killing chickens

[wroughtn_harv]

In late January or early February TSC had a sale on chickens. So I bought some dominckers, reds and a red dot cause it was the only one. Then a bud came by and told me that TSC had the remainders of that bunch on sale three for a dollar. I called another bud and he picked up the last twenty some odd at that price. They were all broilers.

Three weeks ago we butchered fourteen of them. They were huge and the meat is fantastic.

But bud and my wife swore a blood oath on never again.

I've lost two of them in about the last eight days and it appears to me from the heat. The darn things are so big and ungainly and they seem to suffer from the heat like nothing else. And it isn't hot yet.

So this morning or tomorrow morning I'm gonna go off the remaining eight.

I'm not into killing things. Heck I don't kill the spiders or wasps around the place unless it's in self defense. I just don't see the sense in it. But to allow these chickens to just die from the heat and all that meat go to waste seems criminal to me.

If anyone has an easy way to clean these babies I'd sure appreciate the advice. What I usually do is dig a post hole about six or seven feet deep with the tractor. Then I set up a stump next to the hole. I cut the head off with the ax so that the head falls into the hole. Then I dip the body into a pot of boiling water. I pull the bulk of the feathers. I then skin the chicken saving the gizzard and heart. I cut off the feet at the stump and place the body in an ice chest on ice. I repeat this process over and over until they're done.

When I'm done placing all the parts not used into the hole I backfill the hole and go on about my business.

A bud told me to clean them like he does his ducks when he hunts. He slices open the breast area and pulls out the breast and tosses the rest. That seems like a lot of waste.

I'm only harvesting the broilers.

 

[Boondox]

Harv -- The wife and I just skin the birds; all that plucking is a PITA. We do this as the weather turns chilly (30s) in fall since a chilled bird is much easier to get the meat off the bones, but it sounds like you don't have that option.

Our method: Wring neck, slit throat, hang to drain. When drained, pinch the skin over the thigh and cut around the leg. Grab skin and pull down, trimming in a couple of places ... we can generally pull the skin right off and be done with the feathers. Transfer to chopping block. Remove wings and legs. Cut straight down breastbone about an inch. Once you can get a thumb in there it's easy to strip the breast meat right off the bone. Rather than mess with all the bits and pieces, we toss the remainder in boiling water. Boiled chicken is much easier to bone than raw. This will become soup stock.

We used to toss all the heads, feet etc in a garbage bag and make a dump run, praying all the while that the bag wouldn't tear and spill out all over the place. Now that we have a backhoe, disposal will be much simpler.

Pete

 

[Slamfire]

I have seen rubber roller like gadgets that you power with an electric drill. They've a bunch of bumps on the roller that are supposed to make the plucking fast and easy. I've never used one.

 

[bgott]

You can string a line between two trees and tie the birds legs over the line and then cut the head off. That method is best done far from anything you don't want covered in blood. It does, however, make it a little quicker. Tie them all up at once and go down the line. I've known people that picked them up by the head and gave them a spin. Those folks hate playing with knives or hatchets. I didn't really like the hatchet method, those boogers don't cooperate and it's a pain to get a good swing on something that keeps moving it's head. The line method keeps 'em from flopping around in the dirt or running off on you, it's an eerie feeling chasing something without a head. You want to do it quick so the heart keeps pumping for a while and bleeds the bird out. I've used the pop 'em in the head with a .22 method but the bird doesn't get bled out and it gets you a whuppin' when your momma doesn't have a sense of humor. I doubt you'll have that problem. I've spent many an hour plucking chickens and hated every one of them. We used the boiling water and it better be boiling or it makes the job that much harder.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Thanks for the replies. Yesterday I gave them all opportunities to come back as Mockingbirds. Hopefully they'll come back in big D and they'll be able to get revenge by harrassing those folks.

I use the axe method. A bud told me to grab the legs high, up around the thighs and one wing. When you do this the head doesn't move when it's on the block. I used the axe this time instead of the the hatchet. Much, much better.

We had the boing water. I don't like plucking. That oh dear odor gets my insides moving around something fierce. I had a bud who volunteered to help come over and he didn't mind the plucking much at all. We now have three of the fattest smoking in his smoker. This evening will be delicious.

The reason he volunteered is he runs a trot line for this weekend. He'd cleaned a shishkeepotfull of catfish. He had like three five gallon buckets of remains to dispose of. So when I mentioned I'd dug a hole with my back hoe he saw visions of white meat smoked and a problem with all them fish parts gone.

I like chickens. I have some good stories I like to tell about chickens. Mostly because the grin I get when I tell the stories slips down deep inside and makes me feel good all over more'n anywhere else.

So killing them is a personal problem for me. But these chickens were bred to be broilers. And I don't know why but when mankind messes with things to make them single featured he always removes the common sense first.

Of course that's our nature too. I like to say the good lawd created all of us equal. So when he gives someone talent he removes a corresponding amount of common sense. You just look around and I'll give you a personal guaroantee that anyone you think is real talented at something is what we'd call running the river with one oar. And if you look at those without any visible talent you'll see someone so practical that they're hardly any fun at all at anything.

One of my best buds is six feet six. I'm five eight. Occasionally he'll take a sip out of the wise [censored] bottle and mention something about how it is at that altitude. Say like when I reach for a bucket to stand on to reach something he hardly stretches to touch. I then point out that the good lawd created all of us equal. Some he made tall. Some he made smart.

Back on these broilers. All they know how to do is eat and then eat some more. I've lost two of them to the heat lately and it ain't even hot yet. They're just too fat. So I was stuck with having dumb birds die on me one or two at a time or killing them and using them for food which is what they were bred for.

Have you ever been around an aquariam and noticed how all the fish are just getting along real fine? Then one of the predators like an oscar or a bass seems to send out a hidden signal that only it and the feeder fish understand? Then all the feeder fish get real nervous? Then after the predator has fed everything's kewl again?

Well once I made up my mind that I was gonna kill them broilers they got real nervous around me. It was unlike they'd been since the last time when I killed fourteen of their brethern.

I wonder if the government will give me a couple of million to codjudtate about this and then write a report...........

 

[MReeter]

My Inlaws used to raise Broilers,and for years we would help out on butchering.My wife had the best technique of killing Chickens you've ever seen.

Would catch two at a time,holding them by their feet,would step firmly on the heads,and in a quick jerk,off would come their heads.

The birds would then "run around like a Chicken with its head cut off".Would bleed out very well,and then the cleaning would begin.

I know this all sounds pretty gross,but that's the quickist way I've seen it done,and we have cleaned in the 1000's.

 

[wasabi]

bgott wrote: <font color=blue>I've known people that picked them up by the head and gave them a spin.</font color=blue>

I read somewhere that was also used for rabbit. The author called it <font color=red>"showin' 'em London"</font color=red>

We had ducks as kids and had great fun chasing them all over our neighborhood. Never showed them any city except St. Loius.....we took them to a city park that had a lot of ponds to let them go (with permission).

We've not raised chickens yet, but this thread sure is entertaining and if we ever do, we stand forewarned./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif.

 

[patrickg]

roughtn_harv, Seen the news lately? Someone has developed a featherless chicken to survive the heat better and reduce ventilation expenses while keeping weight gains up since the heavily feathered birds go off their feed when they get too darned hot. Weird looking animal, naked and RED! Still no plucking required.

In case the rubber bump chicken plucker suggester is reading. Got to be careful with things like that. One of the problems with automated chicken pluckers is that they can spread contamination like salmonella into small abraisions and tears in the skin that the devices frequently make.

Now regarding anyone's being vertically challenged... Tall isn't always a good thing, just being a bit above average results in more noggin bumpin' than is fair. What shorter folks find easy to stoop to, taller folks get back pain dealing with, etc. While I sure don't subscribe to "compensatory" theories, categorizing them right up there with "wouldn't it be nice if", never the less, I sure enjoyed your slant on describing them.

For the uninitiated, compensatory theories are the belief, not suported by reality, that if someone is ugly, they will have a terrific personality or will sing like an angel and if they are dumb as a post they will have a heart of gold or be uncannily good with animals etc. In actuality, even though there are examples to support these contentions, in the overwhelming majority of cases native abilities (important prerequisites for developing a tallent) are clustered, i.e. find someone with a couple "gifts" and look closer, likely they have the raw materials for many more, perhaps not developed or used to good advantage but present nevertheless. This insults and frustrates our desire for "fair play" so we don't like it but we might as well not like gravity, cause that is just the way it is.

The idiot savant is in a terribly small minority.

Patrick

 

[Boondox]

Harv -- On the tall vs short debate...

In grad school one of my female friends was quite happy with her short boyfriend. This tall guy kept trying to steal her away, but she wasn't interested. Finally, when he really needed to be taken down a notch, she looked up at him and said "Tall men are like tall buildings. The upper floor is mostly empty." I laughed my buns off!

Pete