Putting the Laughter back in Slaughter  


Ingredients-
-Dumb chickens
-Sharp Knife
-Nervous kids
-Empty milk bottle
-Clean work area








Little tiny cut



The milk jug helps them bleed out gently and it’s easy for the kids to hold on.




This one came out and popped poor Tom on the noodle.  Tom got his revenge though-











Ben had some trouble of his own at times










Got them!




Partridge in a pear tree, or chicken in a peach tree.






I quickly skinned and cleaned one so the boys cold see what’s going on.  Then we talked about where to cut and why, and what all the parts of the chicken are.  Pretty cool biology lesson by the time we were done with it!





Tom giving it the old college try-





Here’s my technique for cleaning the birds.  I don’t like the skin so there’s no use in plucking birds, I just want the meat.

Start by cutting off the legs at the ‘knees’ and opening up the skin somewhere.  Doesn’t really matter where, just start yanking skin off.





Pull the skin off.  When you get to the wings just cut them off at the elbow and leave the rest of the skin attached to the wing and throw it away.

You should end up with something like this-





Cut down the back along both sides of the neck, about to the hips.





Both sides-




Then pull down on the neck all the way to the hips-



Should look like this-





Get your thumbs in there and peel it open like cracking a very big (and overly mature) egg.




When you open it up all the entrails in the chest will fall right out and you’ll end up with a clean breast and wing section on the top, with the hips, legs and neck still attached to the entrails on the bottom.




Guts will strip right out of the lower section with a small pull.




Now the tail section must be cleaned out, cut the top of the tail slightly




Thumbs in, strip away everything left that you don’t want.





Now you’ve got two clean halves





Here’s about 8 birds worth-





After all that work, these stupid Cornish birds make two freaking quarts of bottled meat.  Hooray.  I’ve got a dozen more Cornish that will be ready in a few weeks and I’m never messing with them again.  Full sized birds from now on.

Excellent thread.



It's not about that. You spent some quality time with your sons. They did some growing up in your presence. Those two jars are a bonus.

OK so I am just a city slicker but as a young child I remember going to my Aunt and Uncle'a in Idaho and we slaugthered their chickens and I know that they were beheaded.. So what are you doing with yours? Are you sliting their throats and letting them bleed out? I know that Uncle just put them in the board between 2 nails and then they got the hatchet. He then tossed them in a box and they flopped there for a few mins and then the ladies dunked them in hot water and the plucking began.. I have been following these threads with great interest, please keep this up...

Mgunslinger aka City Kid

Well, that's something my parents sure never taught me.

Good going dad.  Thats something I was never taught. I was not taught much of anything.... we lived in the burbs.



The kids have a new skill and you can spend lots more quality time with them skinnin' more chickens.

This picture just sums it all up, I think.

You may have just created two vegetarians, but it was worth it.

Not exactly, these were supposed to be food too.  I'm also trying to raise my kids to grow their own food, Cornish just don't do it for me.  A full day with the kids is sure fun though, for everyone but the chickens.



You can do it that way, in fact I was talking to the kids at one point and accidentally cut the entire head off one bird and it flopped all over and made a mess.  The don't flop as bad with the little slice, but there's more than one way to skin a cat bird.

I don't think there's much risk of them becoming vegetarians, we had chicken pizza for dinner!  They've watched me butcher deer in the past too, in fact I told them that if they get good at this some of the neighbors will pay them a few bucks a bird to butcher for them, THAT lit the kids up!  They were already counting the Legos they could buy.


My dad didn't teach me any of this stuff, it's just a bit of desire and a sharp knife coming together.  Who knows what my kids will be teaching their kids, but it dang well better not involve the latest version of the iPad.

Not sure about the idea of "jarred meat" because I'm not doing long term food storage.   But the rest of the bird processing stuff is valuable information.

Jarred meat is a dream come true for your wife, it's pre-cooked and pre-cut chicken breast with whatever seasoning you want, just pop the lid off the jar and warm it up or pour it into whatever dish you need chicken in.  You can bottle it pretty much any way you want to use it, just toss it in.  

Well, doing this whole process might not quite be a dream come true for the average housewife...  But the jarred meat is really nice to have.

Thanks, I thought about putting it over there and I think moving it in a while is perfect.  Maybe we can get some discussion on seasoning people put into the jars when they bottle the meat.

You are HARD CORE! I'm not so sure I want to know about "seasonig people put into jars," but I guess if the SHTF it might be good to know how to make people taste good.......  

GREAT THREAD!!!!   Got some chickens growing out as we speak, and I truly appreciate the "how to" that you posted!!!!!

THANKS!!!!!

I actually LOL'ed for real, thanks!

Up next week from the SCW farms.....SOYLENT GREEN!!!

this is one thing i miss from my childhood(not that long ago, im only 32). once we move to the land i own i will be getting some chickens and teaching my kids about it. of course, we used a hatchet. nothing like knowing the actual meaning of "running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

The caption on the one photo of the boys looking down at the chicken and knife should be:

"This does not look like McNuggets."

Thanks for taking the time to post the lessons.  The children learned a new skill, and you got to spend time with them.  We will be butchering the 25 we have coming later this summer.  No cornish hens though, you don't get much meat from them.

This works well with pheasants but I'm not sure how it would work for chickens...    have you ever pulled them apart?     I take a pheasant, stand on the wings with my feet close into it's body, and pull the feet straight up in the air, it will separate the breast and wings from everything else.  Saves a lot of time, although the breast meat is usually pretty much all I save.

Needs video.

Waaay better than the freezer.

This aught to do, some harsh language though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80t84xA_i90&feature=related

We usually grind and can a fair portion of venison each fall. Some gets canned without seasoning, but most of it (and my preference) gets coarse-ground with about 1 part in 4 of hickory bacon and a tablespoon of minced garlic. The bacon grease floats to the top and congeals after canning, when you open the can just spoon that off before using the rest of the meat. Divine.

Exactly.    Embedded for others...







 

Good thread SCW.  We did this for the first time w/ our kids last year.  I used the broomstick method and pulled the heads right off.  The headless bird does bound around a lot - I don't think I've ever seen my kid's eyes wider than when they were watching the birds.  I worried about my 5 y.o. daughter and asked her what she thought, she didn't even look up at me, she just said, "that one's stopped jumping, do another".  I guess she wasn't traumatized.  





After draining, we dunk the bird in 180* water for 5 to 10 seconds and the feathers just peel right off.  Smells like crap though.  Then we gut.  





I may have to try the skin stripping method, anything to avoid that smell.

 

That works great if you don't want the legs, grouse, pheasant, ducks...

I'll try to get some pics and-or video of that method next time I slaughter birds, about a month yet.

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That's one way to get a head!

Good times, huh?
Great pics!

I used to raise 50- 100 meat crosses per year, but better off, $ wise, buying chicken on sale.
Do have a batch of broilers that one of the kids started as a 4H project.
They hatched 3 weeks ago tomorrow, and I can't WAIT till they are done!

Older layers, etc, I just nick the skin across the keel, get a finger from each hand in and peel.
Filet out breast meat, then cut at leg joint, pull back skin,exposing leg and thigh,  and  then with bird on back, bend 1/4 down flat, popping hip.
Cut and done!

Get all the breast meat, and leg/thigh  in about  a minute!
Minimal fuss,muss, or mess.

Oustanding thread, and great pics!

My grandmother would sing "Amazing Grace" joyfully as she would wring he necks of chickens.   She skinned her chickens, too.

chicken skin is too wonderful to discard, so is chicken fat =)

otherwise, I heartily approve

I still remember killing and plucking chickens on my Grampa's farm when I was a kid.  For some reason my Grampa thought it was just hilarious to chop the chicken's head off then drop it and watch it run.    I never found it amusing since I was the one who had to go get it. But that wasn't the bad part. The smell of a chicken being dunked in boiling water in preparation to be plucked was just horrid. Didn't even want to eat it after that.

Man, that brings back memories of grandma's farm.  I was a little kid helping to butcher poultry once upon a time too.

Some people can't stand the smell of butchering birds.  For me it always brings back memories of my childhood.

Great thread.  I have one started of our hobby farm in the food and garden board.  I'm a couple weeks from butchering our first batch.  I'm building one of the tub style pluckers to hopefully make it a litle easier.  Your mention of Cornish birds not giving much meat concerned me a little though.  Exactly what breed were they?  I have Cornish Rocks and they look HUGE already at 6 or 7 weeks.  Will there not be much meat on them or do I maybe just have another breed?  Thanks again for the thread.  I wish our girls would take part, but they (10 and 14) already said they don't want to be around when we do the deed.

Lol, my 10yr old took the pictures and my 6yr old (both girls) kept asking when she would be big enough to use a knife.

I'm not sure what the exact breed was, fat and dumb though.  I'd say a bit smaller than a pheasant.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Excellent post, SCW!

Thank you.

Some guy in GD asked if readers could prepare their own food, so I decided to bump this thread.

We've sure gone through our fair share of birds this year, these birds in this thread, another 14 or so meat birds, the 60 chicks the skunk killed on night and now I've got another 10 or so chicks, 5 meat and 5 egg layers.

Sigh.

Lots of memories here as well.  I remember one day we butchered 40.  Had the fire under the water to keep it hot.  Everyone was involved.  Cousins, aunts and grandma.  She was fast with that hatchet.

Lots of memories here as well.  I remember one day we butchered 40.  Had the fire under the water to keep it hot.  Everyone was involved.  Cousins, aunts and grandma.  She was fast with that hatchet.

Great thread.

Thanks.

@SCW, this thread is now about 8 years old +/-.

Pics of your two vegetarians uh I mean chicken killers?

Ha!  I’ll see what I can do.  We are still slowly working on a very fancy greenhouse, I don’t want to set trusses until I have the vents ready.  My second son, Tom (dark hair in these pics) is now nearly 17 and is doing the solid modeling design of our greenhouse vents, in addition to learning to TIG weld for the aluminum.  We are getting close, we are about to prototype the first vent, if it works we’ll fabricate a bunch more and get the trusses up.

I gave up on chickens.  Dumb birds...

Great thread, great information. Thanks for posting this .... although I was sorta expecting some 'animal rights' nazi to chime in with fake outrage and and offer derogatory comments.

Does that work for ducks?

Not an option in our family.  Our family lives together, works together, shares the chores together, and plays together.  With all respect, I believe you are doing your a children a disservice by allowing them to skip out on this part of life.

Edited to add, I did not realize the date of the initial post.

Yeah, this is an old one.  The younger boy in those pics fixes the truck he’s driving and is learning to weld aluminum for me.  Time flies, chickens don’t, lol.

I’ve also got threads in this forum on water treatment and canning that don’t archive and every few years they rise back up.  It’s pretty cool, actually.

My grandmother did the same when I was a child.  I love the smell of poultry being butchered.  I wouldn't describe it as a pleasant smell at all but every time I clean a bird that smell brings me back to those days as a child when family and friends all got together on grandma's farm.

Nice.
They have the same look my nephews had when they wanted to eat the fish they caught..lol.