Chicken Processing Day

WARNING: sensitive content and images

Chicken processing day.  Doesn’t sound nearly as bad as “chicken killing day” does it?  But that’s ultimately what yesterday was.  You may ask why I would participate in such a thing if I’m not comfortable with the idea of killing an animal.  I’ll address that in my next post.  But if you’re interested in the actual steps that convert a living bird to the meal on your dish, read on…

So I decided to leave some of the more graphic images out of the post below.  Though be warned, it may still be tough for some folks to view.   I started out documenting all the various steps including the more unpleasant aspects.  But as I looked at them on the computer, I realized I had captured those images more to confront my own discomfort with the taking of a life of an animal than a desire to share them.  In fact, looking at them now they still make me pretty uncomfortable.  Anyway, like I said, I address my feelings about the day in my next post.  So on to the day…

When we arrived we got an introduction to “our” birds.  They had been raised for us for about 16 weeks and were actually a little past ready for processing.  Yikes!  Here standing at our feet were living birds.  And in a few hours, they’d be sitting on ice in our coolers.  Suddenly things got very real very fast.  I was not overly comfortable at that moment.  But I was there and there was no turning back.

After our bird intro, we were given an overview of the process.  James, having both volunteered at a Pete and Jen’s Backyard Birds processing day and raised birds last season, was clearly much more comfortable than many of us were.

And before we knew it, we got under way.  The first step is the worst obviously.  The bird is put into the killing cone.  The blood rushes to the head and the bird generally calms down and is relaxed.

However, let’s face it.  There’s nothing pretty or nice about the next step.  The jugular is cut with a knife and the bird bleeds out.  There is no such thing as a relaxed bird at this point.  While brief, the bird does struggle during and for a short time after the cut is made – even when I used a very sharp filet knife.  This shot is a mere fraction of a second before the first cut of the day.  The more bloody images following this are what I’ve decided to leave out.

The next step is scalding.  This loosens the feathers and makes them easier to pluck.  You basically swish the bird around in hot water and when the large tail and wingtip feathers can be pulled fairly easily, you know that it’s ready.

After scalding, the bird is brought to the plucking table.  This is drudge work and is made far easier by many hands.  Perhaps the least pleasant part of this step is the smell of scalded feathers.  You get used to it, but it’s not something they’ll soon be turning into the latest perfume craze!

Many hands makes the process pretty quick and before you know it, the birds start to look like birds from the market.  The head and feet are removed and the birds are placed in icy water to quickly chill them.

Once all the birds were plucked and in ice water, we broke for lunch to let the birds chill down.  After lunch, the chilled birds were pulled from the chill bath and cleaned.

I have to say, cleaning wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected.  I had watched YouTube videos on the process and was a bit grossed out to be honest.  I think it was easier than expected because we’ve belonged to a whole fish CSA for the past year which forced me to learn cleaning and filleting of fish.  Frankly while it’s a different animal, it’s really not a whole lot different and about as gross.  However, the oddest thing happens with some birds at this step.  Reaching into the body cavity from the butt end forces air out of the lungs and makes the dead, headless chicken squawk/cluck.  I had never heard about this and frankly after the initial shock wears off it starts to become pretty funny with clucking go on all around the table.

Once the internal organs are removed, the bird is rinsed one final time, put through a bleach bath and then back in ice water to stay chilled.  All that’s left at that point is to bag up the finished birds.  Here, the necks were left on because we were told they’re great for chicken stock.

And the final product.  Doesn’t look anything like what we started with in the morning and looks no different than what you’d buy in a store.  But in my humble opinion these are far healthier.  They enjoyed a life outside on grass instead of in unhealthy factory confinement building.  They ate bugs and grass and healthy feed.

But let’s not sugar coat anything.  At the end of the day, you still have to acknowledge that they suffered the same fate.  See my next post with my thoughts on that.