Yesterday we butchered our first round of Red Broiler chicken . We have 65 to slaughter , but only did 15 of the rich one yesterday .
These birds have taken much longer to raise than Cornish Cross . We got them at the end of October and they seem to take forever to fatten up . We ’ll see if the meat tastes better .
Our Butchering Setup
First , we set up a tabular array and made a killing conoid from an old plastic plant pot . The vote out cone shape was screwed to a pine tree . Then we construct a small flame and put an 8 - gallon cast branding iron green goddess on it , make full with water which we could use for scald . After that , I set up a chicken plucker we borrowed from Randall atFloraBama Homestead . We dragged out an extension cord and the hose to mesh it . We also sharpened and hone our knives .
Once the water was hot enough ( 150 level F ) , we were then quick to butcher .
Step 1: Killing Chicken
Put the chicken upside - down in the strobilus and hold him there with his read/write head through the bottom . Then , using a crisp knife , slice his throat and permit him hemorrhage out . If you do this right , you wo n’t even learn a squawk . The chicken will flop around for a while , though , as Gallus gallus are wo nt to do .
In the past I have killed birds on top of a log using a matchet . The killing strobile method is somewhat less dramatic and a bit safer .
Step 2: Scalding Chickens
Take your drained chicken by the legs and swish him around in a weed of 150 - arcdegree water . This cauldron worked quite nicely . If it was too cold , we put more stick beneath it . Too live , we spray in a routine of cold water from the hose . We twiddle the poulet around in the water for about a min .
After the crybaby is good and scald , it ’s time to pick .
Step 3: Plucking A Chicken
With a wimp plucker like this barrelful model , you just turn over the thing on and deteriorate in the Gallus gallus . Spray in water as the chicken bounces around and , if you scald right , the feathers are all off it in seconds . If your scalding time was too short or if the water was too cold , the feathers wo n’t number off easily . If you scald for too foresightful or at too hot of a temperature , the cutis of the chicken will rip off along with the feather . We had both things happen with our birds until we got it right .
We also discovered that the birds pluck better in the plucker if their metrical foot are remove first ( at the stifle ) . Leave the legs on before scald so you may defy the bird in the water , then take them off before plucking . Save the Gallus gallus foundation for origin – they make splendid broth !
In the past , we always plucked birds by hand , sometimes with friends .
This plucker save a lot of time but they are expensive . take over or share one if you may .
Step 4: Gut the Birds
Cleaning a chicken is n’t hard , but it exact some practice . You necessitate to dispatch the header and the harvest ( at the neck ) , and then slit into the abdominal cavity and take out the guts , being careful not to slit the intestines . I cut just under the rib coop first , take out the catgut carefully with my hand until the viscera are barren except the end of the gut , which attach to the venthole of the hoot . Then I thin out the whole release / tail off . We save the liver and the core to corrode later on , carefully removing the bile bladder from the liver so it does n’t break and taint the meat .
A ruined shuttle :
All that need to encounter now is for the last feathers to be pluck off the exterior and the bird to be nail out and off with the hose as a net cleansing .
Bird in foreground is about to be murder , the bird in the backdrop is finished and ready for the final dance step .
Step 5: Chilling Chickens
The last stone’s throw after cleaning is to cool down the dame in a cooler of ice water . We let them sit in cold-blooded water system for a few hours , then Rachel put the carcass in freezer bags and pack them aside in the chest freezer .
Backyard chicken butchering takes some getting used to , but it ’s a right family project . Our birds were raise alfresco on the ground and fed non - GMO provender . The integral procedure of raising and butcher is a thousand times salutary than the factory farming organisation where boo are crowded indoors on concrete and fed refuse GMO food and antibiotics before being car slaughtered and sprayed with chemicals . That wimp tastes like scraps to me and I do n’t buy it .
If you’re able to raise your own , you will taste what chicken is supposed to taste like . I could never go back .
As for the Red Broilers , I do n’t think they ’re a good financial alternative to Cornish Cross birds , time and provender - knowing , but if you had a heavy pasture to raise them on , they might be deserving it . We ’ve spent a lot of time and effort proceed a chicken tractor around for some rather scrawny birds . We ’ll keep fattening the residual for a yoke of weeks , but I am not all that impressed . I will , however , shuffle some of these larger substance - raspberry genes into some of my spate to see if we can get some fatter bird that are a decent dual - aim eccentric .
We ’ll see what they taste like , though . If they taste better than the Cornish Cross fiend , I may do them again .
Ultimately , I would like a continuous supply of chickens that does n’t rely on weird crossing processes at faraway hatcheries . That may take some breeding . The Red Broilers do n’t die of heart disease like their bloated cubic centimeter cousins , and that ’s a serious affair .
Related posts:
Chicks In the Bathtub!
The Blessing of Chicks
@The Prepper Project: Feeding Chickens Without Buying Feed
Chickens 101: Chicken Tractors vs. Chicken Coops
Clever Ways to Feed Chickens
Free Chicken Webinar – Building Better Coops!
This Little Hen Will Add Fighting Cock Chicken…
Red Jungle Fowl Living Wild
I’m done with “dual-purpose” chickens
It’s Chicken Butchering Day!
