Processing Day

Last Saturday was Processing Day. Here’s a rundown on how it all unfolds…

The day starts with a big, hardy breakfast of sausage, potato and egg tacos made with our own free-range eggs. Most of the set-up  happens the night before, so after breakfast, Mom cleans up the kitchen and starts lunch in the crockpot while the guys do the last bits of set-up outside.

We set up a canopy, there’s a processing table and a rack where the “kill-cones” hang, and our brand-spankin’ new plucker! If you’ve ever plucked chickens by hand, you’ll know how easy it was to get these guys to smile next to our plucker.

Once we’re all set, we get started. The boys are our chicken-getters, they cart the chickens over from the nearby pen and we keep them covered with a netting to keep them calm until it’s their turn. Dad handles the execution process – the rest of us are all glad to leave that to the expert.

Next is the scalder. The key to a good pluck is a good scald. 145-150 degrees is the ideal temperature. We keep a digital thermometer with an alarm in our water at all times because scalding a chicken in water that is too hot will result in the skin tearing off with the feathers. Not desirable. We dunk in and out of the water several times, I’d say for 30 seconds to a minute. After the thirty second mark, we give the wing-feathers a tug. If they don’t pluck right out with ease, in we go for a couple more dunks. Then comes another tug of the wing-feathers and so on and so forth until the feathers easily come free of the wings.

Ian is our little helper. He is such a trooper, all day long pitching in where he can. In one particularly industrious moment, I took the time to encourage him, saying, “Ian you have been such a great helper today! Thank you for all your hard work!” He turned to me and with this very intense furrow of the brow and a slight grin, said “I wanna get paid!” I just busted out laughing. What’d ya say to that? Here he is working on a little side-project he had going on.

Okay, so I got whisked into the business of processing and forgot to take anymore pictures. But, the next step is obviously plucking which is amazingly easy with our new plucker. Set 2-3 chickens in, feathers and all, and thirty seconds later we have a perfectly naked bird. It’s just amazing – there’s no other word for it. If you don’t agree, I’ll let you come to my house and pluck about thirty birds by hand. You’ll be kissing the plucker before you leave. I almost did.

The rest is the dirty part. Removing the heads and feet, cleaning out all the innards. This whole process is a great science lesson for the kiddoes. That sounds gross, but hey, they’re intrigued and it’s easy teaching it when, well, there it all is – right there before you. A few things not to forget: when you pull the insides out, a portion of the crop usually stays behind. You have to go back up to the head-end of the chicken to remove that clear bag-like thing attached to the top of the breast. Then, back inside the chicken the lungs never come out willingly. That requires some work. And then there’s the oil gland on the tail. This is where the chicken releases the oils that water-proof his feathers and is not something you want flavoring your dinner. Cut from the top of the tail, into and down toward the bottom leaving no trace of a greasy, yellow substance you will see if you have not cut down deep enough.

Once the birds are empty and washed, we drop them in an ice bath and there they stay for a few hours until we bag them and then usually freeze them. And now our day is done…

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