Butchering Time!

Today we started butchering the chickens. Just the ones we put in death row last night.  The process goes as follows:

Step 1: Get two chickens from death row and place in the killing cones, head first so that their heads stick out the bottom.  Grab their head and make two slits right below their ears (above their ears because they are upside down).  This will sever the two main arteries and they will bleed out.

Me and two chickens bleeding out in the cones.

Step 2:  After they have bled out, we scald them in 142-152 degree water to loosen their feathers. Any warmer and the skin and fat will begin to cook, any cooler and the feathers won't get loose.  When the feathers come out without any effort (usually around 1 minute) they are ready for the plucker.

Getting ready to dunk them in the scalder

Chickens in the scalder

Step 3:  When the feathers come out easily, place them in the chicken plucker.  With the hose running, turn on the chicken plucker and hose the chickens down as they spin.  In 30 seconds they will all plucked.

The chicken plucker ready for action

Click on the video below to see the plucker in action.

Step 4: After they have been plucked, we bring them over to our stainless steel table to remove the innards.

Our butchering table

Step 5:  After they are all cleaned out, we place them in a cooler filled with cold water to start the cooling down process.  After we finished all 10 for today, we bag them in grocery bags and put them in our refrigerator overnight to allow them to cool down and for the rigor mortis process to set in before freezing.  They have to rest for a day or else they will not be as tasty.

Today's work

Closeup of chickens

Tomorrow we will do 10 more.  This is all the room we have in our refrigerator each day for chickens.  If we had another fridge, like we used to have in the garage, we could do more in one shot. Oh well, tomorrow's another day.