. Dh went out to get a large canning pot.

Plucking: time-consuming for sure. I'm a perfectionist. Dh made me stop; there are still a few pin feathers in there. I'm annoyed. :rolleyes: Also dh's kamikaze style ripping of feathers ended up with bruised and torn skin. A learning process for sure. We are gonna try the $6 DIY plucker and I'll report back. But maybe not today - he left and I didn't get to look up/detail what to buy etc. I think we need to process a few more today, clean up, and there will be another day mid-next-week (in between working and classes, I am not sure when!) and maybe we can make it and try it then.

Eviscerating: dh's job and he did it expertly. He's the cook. He made it look easy. We didn't prep the organs (giblets etc) this time around. Feel a bit guilty about that but it's the first time; we'll save them with others. Not sure how many giblets and hearts I need for stock, anyway.

Then bird chills in a tank of ice water (Rubbermaid tub, not food grade, unfortunately; I need to remedy that). Then goes into fridge. We have read conflicting info about whether you can freeze them right away or if they need to spend a couple of days in the fridge.

So, bird is chilling now. Other birds are hungry; I'm anxiously waiting for dh so we can do a couple more then give them back their food. Oh another learning lesson: hose off the bird after killing and before plucking. Ours had poop on his hocks and that was gross to work around and try not to get it on the skin.

We will have roast chicken tonight. :D I'm excited. I admit that. I was afraid I wouldn't want to eat it after going through this, but honestly? It was not that bad, at all. Of course I wasn't the one actually *killing* the bird. FYI, I will do that for at least one of them. I want to do that and take that responsibility.

This is interesting for sure. I know all about factory farming and their slaughtering but pretty much nothing about home processing. FWIW, I gotta give you props for doing this. If you're going to eat it, I really commend you for being involved in all of the nitty-gritty.

A few questions, if you don't mind.... What is the reason for withholding food? Also, how do you stun them before putting them in the killing cones? I am assuming a killing cone is some sort of funnel shaped thing you put them in for decapitating, right?

FUN!! lol I have plucked many chickens over my life time. Sometimes those chickens don't co-operate. It always made me chuckle that anyone would expect them to - "Here chicken, chicken...lay still now while I chop off your head!"

One day my mother decided goose would be good for dinner. But no one was home to help her. No trouble - those big ol' geese are usually docile enough (?). She held the goose by the feet upside down in one hand, and propped the gun in her armpit with her other hand, safety off btw since, afterall, she was aiming to shoot it in the head. At the very last minute the goose did the unthinkable and flapped his wings - apparently he had an adversion to being held upside down! His wings hit the gun which jumped downwards, forcing my mom's fingers on the trigger and she shot a hole through her foot. Not a nice clean hole but the bullet when in clean on one side and exploded out the back. Now we homesteaded so not like we had a phone and my step father was in town with the only vehicle. I wasn't home either as I was in Univeristy. So she hopped into our hand operated argo and drove herself to our nearest neighbour some 2 miles or so away. A couple of surgeries later, wheel chair, canes, insoles, and years and she was back to walking normally.

Anyway sorry for highjaking your thread. It sounds like you guys have it all under control!!

This is interesting for sure. I know all about factory farming and their slaughtering but pretty much nothing about home processing. FWIW, I gotta give you props for doing this. If you're going to eat it, I really commend you for being involved in all of the nitty-gritty.

A few questions, if you don't mind.... What is the reason for withholding food? Also, how do you stun them before putting them in the killing cones? I am assuming a killing cone is some sort of funnel shaped thing you put them in for decapitating, right?

Thanks, Michelle. If you are interested in photos of the whole process this woman has some great ones - she's doing turkey but it's the same idea. processingphotos (http://www.freetimesw.com/blueoakranch/pasturedpoultry/turkeyprocessing.htm) Warning, it is graphic.

Withholding food is so their crop and intestines are empty - it makes it easier when eviscerating, otherwise the feed would be all over the meat and get really messy.

We don't stun them before putting them in the killing cone. And we don't cut their heads off at all until they're plucked. We just grab one, walk it over to the killing cone, plop it in headfirst, pull down firmly. The bird is held in the cone, doesn't move, and has no idea what is about to happen to it. It is perfectly calm. Then we slit the throat just below their jowls on each side, cutting their jugular vein. (The link above shows this in detail.) The birds bleed out and are dead very quickly - chickens don't have much blood in them. The hardest part is the muscle reflex - they kick around a bit, even in the cone, although pulling down on the head helps minimize this. It takes around two minutes for this to subside. They are absolutely dead at this point, but it's the old "chicken with its head cut off" saying - if it wasn't in a cone it would be running around without a head. Brain is gone; it's all muscle reflex. It is the most disturbing part for me to watch. But once it's over, it's all wash, scald, pluck, wash, eviscerate, put in ice water. The birds look beautiful and we certainly have an appreciation for meat now. Trust me they have no idea what is about to happen to them when we go get one - it's total calm and then - over.

I'd say it is taking us close to half an hour to process each bird. I know some folks get it down to just a few minutes. But, we're learning and taking our time and doing it right. We are on number three right now...with breaks and tending to Jake (who is playing in a different area of the land totally oblivious). Tomorrow Jake will be at a friend's house (well, he is going over there tonight to sleep over) and we'll be up at dawn doing as many as we can of the remaining 38 birds.

Marjen, that is a great story but :drop: your poor mom!

Notes on plucking: we got a turkey fryer ($80, ouch) to heat the scalding water in, and it's going much much better. We also upped the temp to 150* from 130* and the feathers are coming out much easier. I swear I needed tweezers for the first one! So now it's going great.

I'm more than happy to answer questions...I know a few folks have wanted to know how this pans out, and I'm happy to share what I know and learn.

really fascinating and the utmost respect

Thanks for answering my curiosities. I appreciate it. :)

I checked out the other link.

As much as I respect the honesty, I realized that I really really really should not be eating poultry. I couldn't do it myself, and it's heart-wrenching to me.

Thanks for answering my curiosities. I appreciate it. :)

No problem!

I checked out the other link.

As much as I respect the honesty, I realized that I really really really should not be eating poultry. I couldn't do it myself, and it's heart-wrenching to me.

I don't know that everyone who can't do it themselves, shouldn't it eat. Not saying you should still eat it - I think you need to decide that. I think everyone that doesn't do it themselves should *know* what's involved, and why you would want to buy from a farm like that in the link, instead of from the supermarket.

It was intense. I don't want to diminish that. It was reverent. We spent a lot of time learning, setting up their space, feeding and watering them, and learning how to do this. In the end every moment up to the end was peaceful and very much like the life of a chicken should be (except for the fact that they are genetic freaks - and we'll be doing some kind of heirloom bird next time, because that is what breaks my heart).

Aww :(

I think it's fantastic that people are involved like that, I do.

I just know I couldn't - watching it in that way. The words aren't as bad, for me, as the pictures - and I can't fathom it wrapped up with the - ahem - smells and sounds, kwim?

FAR better to go that way than the other options, but I think I need to take a serious look at what our diets have contained lately and make a shift back toward the things that I can feel good about.

You know what, my hat is off to you, that you DO eat meat, are raising it yourselves and butchering it. IMO, if you're going to eat meat, doing it that way is the absolute healthiest way to do it.

With that said, I'm a hypocrite. I'm also so close to becoming a vegetarian.

I think 1/2 hour is a great time. My friend and her hubby do it and I seem to recall it takes them a lot longer.

Have you considered skinning them so you don't have to pluck or would you have to, anyway? Also, would you be willing to show some pics of the birds now that they are cooling in the refrigerator? It always amazes me at how much healthier home grown birds look than what we can buy in the store. And we these broilers? If so, how old were they?

Thanks for humoring me. :-) I talked to DH about raising a bunch of roos and we actually have a processing place HERE that will do them, but DH says he doesn't think he could eat birds that we've raised and knew where they came from.. Which seems silly b/c at least you know where they came from, what went in to them, etc.

Okay, that was a beautiful turkey. :-( The worst part for me to see was actually the compost bucket with the head on top.

thanks for sharing lauren. we are raising our first chickens this year, just for eggs (well, hopefully one day we'll get some to survive long enough to lay eggs, another story though...). it's our five year plan to move to a little farm though and i would really like to raise our own birds for meat too. i appreciate reading about you all learning to do it.

i have a question though, do you try not to love the birds you're going to eat? we only have a few chickens so far and we all LOVE them. i know i couldn't kill and eat them. do you just start with a different mentality for the broilers?

I was thinking of you today. I didn't get chance to get on line and send you well wishes before I traveled on a day trip. So glad to get on tonight and read this. :)





Then bird chills in a tank of ice water (Rubbermaid tub, not food grade, unfortunately; I need to remedy that). Then goes into fridge. We have read conflicting info about whether you can freeze them right away or if they need to spend a couple of days in the fridge.




I've read too that "aging" for 3 days is a good idea...for...why? I can't remember. for muscles to soften again, is that it?

Sandi, i sure wouldn't feel badly about not being to get into this. I always defer back to the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. Everyone USED to have a specialty...it's the respect and understanding of the trades (and process) that got lost in our history. :hug:

If there's any amnt of respect restored, people are more careful with their choices...and less likely to be wasteful. THAT right there, imnsho, is progress. yep.

i think i just became a vegetarian. I was fine till the intestines part.

Lauren, thank you for sharing. It was interesting, just as Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was interesting, but I'm over yonder with Sandi and her tofu! ;)

Reading this thread is very reminiscent of a debate between a friend and me back in college - the debate where we both ended up vegan afterwards. :hahaha:

Just a quick note - withholding food isn't necessary. We never do. And we've never had what's inside the intestines or the crop on the meat. Perhaps it's all in how you take out the insides? Anywho... just wanted to let others know that you don't have to withhold food from the animals. My kids and I do the internal stuff, the youngest I've had was nine, doing chicken after chicken, and even then, no inside stuff getting where it shouldn't.

Rhea

way to go! Meeshi I also wanted to add tha by putting the chicken upside down in the cone the blood goes to his head and makes them weary too.

Lauren our CSA has a whizzbanger :lol: or somehting like that for plucking! It workd wonders in just minutes!

thanks for sharing! Well done, Lauren and family!
Rhea thanks for your practical input. Very cool you don't need to withold food.
THis has been interesting as dh and I are definitely going in this direction. IT has been a fabulous education to get a peek into your lives ..those of you who are living it.
:)

Have you considered skinning them so you don't have to pluck or would you have to, anyway?

We did consider that but we wanted to use the skin and be able to roast them. Now that we have the temp and time right, the plucking is not that bad.

Also, would you be willing to show some pics of the birds now that they are cooling in the refrigerator? It always amazes me at how much healthier home grown birds look than what we can buy in the store. And we these broilers? If so, how old were they?

I will take some pics today - I'm gearing up to post on my blog. Yes these are Cornish x Rocks, fast-growing, and they are about 7 weeks old.

i have a question though, do you try not to love the birds you're going to eat? we only have a few chickens so far and we all LOVE them. i know i couldn't kill and eat them. do you just start with a different mentality for the broilers?

Yes, we did. First of all there were 50 of them to start. We didn't spend a lot of time loving on them or looking for personalities or anything. On top of that, they are your standard "meat birds" - they look very very different than laying hens. Big, white, with huge legs and broad breasts. They don't have as much personality as laying hens - I don't know why. They really don't. They're pretty much just eating machines. They don't forage much for grass, or scratch around like "normal" chickens. They just lay around, too fat to move, and eat feed and drink. It's kind of gross, actually, and why next time we'd like to try an heirloom breed that's a little more like chickens ought to be as far as behavior and growth (might take more than 7 wks to get to butchering size, but that is okay). (ETA I have pics of them at Flickr: bodhimama's Photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenware) if you're interested in what they look like - I haven't taken pics of them in a few weeks so will take some today of them full-sized.)

Rhea - thanks for letting me know that about withholding food. That was one thing we read consistently in the 3 or so sources we consulted, so we did it. But it's nice to know we don't have to; it makes life easier. Dh was the one who was very adamant about doing that for yesterday's job, and doing it 24 hrs before, and I felt terrible and wanted to be done fast because they were looking for their feed.

TulaneMama - A Whizzbang chicken plucker would be very cool. They are like $1100! :drop: Seriously, though, now that we have the temp right, it's not bad at all. We also got something called a "pinning knife" which you run along the skin, sort of like a straight razor, and it pulls out all the little pin feathers. Plucking is time-consuming but I don't mind it. Especially on the scale we're doing.

I will take pics today as we go (no early rise for us, Jake is at a friend's but we went out and had a couple of drinks last night and are pooped! and a little slow this morning, we don't drink often anymore) and I will post a big update w/pics on my blog and will stick a reply here when I do.

Thanks for all the thoughts and input; this has been a great thread.

We haven't done any more yet - Sunday was a wash, and we've been too busy the past 3 days. Just set up the 12x12 canopy so we can process in the rain tomorrow (or dh can while I'm at work) before another busy weekend.

So we had roast chicken last night for dinner and again tonight. It's incredibly flavorful, texture is amazingly firm, it's insanely moist and fork tender, and overall it is the best chicken either of us have ever eaten, bar none. Did you know that factory chicken is usually watched in 20 washes of chlorine bleach water before packaging? Ugh.

Dh made a pan sauce from the drippings w/rosemary and thyme that we grew; we had polenta (not homegrown but we are growing flint corn for it this fall) and salad from the garden (nasturtiums, sugar snap peas, sun gold tomatoes and romaine). It was wonderful!

You seriously have me inspired. I watched a couple of youtube butchering vid's yesterday. I really want to do this...just not sure if I can. I was talking to the kids about it and they said they wouldn't eat *any* of it. I said then you need to become a vegetarian now b/c you eat other chicken all of the time and that's even less healthy than eating meat that we KNOW where it comes from!

Just not sure I could do the actual butchering. I was trying to find someone local willing to do the butchering if I split the birds with them.

Mt. Healthy has 200 fryers for $36 right now! I'm thinking broilers might be the way to go, though, simply b/c they grow bigger quicker and you can butcher sooner.

I am seriously at such a different time in my life. I never thought I would/could do this. I'm still not sure I can do the actual butchering, either, to be honest. Chicken is seriously the only meat that I can eat any more, though (which is odd considering what our pets are). So...hmmm...I wish someone nearby had chickens and for this reason so I could try it there just to see if I could actually do it. KWIM?

Also, saw this home made butchering station on BYC. Pics are graphic, but that's a very cool (and cheap) set up!

BackYardChickens Forum / My homemade kill station in action (pics) (http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=75677)

I swear when we do another batch I'll take pics of our setup. It is sort of similar to the one you posted, even simpler though, just the kill cone (we bought one, no road cones available and we didn't want to mess w/sharp metal edges making one out of flashing) on a board that hangs out over a garbage pail to catch blood/feathers. The board is nailed to the side of our cow shed (storage right now, no cows in it). There's a couple of screws and a string w/bungee cord type ends to hold them while plucking. Then the turkey fryer w/water in it is working *great* for scalding.

Last year I walked away from a 7 dollar clearanced (90% off ) turkey fryer at home depot. I absolutely didn't have a need for it and didn't buy it. I'm kicking myself now.

Now I have a million uses for it of course.

Lauren, I'd love to see a snap shot of your set up....even if it's not in action. :)

Good luck! It is very hard, exhausting work. We always put ours directly in the freezer.

you know I am late in the thread but I have to appreciate your commitment and hard work. It is a lot easier to run down to the grocer than to be self sufficient. When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a city girl... apartment and taxicabs etc... bah haha! As a wiser and definitely older woman, I look at things a bit differently and think that the burbs in comparison to homesteading is still very citified. I would be just fine with my white picket fence and farm house, though the reality of its lifestyle is not just sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. Kudos.

Thanks for all the kudos! Most go to dh, who put in such a long day on Thursday processing chickens so we could go to a music festival for 2 days (so they would not run out of water). He said he did it so long that when he shut his eyes, he saw scenes from processing - you know like when you play a video game or surf for hours. Not too good, LOL. But he handled it well.

Katie - we kind of set things up for processing then take them down and put them in the garage, so there's nothing to photograph now. But when we set it up again I will. It's been raining, yes more rain, we got a couple inches at the festival and I can't even walk in parts of the garden without sinking into mudholes. Hopefully it will clear up soon and we can finish. We did all the cockerels; just hens left (they were smaller).

We're averaging 5 lb 10 oz for a cleaned and plucked bird. Pretty big! I had to run out and find 2-gallon ziplocs as they are too big for 1 gallons.

oh,no rush here...just if you happen to think of it. :)

No problem! Just didn't want you to think I'd ignored you. :)

A side note: Katie watched, and helped eviscerate one. It must be the inner scientist in her; she was very curious.

We didn't take food away for the 2nd round and it was fine; a couple had very full crops. Dh couldn't believe it; said they were the size of baseballs. Made it a bit more difficult to get that part out but not a biggie.