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RE: Broilers

walls0stone:) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 05:30:49 GMT

I found that it's a better tase when you don't do the old, hack hack thing.
I had 50 birds to do. So I made kill cones from coffee cans (plastic). I would stick the bird in the can, head poke'n threw a hole, then with a "zip click" box cutter, I'd slit the artery in the neck. the birds just doze off.. no fighting or fussing. much better meat. by the time the chicken even knows it most of the blood is gone and it's the blood that caries the adreniline (sp?) that gives meat a bad taste. holding a bird down on a stump, try'n to grasp both wings ect all this makes the animal excited and that produces bad meat.

I no longer pluck, I skin them out.

RE: Broilers

AmberRandall — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:45:40 GMT

Very pleased to have the time to share with you

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RE: Broilers

JohnnyAd — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:09:43 GMT

Figured I would chime in here :) I did my first bird about a month ago. To kill it I put two nails in a stump about an inch apart. I put the chickens neck between the nails and pulled the feet out while the nails held the head.

One quick swing with a sharp hatchet took the chickens head off. I held it out away from me while it bled out and did a few twitches. I have to admit before I swung the hatchet I did hesitate for a second. But my hand went faster than my brain did so it was over before I could really dwell on it.

As for plucking it was really easy. I had boiling water with some dish soap in it (Found the instructions on the net) and after dunking I was able to easily pull all the feathers off. Wing tips were the only "hard" part.

RE: Broilers

MrsKK — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:59:45 GMT

Last year, I decided to butcher some cockerels that we had from a batch that a couple of hens hatched out. They were dark birds with white skin and when I tried to pluck them, they were left with some dark discoloration under the skin. I thought they would dress out better if I skinned them, but I ended up having to pluck a bunch of feathers in order to get a good hold on the skin to pull it off. It was a lot of work to skin them, too, and took much more time than just plucking them.

There really isn't much equipment involved in butchering chickens - a big pot for the water to scald them and a heat source to keep the water hot and a good, sharp knife. Anything else is optional.

RE: Broilers

gatorgar55 — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:18:17 GMT

Do any of you skin your chickens instead of Plucking. I thought that might be a good thing because i am not ready to purchase the plucking equipement and scalder.

RE: Broilers

BarrowsFarm — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:05:53 GMT

I have raised Cornish Rocks for the freezer every year for almost five years. I do all of my own. I use a knife to sever the jugular as they hang upside down in a killing cone. I let them "drain" into a pan and then remove them. I dip them in hot water to remove the feathers...rubber kitchen gloves actually help a ton with this step and then I remove the inards. The first couple I did where a little squimish of my belly but then it just goes along. After they are cleaned out, I spray them out with water removing anything left. I drain them and then vacuum pack them prior to putting them in the freezer. It takes me about 15 minutes per bird now. I am killing one, removing it, killing another and then leaving it until I finish with the first.

This process isn't as bad as what you think and most butchers around charge between 3 and 8 cents per pounds. I am around the Binghamton/Ithaca Area and I would say average price is about 5 cents per pound.

RE: Broilers

farmgirl11 — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:38:03 GMT

Hi!

I am a 4-H member and I have been raising chickens for a while now. We usually get our broilers around the end of March and raise them until our county fair in the beginning of August. Right after the fair we slaughter them ourselves for our buyers. We usually feed them broiler mash from our near by feed mill. We keep them in a movable pen on the ground and move them about every other week. If it gets hot you should offer shade so they do not get stressed. By fair time our birds are usually around 10 pounds.

RE: Broilers

Patty48836 — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:14:46 GMT

We have raised the CornishX from McMurtrys too. With the good Purina feed we had to cut back on feed to have them not get too big for the fair. That was 8 weeks which is what we had planned. With the proper nutrition they are ready in 6 weeks and to me that seems more profitable. Looking forward to getting started again this year but learned some big lessons in our first attempt to raise birds for the fair.

RE: Broilers

chickenlady — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:18:03 GMT

We began raising broilers this year. We butchered our first group at 7 weeks and they were all 6# or more. Our second group was 9 weeks and the third group was 12 weeks. We chose the largest birds each time, except the last batch when we butchered the remaining. Some birds are just slower growing but finally reach a nice size. The last batch had some that had put on quite a bit of fat and should have been butchered sooner but due to weather and my husband's work schedule we were unable to butcher when we wanted. All the chickens were 5# or more and they looked beautiful in their shrink bags! We pasture our poultry Joel Salatin style and use killing cones to restrain the birds and slit the throat avoiding the windpipe and they bleed out very nicely. It took a bit of practice to get the throat slitting down and it's certainly not a pleasant task but the end result is delicious! We found that the larger all round cones were more difficult for the birds to back out of than the flat back cones and prevented injury from a bird flopping out onto the ground after the throat was slit.

RE: Broilers

fanky44 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:55:45 GMT

been killing them each friday morning before work. Get 2 at dawn for weekend meals...don't need to freeze them if you don't kill them all at once.

Use Ax, CHOP, then just hold them around the body for a few moments and when they stop, go get another one. Thye will spazz out if you let them go. Don't realy care if they go nutts, but it can spurt blood all over the driveway

For turkey (thinking holidays) we put them into a feed sack with a hole cut in the bottom for the head to go through. Then tie up the end of the sack. CHOP and the bird, who is to strong to hold onto once he thrashes....can be let go to do whatever he/she will do. The bird can't get his wings up to realy thrash in the bag and won't dammage the meat.

RE: Broilers

MrsKK — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:21:22 GMT

Like James, I hang my birds by their feet. However, I cage up the birds I am going to butcher the night before. So I hang the birds for about 10 minutes, which in effect gets them pretty tranquilized.

I cut their throats, rather than cut off the entire head as they hang. I was originally taught to chop off a chicken's head, and place the bird in a bucket, but found that they battered around so much that they ended up getting bruised in the process and some even broke wings/legs.

I buy the Cornish cross roasters from McMurray. I butcher my fryers at 10 weeks, and my roasters from 12 - 16 weeks, as I get around to it and as they get large enough to be nice roasting birds. And when I get tired of shovelling feed into them!

RE: Broilers

James — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:02:27 GMT

My prefered method of dispatching chickens is easy on you and the bird. Go out very early before they get up and moving. Have a length of rope draped over something with loops in the two dangling ends.. Go get the bird while it is aleep and slip the feel into those loops. Now with the bird hanging up side down cut its head completely off with a sharp knife. If your quiet and easy up till the cutting sometimes the bird doesnt even wake up enough to know whats happening till its over. If you try wringing the neck and dont know how you may not get the job done, those necks are tougher than they look. I like my method because in my expirence it is the fastest and most humane method I have tried. Oh..and they cant run around if you hang em up first.

RE: Broilers

quickchic — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:53:43 GMT

wringing the neck? so you just shake the bird realy hard?????

I've never had birds before. New at this. Do they run around like they say or is that a story?

RE: Broilers

Gallus — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:23:20 GMT

Upstate NY Plattsburg, Cornish x Broilers

What is your Method?

Not in my area, so I don't know any slaughter facilties near you. They shouldn't be too difficult to find, if you put in some effort.

There are many strains of Cornish X. You'd have to ask the people you get yours from what their average slaughter age is. The 6 to 8 weeks is still a general all around average for most strains.

What is my method of what? Slaughter? I have most of mine done for me, but when I do it, I use the ax. Some like the knife through the brain. Others, the simple neck wringing works for them.

RE: Broilers

quickchic — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:05:13 GMT

Upstate NY Plattsburg, Cornish x Broilers

What is your Method?

RE: Broilers

Gallus — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:06:29 GMT

There are several variables, depending on how and what you feed, and the strain of birds which you have, but most are at the optimal slaughter weight at between 6 and 8 weeks. They will still continue to grow after that age, but after that point, feed to meat conversion slows considerably, and you are feeding much more feed to produce much less a percentage of meat, so it's not worth it, economically. There are also other considerations about keeping them after that time, which are not in the bird's best interests. As a terminal cross, they are not intended to live much past that age.

There are many places which do offer custom slaughter, if you don't want to do it yourself. Without stating your location, it's impossible to give you any suggestions on where to go. You'd have to check the organic "regulations" of whichever organization you choose to follow, to determine if custom slaughter and freezing is still within the realm of what they consider acceptable, but neither will change the quality of the meat much. That is mostly determined by what you feed and how you raise them.

Broilers

quickchic — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:48:17 GMT

How will I know when the Cornish rocks are Done growing?

Do people do this some place? or must I (ick) butcher them just before they to in the pot to be organic?