Butchering Chickens

[MossRoad]

This reminds me of the Smothers Brothers' My Old Man song....

My old man's a cotton pickin finger lickin chicken plucker....

The Smothers Brothers - My Old Man - YouTube

 

[forgeblast]

Pastured Poultry Profits by Joel Salatin has the killing cone in there he also talks about making a plucker.

 

[Chilly807]

I remember when I was first married, our landlord had 2 apartment buildings (6 units each), grew and sold Christmas trees, and raised chickens and turkeys for market. His wife kept the house and drove a school bus on the side. Interesting fella, to say the least. Anyway, I went to pay the rent one time, and Cedric had one hand all bandaged up from a turkey beheading incident with an axe. Egon will appreciate this, it was on the south shore of Nova Scotia, so the accent was hilarious...

Me: "Cedric.. what in the he** happened to your hand?"

Cedric: "That darned ol' tuuuurkey pulled his head back whilst I was a-cuttin' it off!"

Me: "That'll learn 'im!"

Sean

 

[Tororider]

If done right, your father in law's way is supposed to make plucking feather's easy.

I prefer to just pull the head off and then stuff into a cone to keep from bruising the meat flopping on the ground.

I am right handed so I just grab the birds feet in my left hand and straddle the back of the neck with my right index and middle finger slide them down till they reach the skull close my hand and stretch the bird out while rolling my right wrist forward and down,at this point you will feel the neck vertebra separate just continue stretching until you have a head in your right hand and a headless chicken in your left, stuff in a cone and grab the next bird. If I had someone to hand me the birds I could have done 10 in the time it took me to type this.

Have fun--J

You're either a really slow typer or a really fast butcher.

 

[Egon]

I remember when I was first married, our landlord had 2 apartment buildings (6 units each), grew and sold Christmas trees, and raised chickens and turkeys for market. His wife kept the house and drove a school bus on the side. Interesting fella, to say the least. Anyway, I went to pay the rent one time, and Cedric had one hand all bandaged up from a turkey beheading incident with an axe. Egon will appreciate this, it was on the south shore of Nova Scotia, so the accent was hilarious...

Me: "Cedric.. what in the he** happened to your hand?"

Cedric: "That darned ol' tuuuurkey pulled his head back whilst I e feerwas a-cuttin' it off!"

Me: "That'll learn 'im!"

Sean

Awh, I'm a "From Away" South shore resident.

Turkeys got hung by the feet, had a weight hung on their beak and then a knife in the brain.

 

[DT86]

You guys need to see this... Polyface Farms Poultry Processing


From their website: Polyface, Inc. is a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

 

[J35]

You're either a really slow typer or a really fast butcher.

Neither ,but I can get a chicken dead and bled out pretty quick

--J

 

[IkeRoberts]

We always used the stump with two nails driven into it in the shape of a v. You grab the chicken by the wings pulled together behind the back. Lay them on their side with the head between the nails. Chop the neck with the axe. Drop them in the metal cone to bleed out. Grab another. We also dipped them in boiling water to loosen the feat5hers. Boy did that stink!
Used the same method for ducks and made czernina(duck's blood soup).

 

[joshuabardwell]

I saw someone that had two nails sticking out of the cut end of a piece of log standing upright on the ground. One was straight and the other was about an inch and a half away and bent at a 90 degree angle. He would put the chicken's neck between the two nails, then twist the bent nail until it was over the neck and against the other nail. That locked the chicken down to the wood. He held the body with one hand and then he chopped its head off with a hatchet.

That's more or less what I do. I have a board with a nail in the end and a noose of twine coming off the nail. I put the chicken's head through the noose and pull it taut, but not so taut that it is choking the chicken. Then I hold it by the feet and cut its head off with a hatchet.

 

[Frank Surber]

I'm not much of a chicken eating person don't much care for them like eggs though but chickens are about the cheapest, quickest and easiest meat crop to raise. Particularly if you have enough land to allow them to be mostly range fed. Range fed chickens don't taste as much like chicken, I guess is the only way I can describe it.

For those who use the ax method with the nails & twine or other means of securing the head if you do very many at a time like several dozen or 100s you might think about constructing a chicken guillotine. Nothing more than a large block of wood with 2 grooved slide channels and a sharpened drop weight some sort of simple pull pin trigger. That way you are sure to never miss and have better control over the bird to place in the metal cone for bleed out. Remember to collect as much of the blood as possible as it makes great catfish bait when mixed with soured grain dough balls