How to Process Meat Birds – Graphic (Picture Heavy) Part One

Here’s our butchering process. Well before you are ready to start processing, go over the steps in your mind and make sure you have the equipment you will need for the job.

The Gman lit a fire in the woodstove down at the barn. We put a canner full of hot water on there to boil….we want 160 degrees minimum (not Much Hotter tho).

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We used a sharp cleaver, and put the chickens on a wide stump. Wide because if the stump or block of wood isn’t wide enough, they can fall off later.

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We took the birds one by one. I held their legs while the Gman had hold lightly of their wings, holding them close to their body.

Laying the bird on the log and with me in the back holding the legs together and the Gman holding the top wing down with one hand, in the other hand is the cleaver and when we lay the bird down, its natural inclination is to put it’s head down. Down goes the cleaver.

It’s important to hold onto the bird – maybe for one minute. We messed up last year and didn’t hold down on the wings and the result was the birds broke many of their wings.

It’s a natural body reflex to twitch and shudder, and it does have to happen, but what we want to do is minimize any damage, like broken wings or legs. This time, by holding the bird down the way we did, we only had one broken wing in the birds we processed.

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OK, after the twitching stops, the bird can be hung to bleed out for several minutes. You can see we did 5 birds at a time.

Don’t be too quick in taking them down, but too slow will result in some rigor setting in. We did 5 because we figured we could get them plucked before the rigor came, and we did.

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Take each bird and dunk it totally (feet out ONLY) for 30 seconds at 160 degrees. (25 seconds at 170 degrees. Swish it around a bit if you can to enable the water to get in amongst all the feathers.

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And as Soon as you get the bird out of the water, start plucking and just don’t stop. It is much easier to do it when the bird is still warm from the water.

Everybody has their own technique….I tend to start with the outside leg feathers, then quickly move up to the inside upper portion, then left to the breast. And work my way to the left side of the breast, then

back down over the other leg, up the back….you see what I mean? There must be lots of different variations.