How we put up 1400 pounds of pastured chicken in 1 day!!

[Music] hey guys this is Josh it is a misty Saturday morning late in September and it is chicken harvesting day it is time to prepare them for the freezer and it is gonna be a big day we've got over 200 chickens to process today now we have never done this many chickens we've done 125 in a day and that is usually a large large day big day we've got some new equipment from Featherman Pro really excited about the out of new plucker that can handle four birds in a scald or that's really going to make all the difference and so we're really excited to see how this is gonna go we're thankful that we've got some additional help coming and so we're gonna see what we can get done and see if we can do 200 plus in a day so when you're butchering chickens there are several things that you want to have on hand and make things go smoothly okay you want your killing cones if you can see in the background right there those are killing cones we have those on a turnable rack you can just build like we've done before a rack out of one by four how many you need this is good how many chickens you're butchering but you you want your killing cones okay then you need a scald er we've got a Featherman Pro here traditionally we have just used a propane burner with an old pot or small barrel and you want your water up around 150 degrees roughly you then need a plucker hopefully you're not going to do it by hand I mean if you've got a few that's pretty easy we've done a whole lot by hand that's a lot of work and the first upgrade you want to do if you're starting to do a lot of chickens every year is good so you need that then you need some tables you can see right here we've got a couple tables good sharp knives we've got some down below those buckets are gonna catch our waste that will go into a bigger can and we'll tell you later how we handle all of that and then these here are gonna catch the products that we're gonna use like the necks the feet we actually use the feet and the livers and the heart and maybe the gizzards sometimes things move too fast to mess with the gizzards but maybe we'll get those maybe we won't and of course you need a couple tables and we just use these foldable plastic tables they're great just make sure that you clean them really really well you can see Rachel back there she's getting them all scrubbed up right now with hot soapy water we obviously want everything as clean as possible and then you need a chill tank because we're doing so many this year we have bought a large 300 gallon chill tank but we have used everything from barrels clean food great barrels like these guys right here are these aren't food grade but we're just using them for tables but clean food grade barrels or water troughs cleaned out those make great chill tanks if you're just doing a few a big ice chest works as well but it's really important as you move through the process to cool those birds down and really get them cooled down into the 40s 40 degree temperatures before you wrap them up and head them towards the freezer and then over there you can see we're cleaning the last table that is the area where we will wrap them we like the shrinkable bags it's just fast it's easy put the chickens in them you dunk them in hot water and that shrinks around them they seal very very well and they last in the freezer a really long time this is quite a production and it's gonna be fun to see how this goes I'm gonna jump in here and help everybody get ready yeah now we're gonna start before too long so here's a little tip on your cones if you spray them down with some olive oil or a little vegetable oil it makes the cleaning much easier so we just take some olive oil we don't really use a lot of vegetable oil mix it up with some warm water and you can just spray this down yeah and we just got one of these tubs for catching everything you can do the same you can spray it just whatever it is and it is going to make the cleaning way way easier now you want your chickens as close as can be you don't feed them the night before you want them to be empty of feed all the way through their digestive system it makes for much cleaner processing and then if you've depended on your setup you may not be able to get your chicken tractors closed we've actually gotten ours right up here close to the area and so we're gonna pull right from them for a lot of folks your chicken tractors are out on the property somewhere and so then you've got to have some cages or something to bring in your chickens and pin them as you're starting the process [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] bunker looks like it's working pretty good coming out of the plucker and we take off the feet the head and the necks we save all the feet in the next those are gonna go into a bone broth ladies over here doing a great job cleaning all the livers and hearts go back into the cavities before going back into the chill tank back there honey what are you gonna do with all the bat we're getting a lot of extra fat oh good now you got to chill them so they go into the chill tank and I'll sit here until we get ready to wrap what do you think you Anna Jackie going on all right there it's a cold little bit not too much you're gonna keep your water warm [Music] well you guys it has been quite a day we just are almost done with a hundred and fifty chickens I think it's almost four o'clock and we're really jamming along we're so thankful for all the help we've had today yeah and we've got 75 more to go let's see if we can do it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so right now we are getting the chickens all wrap what do you call these bags coming shrink poultry shrink bags poultry shrink wrap bags and they're coming out of the cooler a matter of fact they're all out of the cooler now and they go into the dumper right here you go about 190 degree weather water right we don't need 190 degree weather yeah and they get dunked real quick that pushes all the air out of them and then zip tied and weighed so far honey what's our average bird weight so far today whew seven pounds yeah we've done about a hundred and fifty so far today so quick math that is three hundred nine hundred over a thousand pounds so far already Wow well it is 6:30 we've been going since about well 7:30 since we started killing and we've got about eight more left to butcher and then we're gonna finish we wrapping them up freak wrapping up this has been an amazing day these guys back here everybody working so hard almost there hang with us a little bit and we'll show you a ground total when we're done [Music] [Music] Wow I'm exhausted it has been a long day and we are almost done we've got over 200 chickens we don't know the final count yet but can you believe that we did it we got them all done in one day so I've got a fill the freezers yeah and we're probably gonna tally him tomorrow but it's gonna be exciting to see what the final number is and I'm just super stoked that we've got this done [Music] well that was an exciting day and that was a busy long day that was a busy long day I think that was 12 hours yeah of processing chickens and we got rain off and on all day with one little solution for the ladies and that was fun as you guys saw some some people were in black Poncho's trash bags hey you got to be creative in the poncho it worked great actually worked really well even when I was undercover I I turned a trash bag into an apron and it was so nice I didn't get wet anymore from the hose and all the processing so no me too a lot cheaper than all the aprons which would be wonderful to have your name we upgraded with some great Featherman Pro Tools the equipment this year yes the donker yes yeah the scolder dunker yeah and the plucker and not made all the difference yeah so it was a really big step forward we ended up with 211 chickens mm-hmm I think most we've done 125 or 150 and that was with a whole nother family mm-hmm you know and dunking by hand yeah yeah and dunking one at a time you know and really really great day so we're loving the feather Pro equipment yes and that chill tank was really nice to 300-gallon chill tank so that helped make it happen but you know what who really made it happen was our guests that came yeah we had some volunteer help and boy did we appreciate it so our neighbor Doreen renew or awesome she came early stayed last I think she got the last word in to last Bert done right yeah and she she was taking the last steps yeah and Sharron and Glenn came up and helped thank you guys so much drove two hours to come where to come kill chickens in the rain for over eight hours you guys Rock yeah we had some good laughs yeah we did a lot of fun and that's one thing working together and a hard day like that whether it's just your family or you have guests or other people it's always a good day together it's always memorable because you're just stuck there working and there's an element of misery working that long in that heart and so together you know you just have this great time it ends up being a life so I guess that's a key tip besides good equipment is is doing it together we've always tried to do it with another family that family wasn't processing at the same time this year and so some neighbors guests try to do it together and it makes a day of hard work just stored work but a lot more fun so we did 211 Birds how much did that turn out to pound ways Wow so they averaged six and a half pounds of bird these were big birds these were really about the really good these were the red Rangers you got a red ranger plus okay it's a color plus or something where they had it's the white feathers at their base and so if you saw any of our pictures of them while we were raising them a lot of them had a lot of white in there and that's because they're they're kind of downy feathers the brush well feathers underneath were white which helps them look a lot cleaner as if so there were some pros to those and some cons so the pros were they finished out great six and a half pound average largest bird was eight and a half pounds one or two four four and a half pound Birds most of them were five six and seven and pretty even spread so that was real nice that totaled 1388 pounds 13 almost 1400 pounds of meat plus the fat that you saved yeah and plus yep necks and feet which will make a broth out of hearts and livers or in the bird right we don't do the gizzards mostly just because they're a bit more work and processing that amount of birds they're just hard to get to yeah and I'd like to find a solution for that but for right now we pass on those so over 1,400 pounds a usable meat yeah and the conversion rate was great I don't have it by pounds but cost per bird was a dollar 38 pervert all right I'm sorry 38 purple pal that would be phenom yeah that's that's now that's the feed costs that's the feed cost okay yeah dollar 38 pervert so that's a really good cost you had in the cost of the bird I don't remember what those were do you know I say about $2 a bird yeah yeah so so you're under $10 a bird right around $10 if you were doing a little research and for free-range quality you're easily at a four to four and a half dollars a pound right one chicken and that is whole whole chicken so that's not boneless so that means you're getting the bones and everything so that converts really well to our numbers compares to our numbers so now some people on a photo I posted asked about how in the world do we store that do we have a walk-in no we need a walk-in thankful we have big chest freezers that took up about a one-and-a-half there are 21 22 cubic feet freezers yeah so one and a half of our freezers and that covers more than half of our annual meat a lot of you guys know if you've been following us for a while we produce all of our own meat and we need for our large household and them and the multi generations that live here over 2,000 pounds a year yeah of me so in our context it works great most of you don't need to produce that much birds and last year selling them now I there's a couple things that I want to say that we're a negative with these particular birds yes especially with the news with the new equipment I think the new equipment is engineered to work well with the corniche crosses and well the body structure is a little different these birds aren't as round their legs are longer and their necks are longer yeah and so if you're thinking we these birds did great they put on weight real good I would maybe go back to just the red Rangers and try them just because the I felt like the legs were longer with the feet on and the next and those were hanging out more in the plucker so kind of a technical issue but when you're trying to move through and get generally - true with the red Rangers - though isn't it rather than the Cornish are just so like stocky and they don't have any extra well the corners you probably even better and that's what most commercial producers I'm gonna use you know even free-ranging you know kind of market style producers are gonna use the Cornish it's just because they grow a little faster I like the flavor of the slow girls oh absolutely enjoy that that's a good flavor we took these two twelve weeks I think I would go ten eleven twelve assistant we had a little extra fat in them they were a little fat which is great because as we're eviscerating if there's extra globs of fat I always make sure to take it out away from the gizzards and all the other parts on the inside and set that aside so I can render that and cook with that separately you're gonna render I'm gonna yes and cook with that separately and that is just a gourmet item so particular recipes you're gonna use that with so folks know what what do you know that the thing that is just always talked about when you've got this really good chicken fat or any sort of poultry fat is fried potatoes they just they make the best best fries but really all sorts of things whatever you would use a lard or anything with well another thing that went really well this year you like to save the feet mm-hmm so that you can add that to the next for making a good bone broth there's a lot of nutrition and a little bit of what gelatin in there yeah and usually that's a real pain even the other puckers that we've had and with dunking either trying to get those feet scalded and cleaned enough without a big hassle is a real problem in this Featherman pro dunker that we use that it's an auto rotating the the skin on the feet just cleaned off near perfectly so very little work now to convert those feet into a stock a broth that's gonna be very useful yeah that's that we've never been able to save any time the feet come into the house not cleaned they end up eventually going back out because they just it's really hard if you get them in dirty to then go back and get them cleaned up by the time they've chilled and everything it's just not quite the same so this just worked out really well right in the process of the birds and on the other side that's now 20 30 pounds of feet that are gonna go onto a good stalk and that's great not to waste that in the build process it yeah we love getting to use as much of any animal that we're processing as we can and in fact what about all of the extra parts ah the leftovers we do with the waste of 211 Birds yeah all the offal and the feathers primarily mm-hmm yeah well we're composting it you're not supposed to be able to do that I know I said don't compost your meat that is nonsense and you can compost it you know and compost it the right way otherwise you do those problems right and you you want to be very careful know what you're doing yeah I probably won't put this on the veggie garden though you can compost it well enough to do that an expert composter can definitely do that I've seen it done but we will compost it real real well let it sit for six months and it will be ready for trees shrubs food forests tea type stuff and the way to do that is just a lot of carbon yeah we've right out there on the site we've got tons of wood shavings you guys saw we brought a lot of those in and mixed it in there and that will start to break down temperatures rising by tomorrow that'll be up over 120 degrees left and when you put enough of the wood shavings over it the dogs don't mess with it cats don't nobody messes with it because it covers it up yeah the smell until it breaks down enough and then you can mix it but by then it has broken down where the animals aren't interested in it that's everything there's nothing going to waste here at all yeah just goes right back into our food system so very good I gotta say I was really impressed that you kept the camera going the whole day boy those days are hard and videoing or sometimes the one of the last things - oh it wasn't it just obviously you guys now we're at the end of the video yeah and it wasn't a dedicated tutorial but we tried to get enough information in there that you could see how this works and that it would give you some good tips help you out and so hope you have enjoyed this video thanks for hanging out with us yeah I hope you enjoyed the video and we will see you soon [Music]

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 67,978

Keywords: Homesteading, Self-Sufficiency, Sustainable, Living, Homesteading Family, Food Preservation, butchering chickens, butchering chickens water temperature, meat chickens breeds, meat chickens for beginners, meat chickens start to finish, how to butcher a chicken, processing pastured chickens, pastured poultry, chicken, home raised chicken, home raised chickens, how to butcher pastured chickens, how to kill a chicken, how to kill a chicken in a cone

Id: Z1_Pgonx5Kk

Length: 30min 0sec (1800 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019