Butchering

I was discussing the term "freezer camp" with my DH. He said that he is not plucking. I almost certainly not plucking either. Does anyone know of a reasonable poultry butcher in southern AB? 

Check with your local Hutterite colony.

That's what DH thought as well.Thanks   

You can also skin them.

this is what we plan to do. need to do it soon but thinking running water outside would be very helpful, if not close to necessary so that means postponement maybe.

Schipperkesue wrote:You can also skin them.

Amazingly it never occurred to me to skin them.

starting to investigate the skinning technique, found these links, couple pics which are what some might think of as gory.  not really but thought I should say.

http://crippledcreekmicrofarm.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/how-i-butcher-chickens-or-time-to-say-goodbye-to-the-babies/

http://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2014/01/how-to-skin-a-chicken-or-other-poultry.html

this one below is quite graphic, from cutting head off to gutting - they pluck in this one.

http://www.buildanark.net/index.php?pages/Killing,%20Plucking%20and%20Eviscerating%20Your%20Chicken.html

skinning works great but that first video is awful...he is sure ripping and tearing on the meat  makes it look a lot more difficult than it really is..you can just lay it flat on the table and it goes a lot easier on you and the bird instead of flapping it around in the air like that or hanging it from a string.  the way we do it is more like taking a turtleneck off comes off all on one nice easy neat pelt.  the trick is to cut off the wing tips before you start as it is hard to pull the skin all the way off those.  a 1-2 year old bird is harder to seperate from his skin but a young one all you need is to make that firstcut with the knife and then the rest is just slow and gentle pulling and it comes off nice and clean and all in one pelt.

^ It sure does! I haven't done anything else since miry turned me onto skinning. It's so much easier than plucking imo, and another bonus is no wet feather smell to deal with. We don't eat chicken skin anyway, so win win.  

I'm in a semi traumatised state, will recover, don't worry (I'm sure you were not worried about me, I'm more worried about me! - feel sick right now) but it is day one of rooster butchering. Never done it before with a view to eating. Have done one. I am skinning them. found I had to come back inside to refresh my memory about what and how etc. somehow the killing part erased my memory of what to do next so I did a good kill but blundered a little through the next bit. refuse to show the end result! It is chilling down in iced water. I can only get better at this . . . right? Hope so. I have these roosters to take care of and possibly if I don't recover from the process I may decide to give up raising my own chickens for meat. time will tell. anyway, looking on youtube and found these two videos which are quite graphic but graphic helps because it is important for me, the way I learn, to know and not rush through. Thought I'd put them on here because the woman is maybe (always open to interpretation :-) a little eccentric but she is undoubtedly calm, respectful and knowledgeable about what she is doing. I might just keep on with the quick chop with the axe but she does her way very well I think.

If you made everyone process live animals for their meat I think 80% of us would become vegetarians.

you are not wrong BCBoy. might get that way myself if I can't get my crap together on this. it's getting a little easier. hating it all the way but!

Don't feel too bad if your first chicken really looks like a butcher job, we all have to learn somewhere. Some birds release their skin easier than other too. The meat birds have wider body cavities, so they are easier to reach into and get the entrails out of.
We used to take forever to butcher birds. Now we have it down to a fine science. Helps to have a partner.
We also have invested in a propane heater, large pot, outside hot and cold water, a collapsible table for butchering on, several large tubs for cold water bathes and excellent knives. The $3 plastic wacky carpet killing cone screwed onto an old wooden saw horse, was hardly an investment -lol
If you want to pluck and don't have a plucker, you'll want to dunk the birds in 150 degree F water for about a 5 to 6 second count. Wear rubber gloves, and the plucking is quite fast. The rubber helps grip the feathers. My girlfriend is nearly as fast as our whizz-bang plucker. She's also self-cleaning   
Everyone should know where meat comes from....

It's not an easy thing to do but it is rewarding after the job is done.

During biology at school I did my work out of a text in the library because I could not dissect anything I was just too squeamish. Hubby is not a hunter and actually never even fished, we were soooo city!

2yrs ago we got brave and did our first try at meat birds but 3wks after getting the 50 chicks we found out our poultry abattoir wasn't going to open EEEEK! We got some help the first time and it was still rough but last year we did 83 chickens and 7 turkeys on our own. It made us not want chicken dinner for a couple days after the 4 days we took to finish the job. On the plus side we have fantastic tasty chicken cut and frozen the way we wanted. Also the idea of sticking birds in crates and transporting them doesn't sit well with me. Much better to go straight from the safety of their coop to a calm quick end. Extra roos we process as needed and just skin them. It's not an easy job but it does get less upsetting

thanks you Gals   . Am getting more accustomed. having a break - get the sick feeling out of my body. Might have to have a go at plucking one or maybe four because I thought I might smoke some and can fit four in the smoker at one time. Good to leave the skin on for that because it protects the meat, always discard the skin when they are done - too leathery and not nice by then, even though it looks delicious. I just put two nails into the chopping block, wide apart enough to put the head in and keep it steady and still, see if it is a good design for my process. My Dad just told me he does this and it is good cause it gives you a good clear approach at the neck. Hope it works good. this is a bit of a hijack of this thread, guess it is relevant to a degree.

I no longer chop the heads of, I dislocate the head from the neck. Very easy to do on young birds, get harder as the birds get tougher. If you are going to butcher chickens for a long time it is worth investing in buying or building an electric chicken plucker. I cut an old water tank in half and left the heater element and thermostat in place to control my water temperature for my dip tank.

Thanks so much for all the videos. Still not sure I would be able to kill something that I nurtured, but time will tell. The skinning looks a lot easier than I thought.

newbe enthusiast wrote:Thanks so much for all the videos. Still not sure I would be able to kill something that I nurtured, but time will tell. The skinning looks a lot easier than I thought.

I just skinned 6, year old roosters yesterday to see how it compared to using a plucker. I will never try to skin older birds again!!
You could make a cheap plucker like one of these.

newbe enthusiast wrote:Thanks so much for all the videos. Still not sure I would be able to kill something that I nurtured, but time will tell. The skinning looks a lot easier than I thought.

do you have a lot of extra birds? I only had 12 roosters (I am sure all the pro's will be laughing themselves out of their seats right about now, wasn't as if I had 50 to do!) and before next winter I will have to take care of a few of the layers who have single combs because we had a few with frost bite this winter (I need to take care of the ventilation situation in the coops too). I think everyone must internally experience this process in a different manner. I did not find it easy at all and I thought I would find it easy. I am glad to say that once again I take my hat off to the animals in my life for the learning I get from their presence. I am proud I managed to do it and believe I will feel at peace when I eat them (going to try some wings in bbq sauce tonight) but I sure did turn in to an unpleasant person for a while, I swore like a sailor to the trees, wind and pretty much everything I looked at! Just as well I don't get a lot of visitors - only the meter reader for the power arrived on one day, he came all smiles and went away a bit shakey (I didn't swear at him, he's a good guy)   .

I had to do it all myself in the end because they were my charge and project and I found I had strong feelings about how I wanted it done so I wound up on my own (might be I'm not a good team player unless I'm the team leader   ) but if you have a co-worker it will make it so much easier and faster - like auntievil says - and have very sharp tools. I found it easiest to have the bird hanging upside down for most of the skinning by securing the legs so they were separated, allowed good access to the vent area and gave me one hand to hold the knife and one to hold the skin. I was very pleased when it was over and now maybe I am wearing big girl pants, big enough that I can do this again one day - biggest learning was how I realised I take for granted where food comes from, I have a much greater appreciation for the lives involved in my food, the lives that get taken and all who participate in getting the food to the table. Guess that includes myself. Good grief, sound like a . . . insert swear word here . . . saint but really I was a cussing sailor and felt pretty ugly about the whole thing for a lot of it, might be the same if I get the courage to do it again but probably not so much. Now I appreciate everyone else who has the courage to do this because it was no walk in the park for me. I am strangely glad for the emotional bruising because the silver lining to the cloud is still good, even nearly a week after the experience. Very humbling process. Go well with your choices, wish you all the best   .

I also think I'd like to try plucking - someone in the Okanagan rents one out, saw on one of the online classifieds I look on.

Magdelan, I don't as yet have any chickens. I have ordered 22 straight run (6 buff orp, 6 barred rocks, 10 Araraucana) from Hidden. I pick them up this Easter. I am counting on having at least a 50/50 mix of hens and roos and don't require that many roos. We have decided to butcher any roos that we don't want to keep and as such I am looking at my options. I do not have a weak stomach, just a soft heart.
I guess my city is showing.
I'm going with the theory that fore warned is fore armed.
  

BC Boy, my husband loves this stuff. (he lurks here and might eventually join)
Thanks!!  

newbe enthusiast wrote:Magdelan, I don't as yet have any chickens. I have ordered 22 straight run (6 buff orp, 6 barred rocks, 10 Araraucana) from Hidden. I pick them up this Easter. I am counting on having at least a 50/50 mix of hens and roos and don't require that many roos. We have decided to butcher any roos that we don't want to keep and as such I am looking at my options. I do not have a weak stomach, just a soft heart.
I guess my city is showing.
I'm going with the theory that fore warned is fore armed.
  

oh that is a nice bunch of breeds :-). I have one buff orp and one barred rock and both are really nice girls, the barred rock lays a beautiful brown egg and the buff orpington is just so sweet in her nature, very gentle bird. So cool you are exploring before you are in to it, this is a most brilliant source of knowledge and people with a vast combined back story and consequently wisdom behind them - really a gem of a place I think. And if no one has an answer then people usually want to find one. I have used the search feature quite a few times, to see what has been said in the past, I like to see the range of ways others have dealt with things and then work out what I find a good solution. Easter is getting closer and closer! you must be quite excited.

Bless your soft heart. I phoned my Dad up one day in the middle of it all, having a coffee break (he's in NZ, was lucky enough to get him at the right time) - had a good blurt and shared with him all my tangled up stuff. He has plenty of experience with processing animals so I wanted to hear his thoughts on what he has experienced sort of thing, have absolute respect for him on this. I was quite jazzed to hear him say he felt I was absolutely qualified to be doing this job ( I felt I was totally not qualified, at all) because of my sensitivity to the process, and that I didn't just casually take the life of a creature without a care. Was really good to hear that.

Better get off my computer now, kids are chanting "one of us, one of us . . ." at me and this is a reference to how much time I say they spend on the comuter!