Raising Meat Chickens Q&A (part 3)

Howdy!  I’m back for part 3 of my series where I answer reader questions about raising meat chickens.  If you missed part 1 and part 2, go ahead and catch up, I’ll wait…  

The more I delve into the world of raising my own meat, the more I realize that people are actually very receptive to the idea, but they are overwhelmed about where to start.  Parts 1 and 2 dealt primarily with starting and raising the birds.  This post is more about the end of the cycle.  

 

Raising Meat Chickens Q&A Part 3

How do you kill something you raised from a chick?

I would be lying if I told you it was easy to end the life of a creature in order to eat it.  As meat-eaters, however, we have to accept that something died for our meal.  It is just easier to overlook it or pretend that meat is just something that comes from the grocery store if we aren’t involved in the full life-cycle of the animal.  

As the homesteader, it is our job to make sure that the animals are exceptionally cared for during their brief time on Earth, and that they only have one bad day.  You must also strike a balance by avoiding emotional attachment to animals that will be supper.  (This is the main reason we don’t process our older laying hens here at Green Eggs & Goats.)

No, really, how do you kill it?

We begin every processing day by holding hands as a family and thanking God for the lives of the chickens and the nourishment that they will become for us and our family and friends.  At our house, this is a very important and non-negotiable part of the day, as it goes beyond our typical, blessing before a meal.

Once we are all set up and prayed up, my two oldest children go and catch a chicken each and carry it to the deck where we will be doing the work.  We have a kill cone similar to this that we fashioned out of an old sheet metal sign from Eric’s work.  Old bleach bottles can also be cut to work.  The chicken is placed upside down in the cone and their jugular vein is cut with a very sharp box knife.  They then rapidly lose consciousness and bleed out into a bucket.  

Here is a video from Polyface farm that elaborates on the actual cut.  Please note that it is graphic and is NOT FOR SENSITIVE VIEWERS!

What about plucking?

I can say with confidence that plucking can either be the easiest or most challenging part of chicken processing!

Before you pluck, however, you have to scald the bird.  We set up a big turkey frying burner with a pot of water, which we maintain right around 145°F.  We also add in a little squirt of blue Dawn dish detergent to break the surface tension.  Then, I place the dead chicken into the pot and move it around for about one minute.  I test that the skin on the feet is beginning to peel and that the feathers are coming off easily.  

Now for the plucking.  We processed our first batch of 25 broilers entirely by hand.  It took all. day. long.  Literally.  By the end of the day we were exhausted and all looked like we had been tarred and feathered.  The results were good, however, and it was worth the effort in the end.  

For the next batch, we used a drill type plucker similar to this.  Things moved a bit faster, but it was back-breaking work and we still had to hand pluck quite a lot of feathers.  

Finally, I broke down and ordered one of these bad boys, and I have to tell you, processing has never been so easy!  We call it “one bad mother plucker!”  It can make 2 chickens bare as an egg in 20 seconds.  It’s AMAZING!  It reduced our processing time to around 2 hours, and has opened up the possibility for us to process much more poultry in the future!

What about the guts?

Once the chicken is plucked, the feet get removed (and saved for chicken foot broth) and it is sent to Eric at the evisceration station.  He carefully opens up the birds and removes the guts.  Here is another graphic video from Polyface.  Again, this is not for the sensitive viewer.  

As we go, we save the useful parts of the guts, such as the livers so that we can use them later.  (We personally don’t enjoy eating chicken livers, but they make great catfish bait for our pond!)  The offal that we cannot use generally gets composted in a hot compost pile for quick decomposition.  The decaying parts will give a great nitrogen boost to our compost and will help us grow a better garden as we continue the circle of life.  (Cue the Lion King music…)

How do you store the chickens?

Once the chickens are chilled and ready for packaging, we place them in ziplock freezer bags (usually the one gallon type, but the occasional bird required a 2 gallon bag)  We remove as much air as we can from the bags, seal them, label them with the date and store them in the freezer.  We are also looking at purchasing shrinking poultry bags in the future to keep the meat even fresher.  

Finally, here’s the most important question of all…

How does it taste?

Well, to be honest, it tastes like chicken!  Really, we think the meat is richer and more savory than what we buy at the store.  I will admit, however, that after all the work we put into raising and processing our birds, we are pretty darn biased!  

We love the meat, we love that we know how it was raised and we love that we don’t take a single bite for granted.  In the end, that is enough reason for me to continue raising meat chickens, even if they do just taste like chicken!  

If you still need more reasons to raise your own, check out my post called Top 10 Reasons to Raise Meat Chickens!

          

 

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