Butchering day...yech! (Warning: Graphic description!)

[Beekissed]

We skin ours, Roosmom. We stopped eating chicken skin long ago, so we felt "What's the point in leaving on skin we will peel off later?" It makes it easier, especially for someone with no automatic plucker. Plus, the thoughts of eating the skin of these broilers would be repugnant to me....they were so dirty looking, with feathers worn off the breast bone and the skin was so thin in places that it tore with your hands.....ick-factor again!

 

[roosmom]

If you do a search on yahoo for the word "pithing"
it comes back with "scrambled brains". eeeww
anyway, OH can skin, I just dont know how that would work with, say......stuffed chicken and stuff.

 

[Beekissed]

If you do a search on yahoo for the word "pithing"
it comes back with "scrambled brains". eeeww
anyway, OH can skin, I just dont know how that would work with, say......stuffed chicken and stuff.

Cooking bags can be great!

 

[farm_mom]

Thanks for sharing this beekissed. I've read a lot of contradictory stuff on pithing over at BYC. Yet even when it's done perfectly and properly, it strikes me more as a way to render a bird less combative than an actual killing method. Perhaps used more as way to make the job easier for us to deal with emotionally, than actually better and easier on the bird. And it seems if you get it wrong, it goes really wrong. I don't think we'll ever be trying it.

 

[Farmfresh]

Pithing or sticking has never worked for me either!

I usually just take feet in one hand and head in the other and pull. Then I place the dead bird in a 5 gallon bucket to flop. I have never made the investment in a killing cone, but they would probably work great as well.

What would I do without the old 5 gallon bucket. So useful for so many things.

If you want detailed directions on how to clean a chicken you should look at the article in my "Practical Tasks" section of my website. The article is entitled "Cleaning Your Chickens - Bring the Best to Your Table". Here is the link http://ubuilderplans.com/?q=node/29


One important thing to remember when cleaning chickens or any other animal is to give them a day or two to chill - before freezing - to allow them to age so they will be tender.

Farmfresh

 

[TanksHill]

Someone told me once that if you swing a chicken around by its feet, in a big circle, it would pass out. Is this true? If so could you cut off its head while it's knocked out. Skip the whole flopping thing? Or would it still flop?

Sorry for the newbe question. But I have allways wondered. G

 

[farm_mom]

Someone told me once that if you swing a chicken around by its feet, in a big circle, it would pass out. Is this true? If so could you cut off its head while it's knocked out. Skip the whole flopping thing? Or would it still flop?

Sorry for the newbe question. But I have allways wondered. G

My dad likes this method. They don't "pass out" per se....it's more like a calming trance. And once the head is chopped off, there will still be flopping.

 

[TanksHill]

I guess thats not too bad. That way they would sit still for chopping, No? Then I guess you through them in the 5 gallon bucket?

 

[dacjohns]

I just butchered 12 extra cockerels Saturday. I was thinking about pithing but didn't.

I haven't followed the thread on BYC but from other research I got the impression that pithing is to relax the skin muscles (or whatever) to make plucking easier. Even though the bird is brain dead I think you still need to bleed it out.

I do the jugular cut while they are hanging by their feet. Still flopping around though. Someday I plan on trying killing cones.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I just butchered 12 extra cockerels Saturday. I was thinking about pithing but didn't.

I haven't followed the thread on BYC but from other research I got the impression that pithing is to relax the skin muscles (or whatever) to make plucking easier. Even though the bird is brain dead I think you still need to bleed it out.

I do the jugular cut while they are hanging by their feet. Still flopping around though. Someday I plan on trying killing cones.

this is what we did, although I held on to them while they were flopping. i suggested to hubby that we could use something, but they didn't flop too much. and we skinned ours, so we weren't concerned about the plucking (obviously).