Today was the day.
We've been preparing for weeks, considering it for months. Today we processed our first chicken. Beginning to end. From the chopping block to the freezer. We did it ourselves.
The rooster we processed was one we raised ourselves. We had incubated eggs and raised ten chicks for eight months. Too many roosters meant it was time to take care of a few. We had never done this before. We used the book "Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game" by John J. Mettler Jr., DVM, as well as advice from people who had done it before.
The book described how to basically slit the chicken's throat and then stab it inside the mouth into the brain. That's just too much for me. We used the old fashioned method of a chopping block and a sharp axe.
I held the bird and Sean chopped. It did flop around a lot, and made a few noises. I didn't lose my shit though. At one point it did a forward flip and I accidentally let out a guffaw.
After the bird was done dancing, it was time to scald it for easier feather removal.
We dipped the bird in a large pot of 140 degree F water for a count of 30 seconds. We then put it on an open trash bag on the table. Plucking commenced. It was much, much easier than I expected. The feathers pulled right out. The bird also had some hairs on it that we singed off.
Then it was time to remove the feet.
After removing the feet, we then gutted the bird. We made a cut just under the rear end of the breastbone down to the tail and anus. (I said anus...huh, huh, huh) Sean took care of the removal of the guts. He has processed pheasant before as a youth so he knew what he was doing. I won't describe it regardless. It was gross. Not unnervingly gross, but...yeah. We also removed the tail, which apparently contains an oil sack, which you can remove by itself if you want.
Then we put the carcass in a large pot of cold water and allowed it to cool to about 40 degrees. The instructions said this was essential.
After it was cooled, I put it in the sink and let it drain. Then I dried the outside well and put it inside of a freezer zip-top bag, and put that bag inside another bag. Then the rooster was placed in our freezer.
We did it! With no drama! The husband and I high fived each other for a job well done. Now to just tell the girls that one of the chickens they helped raise from a chick was just dispatched. They knew all along we would be getting rid of the roosters. I just don't think they thought we would actually do it.
Our chickens are raised on organic local feed and are allowed to free range almost daily.
A couple of tips...
If you are able, "starve" the bird for at least 24 hours before processing. It makes gutting them much easier and cleaner. We don't really have a place to quarantine a bird for that long alone so we didn't do that.
Also, let the bird really drip dry before freezing. I don't think I let enough of the water drip out. I checked the bird in the freezer and there is quite a bit of frozen "water" in the bag.
So...what do you think? Did we do a good job? Any other tips for this chore for later? We have three more roosters and five hens to get done soon. Anything you would have done differently?
Thanks for stopping by! I love comments!
Oh, you’re a lot braver than I am for being able to hold the chicken during dispatch! What kind of rooster was it? Obviously roosters don’t lay eggs, but I was wondering if he came from a breed meant more for eggs or meat. I hope that makes sense :) Also, why did you have to take the legs off? One of those “but the chickens at the grocery store still have their legs!” puzzles...
I’m not sure exactly what we’ll do with our hens when the evil day comes that they stop laying eggs....
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Oops! I did say legs! It's a good thing you said something. I changed it to "feet." We removed the feet not the legs. Whoops!
All of our chickens are just egg chickens. As a matter of fact, since we didn't know the breed of the father rooster, these guys are essentially just mutts. The mother was likely an Easter Egger. We plan on getting some meat birds soon though now that we know we can handle it.
Good luck with your birds! It really isn't as terrible or as difficult as it may seem. It's just the initial one that seems so daunting.
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Your a brave soul, and I am envious of your ability to do this. I want chicken's next year, and it will be a huge learning curve for me. So what do you charge an hour? LOL
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HA! Unfortunately, it's just part of raising chickens unless you want to feed them for nothing after they're done laying. ;)
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Thanks for sharing! I’m so glad you did! Sorry the comment isn’t long I did all my talking to you on Discord... haha
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Haha! I'm glad you read it and I appreciate the advice! :)
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You did it just right. It's been years since I butchered chickens, but your post brought back all the smells and sounds!
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I hope that doesn't mean it brought back bad smells and sounds! Haha! :)
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I'm looking forward to having space to raise enough chickens to feed my family with some of them, but for now, I'm afraid I just have 3 breakfast laying pets.
Is it easier to not get attached to them when there are so many of them?
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Much easier I think. It's taken me this long to name them all because I'm just now finally learning the subtle differences in the way they look and behave. We are a little nostalgic and iffy about doing some of the others, the older ones we got first. Loudmouth was the first one who got a real name. I nursed her back to health when she broke her leg (I may have also possibly ran her over...chickens are not fast). But she isn't laying and I hate to just waste feed on the ones that have stopped. We'll see.
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I get that an animal nursing home isn’t practical. And I’m all about harvesting your own meat. But when the time comes for us to do that, I want to make it as easy on ourselves as possible. As long as I only have the three, and they constantly follow me around the yard, I guess we’ll have to look elsewhere for our meat. :)
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Glad to hear the whole thing was minimal drama and that you held it together. Now that you know better what to expect, some of the 'mystery' of the process is gone and it will make it more 'normal' after this.
Well done!
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Exactly! It should go much smoother next time. Plus I've gotten some great tips to help out with the process so that's good. Thanks, @aunt-deb!
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Great job! Make sure you keep those feet! They are an excellent source of nutrition and they add rich flavor and gelatin to soup and broth...
Have you ever herd of a "killing cone"? We switched to that and it makes the killing so smooth, clean and quick. You can make one out of a plastic one gallon jug.
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We discussed a killing cone, but never thought to make one from a gallon jug! We tried looking for a used traffic cone, but in the end we never got one and decided to just get it over with by chopping.
I didn't keep the feet! Oh no! I will next time though! I did think about giving them to the dogs but I was afraid of the bones.
Thanks for stopping by, @schoonercreek!
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Wow great post never saw this process done before. @gardengirlcanada you need to see this if you want chickens next year, or hire @hethur240
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Good work! You did great :)
The method we use to kill is neck breaking, seems to do the trick.
It is super unnerving when they just keep on moving for so long!
This past summer we processed 25ish meat birds in two evenings, my husband did the killing and I did all the cleaning. It was a really different experience. Before that we had done a few roosters but this was so many at once... Not fun but really a useful skill and I'm so thankful to know the animals my family will be consuming lived happy healthy lives.
We plan on hatching out chicks and culling the extra roosters for meat now, maybe we'll get some meat birds again but who knows.
Take care,
@amymya
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We might get a few meat birds now that we're okay with this. We've looked at Freedom Rangers, because Cornish Cross make me uncomfortable.
We have 7 more to process. I hope we can just get it done in one day.
I'm glad you stopped in. Thanks, @amymya! :)
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You can do it :) it is a lot of work but you just have to set your mind to it.
I will look at the freedom rangers for this year if we want to get some for meat, i know what you mean about the cornish cross. They are just sad and uncomforable looking little creatures.
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Good job, indeed and you are one step ahead of me. I still have not processed a quail. I have not attempted growing meat chickens and when my layers get old I give them to a local farm where there are quite a few Jamaicans who work they and they have NO qualms with butchering an older bird and are happy to have them.
For me the quail seemed the 'gateway' bird into meat processing because they way they 'remove the heads' in the videos I've seen look humane and doable that I MIGHT be able to do it. And you can also skin them so I wouldn't have to pluck them (though you lose all the good fat from the skin, but I'd pluck some for a special occasion maybe)
So, good on ya. An important step in the homesteading process!
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I've heard quail were much easier. I need to watch those videos you mentioned. We'd probably skin ours too or just pop the breast out, which is apparently pretty easy.
Thanks, @donnadavisart. I hope we hear more about your quail soon. :)
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