Butchering Chickens

[WilliamBos]

Everyonce-in-a-while I take some chickens to the Mennonites for butchering. The last time I dropped some off I noticed a row of 4 or 5 cones nailed to some trees next to the lane. Its a pretty neat device and simple to make and use. It makes cutting the heads off a cleaner and safer operation, so I made one of my own.
<img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=291567"/>
Its just a coil of aluminum flashing riveted together. Stick the chicken in the funnel and pull its head out the bottom. Its quick and easy. Then, fling em out so they can flop around and drain the blood out. There are few things more satisfying than knowing that, when the economy collapses, we can process our own food.

My dad made similar for turkeys, but he put the funnel on the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. There was no way you could hold a turkey after cutting its head off."

 

[2LaneCruzer]

:stirthepot: I put a hyperlink on PETA.com to this thread. Boy! Are you guys gonna be in trouble. :laughing:

But they were free range chickens!

 

[dmccarty]

:stirthepot: I put a hyperlink on PETA.com to this thread. Boy! Are you guys gonna be in trouble. :laughing:

:laughing::laughing::laughing: You are a bad, bad, bad man!

Cutting the heads of seems clean enough. PULLING their heads off.... Oh, my. My youngest would NOT like either method.

Later,
Dan

 

[NorTracNY]

I've heard that the meat is suppose to be better without the adrenaline which gets introduced if you sever the nervous system. I used a cone and let them camly bleed out. I had two cones and that part of the process went pretty smoothly. It was so time consuming to defeather by hand though. I'll take them up the road to someone with a machine in the future.

 

[sjerden]

:stirthepot: I put a hyperlink on PETA.com to this thread. Boy! Are you guys gonna be in trouble. :laughing:

This is what you get from a permissive society catering to left-wing, immoral extremists. Me thinks I'll need a bigger cone.

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

:stirthepot: I put a hyperlink on PETA.com to this thread. Boy! Are you guys gonna be in trouble. :laughing:

P eople
E ating
T asty
A nimals :licking:

 

[Bird]

We used to use a broom handle. Just grab the chicken by the legs, put it's neck under the broom handle, put a foot on the broom handle on each side of the head, and pull. Fast and efficient. Toss the chicken on the ground and let it flop.

That's the way we, and everyone I knew of, did it. It was so quick the chicken never knew what happened; probably a lot less stress than those funnels I never heard of before. And killing one or two chickens wasn't too bad, but on those days that it was a family project to kill about 50 in one day to put in the freezer . . . well, I'm just glad I don't have to do that anymore.

 

[Egon]

A stump and a sharp axe used to be used when I was a kid.

 

[Bird]

A stump and a sharp axe used to be used when I was a kid.

I'd heard that was a good way, so I tried it once, but if you're trying to hold the chicken with one hand and the axe, or hatchet, with the other hand and the chicken moves its head just as you swing the axe . . . well, I decided our way was better.:laughing: For me anyway, your mileage may vary.:laughing:

 

[sjerden]

I'd heard that was a good way, so I tried it once, but if you're trying to hold the chicken with one hand and the axe, or hatchet, with the other hand and the chicken moves its head just as you swing the axe . . . well, I decided our way was better.:laughing: For me anyway, your mileage may vary.:laughing:

Try doing that with a 40 lb turkey. Our gobbler got too big and was smashing hens when he mounted them. Had my foot on his head, swinging the axe. He was beating me with his wings. He barely fit in the oven.