Butcher Day - April 22, 2017

At exactly 9 weeks and 3 days old, our crop of Cornish Cross Meat birds were ready for butchering.  On a random sampling at 9 weeks old, their average weight was roughly 6 pounds.  On Friday evening, I lifted the wheels on the chicken tractor and slowly rolled the birds near the butchering site.  It is easy to have them nearby on butcher day so that you don't have to go get birds out in the pasture, and we've found that it is easier to set up all the butchering stations up the night before.

We've done this post in previous years, but perhaps someone new is following that hasn't seen it.  If so, this is for you!  This is the chicken tractor that is serving as the holding area.

Station 1: The Killing Cones

These re-purposed traffic cones serve as the perfect killing cone while the birds bleed out.  The rubber cone holds the birds tight to minimize bruising through any thrashing about.  We position catch basins under each cone to capture blood for the garden.  The chicken is placed, head-first, in the cone and a quick slice to the neck with a sharp knife yields of steady stream of blood and the chicken's heart pumps out all the blood in a couple of minutes.

Station 2: The Scalding Station:

This station is simply a propane powered crawfish boiling pot in which the water is heated to 145 degrees Fahrenheit.  If you note on the pot, there is a thermometer, and we keep close tabs to ensure that the temperature doesn't deviate from 145 F. Any cooler and the feathers won't come off easily.  Any hotter and you risk cooking the bird.  We don't want to cook it - just scald it.

Station 3: Plucking 

With our nifty Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker (credit Herrick Kimball), we drop the scalded bird into the plucker, turn on the switch and spray the bird with water. With a whir and a spin, feathers begin being picked off the bird by rubber fingers. This device is a time saver!

Station 4: Evisceration Station

The bird, minus its feathers, are placed on a table where the head is pulled off and the feet are cut off.  Then the bird is gutted.  What's left is a perfectly beautiful carcass.

We cut all the gizzards in half and wash them up read good for bagging.  Tricia makes a dish called Gizzards and Rice that sounds awful, but tastes great.

Here are the livers of 66 birds, cleaned up, with the gall bladder carefully removed.  We like to cook chicken livers in butter in a case iron skilleet.

Finally, we cut the hearts in half and coax the congealed blood out of the hearts.  The hearts are washed and bagged.

Station 5: The Cooling Station:

Meat birds are hot birds.  They become even hotter after scalding.  It is important to cool them down.  Once the carcass is gutted and rinsed off, the birds go into cooling tanks while they go through rigor mortis.  We keep them covered by water and ensure that the water stays over all the carcasses as we don't want flies on the meat.

We add ice to the buckets and let them age for several hours.

Later in the afternoon, we cut up all the aged birds in an 8 piece cut up, place in a gallon-sized freezer bag and freeze.  We'll eat on these delicious birds all year long. Later this week, we'll do our annual comparison where we assess the average weight of the birds, how much feed they ate, mortality rate and other key metrics in comparison to prior years.