Any chicken that you plan on processing should be placed in a cage that does not allow the chicken to get any food. I put a cardboard sheet under my chicken cages. Not allowing the chicken food cleans out the chickens crop and intestines. This makes the job of removing their guts that much easier. I place all of my chickens in the cages at least 12 hours before processing time.
Remove chickens from cage by reaching in and grabbing a foot. Hold them upside down.
Place the chickens head side down in a "killing cone"
Grab the chicken by the beak and pull their neck out. Take your knife and cut on either side of its esophagus. If you don't see a gush of blood after cutting, cut again. I use a knife that is designed for chicken killing and has two sharp blades on either side.
It takes a good bit of time for the chicken to bleed out and stop kicking. Don't be surprised to have a few chickens "fly" themselves out of the killing cones. Just pick them up and put them right back in the cones.
Now the chickens must be scalded to loosen up their feathers. We have found the perfect temperature is around 155 degrees. If the temperature is too low, you will not get a good pluck. Too high a temp. and you will cook the outer flesh. The scalding temperature is the most important part of chicken processing.
Once you reach the correct temperature, dip the chicken in the water and keep it moving while in the water. Notice the heavy gloves. As the birds moves in the water, use your other hand to tug on the feathers, testing to see when they become loose. When the feathers start to pull out, the chicken is finished being scalded.
Now drop the scalded chickens into the "plucker". We drop two birds in at a time. The plucker works like a washing machine with a jet of water and a huge number of little rubber fingers. As the chickens are moved around the drum, the fingers remove the feathers and the water washes the feathers off the birds and out a shoot.
Once the birds are plucked clean, remove them from the drum.
A good example of a plucked chicken.
Not every chicken comes out of the plucker in perfect condition. If your scalding temperature was not correct, you will not get a clean bird. The plucker will also on occasion break a chickens wing.
The first part of the bird to be removed is the food. Simple bend the foot, finding the joint. Use a pair of common garden shears to cut around the joint.
A removed chickens foot.
Now using you knife, cut along the chickens neck and find the crop. The crop is a sack found at the base of the chickens neck, that contains small amounts of stones and food. Remove the crop and esophagus. I have found that a chicken taken off of food before processing has an empty crop, thus allowing me to just cutt the neck off with a cleaver.
Neck going bye bye.
Headless chicken!
The tip of my knife is pointing to the spot that a small cut should be made into the chickens body cavity. This spot allows the knife blade to go into the cavity without worry of hitting a organs.
Once the cut is made, open up the whole to allow you hand to fit inside.
Now reach inside the chicken( a job that is easier said then done) and pull out all the guts.
Guts removed. Notice all the fat surrounding the organs.
Once the guts are pulled out, take your knife and cut along each side of the gut pile. This cut removes the oil sack, ass hole and gut pile. A very important cut to know how to make.
Take a "lung" remover and clean out the inside of the chickens body cavity.
A cleaned out chicken body cavity.
When all said and done, chicken processing is a dirty dirty job.
