Butchering Poultry

[Rick]

How to butcher poultry.

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Butchering-Ready.html

[Old Professor]

Here is how we do poultry: First get the poultry! ( We are fortunate to have a connection with an egg producer and he sells us the hens that no longer lay and the surplus rooster very cheap!)
We have a plucking machine called the "Duck Naked Plucker" which I bought for waterfowl processing, works great on chickens! We heat water in a turkey deep fryer for scalding the birds to loosen the feathers. We load up a large ice chest with three bags of ice and fill about 2/3 full of water (for chillin). We use a large plastic bin with a locking lid to put the birds into after their head is removed, to confine the convulsion and blood splatter.
The birds are caged over night before we slaughter them. We have found that the most efficent way of killing and removing the heads is with a long handled brush lopper.

First. Lop off the head and throw bird in to the plastic bin until the bird stops thrashing around.
Second: Holding bird by the feet, dip into boiling water for 20 to 30 seconds. Immediatly rough pluck the bird.
Third: Completely defeather using the Duck Naked Plcker. Place defeathered bird in cooler to chill.
Fourth: Remove entrals and cut up the cooled bird into what ever parts or form desired. I always save the hearts and gizzards (which my SIL does'nt like) and sometimes the livers.
We take the wings, legs, necks and backs and sometimes skinny breasts and make stock and can that meat in the broth. The broth we also can in pints and quarts.
I have two electric roasters for simmering into stock and two 22 Qt pressure canners and one 12 Qt pressure canner, as we also make stock and can meat from deer.

[Rick]

The first time I ever saw chickens killed I was probably six or seven. We went to my aunt's house and they killed probably 30-40. There were chickens flopping everywhere. They just wrang their necks and tossed them on the ground. Craziest thing this six year old ever saw.

[LowKey]

As a kid we kept and slaughtered chickens but always used a killing cone so they wouldn't flop around. One time we talked dad into letting us see if a chicken really "runs around with its head cut off". Well...it didn't so much run as hop and thrash around. The back yard looked like something out of a grade B slasher flick. What a bloody mess.

[Old Professor]

My grandaughters,age 8,8 and 10, love to see the chickens flop around with their heads cut off and yes, blood sprays everywhere. Thats why we throw them into the plastic tub.

[hunter63]

Marked it, Thanks