When we bought our house, it came with three egg-laying chickens. We adopted one more a few months later and have a happy, healthy flock. There will come a day in a few years, however, when they don’t lay anymore. That day is not today, and these are not pictures of us slaughtering our hens. Instead, I had the amazing (and highly educational) opportunity to help neighbors slaughter 40 eight-week-old meat birds and a few of her friend’s hens. Mostly, I wanted to see what it was like and if I had the stomach for killing our hens when they stop laying.
There are more pictures after the jump. We used a very humane process, but it could be considered gross. Do not click the read more button if you do not want to see dead chickens before they are trussed for your table. (I would argue, though, that if you eat chicken, you should look at the pictures to see where your meat comes from.)
Nice operation, though I guess if you’re dispatching 40 birds it makes sense to have a bit of specialized equipment.
They rented the setup apparently the first two times they did this. After that, they decided to just buy it. When the time comes, we’ll just haul our birds down there on slaughter day.
How effective was that rubber-finger drum at removing the feathers?
It kicks ass. Three feathery birds go in, and a minute or so later, three naked birds come out.
Sounds like it is way better than the scald with hot water and pluck approach I remember having to do
We still had to scald them to loosen the feathers first. I couldn’t imagine plucking the birds by hand though.
hand plucking is such a slog –
glad you have your setup all dialed!
I’m still working on M to get chickens in our side yard…. we’ll see 🙂
Ian, we’ll help talk it up when we see you next weekend 😉
Wow, times have changed. I remember stumps and axes, headless birds running around like… well, you know… And buckets of boiling water with the youngest kids on feather duty.