Butchering Chickens

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Butchered some chickens with Team Karen and Mr had a good idea after cutting off their heads. I always was raised just snap the neck, let them bleed out even if its running around. He cuts of the head them shoves them in this cut off bottle and lets them bleed out.
There are little things like this that I think are cool that I don't/cant think of that make it easier.

[motesjm]

We have a few galvanized kill cones. The chickens go in upside down alive and the heads are then cut off. Much neater job than them running around and flopping everywhere. I've also seen people using traffic cones.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

We have a few galvanized kill cones. The chickens go in upside down alive and the heads are then cut off. Much neater job than them running around and flopping everywhere. I've also seen people using traffic cones.

LOL well as I talk to people it appears like I'm the only one who doesn't know about this! Oh well behind the power curve doing to the hick way, still thought it was cool

[thedreamers]

we use to cut heads off then put them on a board we had between two trees with nails to hold there feet to drain them an to clean them. the blood would drip into trough to catch the blood then we'd put the blood into the compost bed n stir. we would cut around the legs n pull, skinless chicken was fast n easy. pigs got everything from cleaning. friends of ours uses the small traffic cones and a pair of sharp loppers. different ways for different people.

[motesjm]

. different ways for different people.

For sure. The important part is getting it to the plate. We used to hang them from a ladder with tie wire to bleed out. I saw the kill cones on a YouTube video and got a few so we could do several birds at once with out the splatter.

[Karen]

We don't let the chickens flop around after their heads are cut off. That would bruise the meat and let dirt and bacteria into the wound. We chop the heads off on a chopping block, then drop them into a home made cone to bleed them out. The heart is still beating after the head is chopped off, so bleeding them out is never a problem.
The home made cone is just a plastic jug with the top and bottom cut off. A plastic bucket catches the blood and entrails. It's a simple system but it works well and it's cheap :-)

[Grand58742]

Gee, where did you find pre-wrapped chickens for slaughtering?

:D

[motesjm]

BTW, what breed are you slaughtering?

[Matt In Oklahoma]

BTW, what breed are you slaughtering?

I'd have to let Karen answer that. I don't know the breeds. I know hogs n cattle but not chicken breeds. I was told this one and that one LOL and I don't even think I looked, just went to work.
They all taste like chicken :D

[Karen]

They are just plain old red broilers. If you want the broilers that grow really fast you can raise cornish cross broilers. I *think* those are the ones that are supposed to be ready to butcher at about 8 weeks. But they can also have broken legs and other lamness issues if they get too big and you don't butcher them early enough. I haven't tried those but maybe someone else here can tell you more about them.
The chickens we have been butchering are about three months old. I have a second batch of red broiler chicks that are about a month younger than this first batch.

I also have some chickens that are different breeds, but those are my laying hens. We don't butcher our laying hens as long as they are laying eggs :-) The layers are marans, orpingtons, auracanas and rhode island reds.

[motesjm]

We've tried the Cornish x's and have had great success with them. The 7-8 week figure they give you isn't realistic though. That's with 23 hours of light everyday and all the food they can eat always in front of them. With homestead conditions it's more like 11-13 weeks. The carcass size is good and we haven't had any of the problems with broken bones, heart failure ect. I think some of that may be over hyped. The only problem I have with them is that I can't hatch them myself. That puts me in the hole $3.00 per bird from the start.

We've also butchered our RIR roosters at around 15 weeks. These had good tasting and textured meat but they were fairly puny compared to the Cornish X's.

What I'd like to find is a good broiler that I can keep completely in house. I wouldn't mind if it took several weeks longer the the Cornish to grow out so long as it had a good meat yield.

[Karen]

I'm going to try to keep one or two red broiler pullets to see if they will lay eggs for me. If they do, I will put the eggs under a broody hen to hatch some broiler chicks. The chicks would be a cross between a maran rooster and a broiler hen, so I have no idea how long they would take to reach butchering size.
There are several breeds that are suitable for both meat and eggs. You might want to research them to find the ones that will work best for your needs. The only ones I have experience with are orpingtons. They take longer to mature, but they are bigger than rhode island reds, and they are reasonable egg layers. Unfortunately, because of their larger size, they don't do really well if they get too hot. I have had several friends here in Oklahoma tell me that they lost their orpingtons to the summer heat. I haven't lost any of them yet, but I know it could happen.

[MustangGal]

We have raised and butchered a couple different batches of Cornish Crosses. Last time we ordered from Hoover's Hatchery http://hoovershatchery.com/baby-chic...-broilers.html

They have the best prices I have found, unless you get them at Tractor Supply when they are just wanting to be rid of them at the end of chick days.

Eight weeks was a very reasonable time table for us. I had planned on butchering at nine to twelve weeks, depending on size, but they were huge at eight weeks and really needed to be butchered. I think we would have had store-sized birds at 6 or 7 wks. I ordered 50. They sent 52, and I think we ended up butchering 49. So, they did quite well.

We butchered a barnyard mix rooster that had a problem with one of his legs, I think he might have been stepped on as a little chick. He was four weeks older than the Cornish Crosses and there was no comparison on size. The drumsticks were tiny. Two drums of my 8 wk old Cornish X's are plenty for a grown man!

Cornish X are great. They grow freakishly fast, but they are not GMO as many people think. They are a proprietary 4-way cross with Cornish being the known element. It is definitely intensive selective breeding, but not other genes spliced in...

For me, the big drawback on Cornish Xs is I cannot recreate my own. Next year, I am planning on working on creating my own strain of Cornish X. I am thinking of using Delaware, Cornish, Australorp, and something else... not sure yet.

[Karen]

MustangGal, that sounds great! I have enough broilers for this year, but I will look into the cornish crosses at hoovershatchery.com for next year.
What feed do you give them?

[MustangGal]

I just fed chick starter from the local feed store (their brand, but it is a Kent product). Then switched to grower. At first, I let them eat all they wanted, then when it was closer to butchering we would have feed out 12 on/12 off. Well, it usually wasn't exactly, but fairly close.