Today was my first real chicken processing day. I had done a couple before but nothing serious. We got 30 day old Cornish-x birds on May 4. One died around week 4 - maybe heart attack. 3 were killed by a hawk between weeks 5 and 7. And three more died in heat yesterday. So we had 23 left to harvest.
It took my wife and I about 4.5 hours not including packaging time. I killed and plucked them and my wife could almost keep up cleaning them. It was not a fun morning, and was pretty tough on my wife, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I bought a yardbird plucker which was key. I had to hand pluck the chickens I did in the past and that was the worst part. If anyone out there is thinking of raising meat birds just do it. I haven’t tasted them yet, or even done the math to see if hat they cost me, but I can still say it’s worth it. I will update with the cost per lb and the taste once I get there. Some notes on the day:
- Get a big kill cone. I had a little giant medium and a yardbird large. The large looked ridiculous it was so big. But I ended up killing almost all the birds in it. The medium was just too small. Three birds had a wing fall through the large cone but it wasn’t as bad as them being able to get out.
- Tie their feet. I thought the cone would hold them well enough but most of them could at least pull their legs in. One was able to completely flip over in there. After that I tied them all but I wasn’t prepared with a good option for it.
- Wear clothes you can throw out. The second bird shot blood all over me. The fourth pulled his legs in the cone (they weren’t tied) pushed off and let loose a giant shit. I saw it coming but it still got my shirt, the side of my face, and head. Effing gross. At least there was a hose right there. I went shirtless after that and ended up looking like a horror movie.
Lots of other things, but those are ones I didn’t see in the YouTube videos I watched.
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