We processed our broilers...

[aggieterpkatie]

I grew a batch of broilers for my sister (who lives in NC) because she doesn't live in a chicken friendly area. She came to visit in early August and we processed them. It was our first time processing them at our house. Last year I processed them at a friend's place.

She blogged about it, so I'm going to give y'all a link to her blog. We made most of the equipment, so I'll post a few more pictures later (sometime this weekend hopefully).

And I just got another batch of 56 chicks in yesterday. It's starting all over again.

Here's her blog post about it!

 

[noobiechickenlady]

Woohoo!! Fresh, mostly free-ranged meat. Yum yum

I really like the yarn at the top of her blog. Very spiffy!

 

[Mackay]

I bookmarked that blog page!

Some questions... I thought cornish crosses only were good up to 7.5 to 8 weeks. Yours were 11 weeks! That surprised me, and that they were not collapsing all over the place. Do you think this has to do with how you fed them or free ranged them?

You had some kind of device/machine to help get the feathers off.. couldn't figure that part out from the blog, Can you tell us a little more about what that is and where to get one?

thanks

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Cornish X get a bad rap for outgrowing their bones, which can definitely happen. BUT, with proper (or different) management, they can do just fine. I limit-fed mine, which helped. I didn't starve them, but I didn't offer them free-choice feed because I knew they'd have to live until she came for a visit. Mine also free-ranged from 3 weeks on, so they got a LOT of exercise.

The plucker was something we made after we saw several of them in use on youtube and heard lots of people mention them. We used pvc end caps (we used 2 flat ones instead of the one rounded end because it was half the price), cut holes in them to attach rubber straps (bungees) and put a long bolt through it. The bolt goes into the drill, and you can turn the drill on and the plucker will spin and remove feathers. Honesly, it got the bulk of the feathers off, but we still had to hand pluck a good bit. I'd REALLY love to have a tub-style plucker.

My sister and I did everything ourselves. We started around 7 AM and were done by 2:30 pm, and that included clean up. Not bad for 27 birds!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

great work!!!

 

[curly_kate]

I'm totally going to have DH put together one of those chicken pluckers for when we do ours! Great idea!!!

 

[journey11]

Nice job. I've never seen a power drill plucker before. Gonna have to look into that.

Don't think I could ever get my sister to help butcher....ha.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Nice job. I've never seen a power drill plucker before. Gonna have to look into that.

Don't think I could ever get my sister to help butcher....ha.

My sister did a great job, especially since it was her first processing experience! I give her credit for at least killing one...then she let me do the rest.