Kill day

[Spotlite]

Rabbits and chickens chilling down. Salt water brine soon and will dig them out Tuesday for processing.

Learned a couple tricks this year with the plucker and scalder. Heat the water to 155, dip the chicken in for 15 seconds. The water on bottom turns when the chicken goes in and brings temp up to 165. When I scalded at 148 for 30 seconds I had trouble with not getting all feathers gone in the plucker but if I kept chicken in for 45 seconds it’d start cooking the outside. Hotter water shorter time does the trick.

The other thing was cutting the legs off at the joint before going in plucker. Kept having trouble with the feet hanging up.

 

[antharper]

Lots of good eating in that cooler !

 

[sea trout]

Looks like a great job!
How do you get your rabbits that clean without having fuzzy fur all over them?
Or did you wash them before the picture?
I like rabbit meat a lot. But I don't like cleaning them because I get fuzzy rabbit fur everywhere.

 

[Spotlite]

Looks like a great job!
How do you get your rabbits that clean without having fuzzy fur all over them?
Or did you wash them before the picture?
I like rabbit meat a lot. But I don't like cleaning them because I get fuzzy rabbit fur everywhere.

I do wash them mainly to clean blood out of them but there’s not much fur to wash off. If you’ll cut the feet and tail off, make a slit across the back, then pull both ways at same time the skin will slip right off both ends. Gut it and cut head off last.

 

[Lilly001]

I remember in my high school days culling out my flock of yard birds at the end of the summer. (I raised Rose combed black bantams for show)
I would have 15-20+ birds to klean and I didn’t have a plucker. A rubber gloved hand and a scalding pot was my work station.
But my mother loved the full freezer.
And I never looked at it as a chore.

 

[sea trout]

I remember in my high school days culling out my flock of yard birds at the end of the summer. (I raised Rose combed black bantams for show)
I would have 15-20+ birds to klean and I didn’t have a plucker. A rubber gloved hand and a scalding pot was my work station.
But my mother loved the full freezer.
And I never looked at it as a chore.

Kinda same here. My momma always had yard chickens and once or twice a year she'd have me kill the young roosters. I'd shoot em with 410 and pluck some or debreast some. That was my teenage high school years, I didn't even learn to put em in almost boilin water before pluckin until I was in my early 20's! But yeah momma loved the birds in the freezer!

 

[sea trout]

I do wash them mainly to clean blood out of them but there’s not much fur to wash off. If you’ll cut the feet and tail off, make a slit across the back, then pull both ways at same time the skin will slip right off both ends. Gut it and cut head off last.

Cool thanks!
I take their pants and shirt off and THEN cut legs, tail and head off after, That may be where I get my obnoxious fur problem. I'll try what you wrote next time, I'll cut feet n tail off 1st

 

[Spotlite]

I remember in my high school days culling out my flock of yard birds at the end of the summer. (I raised Rose combed black bantams for show)
I would have 15-20+ birds to klean and I didn’t have a plucker. A rubber gloved hand and a scalding pot was my work station.
But my mother loved the full freezer.
And I never looked at it as a chore.

Kinda same here. My momma always had yard chickens and once or twice a year she'd have me kill the young roosters. I'd shoot em with 410 and pluck some or debreast some. That was my teenage high school years, I didn't even learn to put em in almost boilin water before pluckin until I was in my early 20's! But yeah momma loved the birds in the freezer!

I used to pluck by hand and still do for quail. My Grandmother would get up at 3 and kill a couple young roosters and fry them for breakfast. She’d par boil them. I can never get that right, they’re always too tough when I do it.

After running through about 125 meat chickens per year I decided to buy a plucker last year.

 

[Spotlite]

Cool thanks!
I take their pants and shirt off and THEN cut legs, tail and head off after, That may be where I get my obnoxious fur problem. I'll try what you wrote next time, I'll cut feet n tail off 1st

It’s like deer, I don’t think it can be done “hairless” but it seems to cut way down on fur for me. Buddy of mine scalds his fir 10 seconds at 150 and controls his fur.

 

[Spotlite]

Got 20 more chickens and rabbits to iill today. Wrapping it up until January.

Thought I was through a couple months ago but end up with a load of young chicks with crooked feet. Chicken houses won’t raise them. Get deducted because feet sell, too.

Left 3 rabbits together too long. One was a buck…….so got some late bunnies. I don’t like raising them in the summer. That’s my fishing, feeding out a steer, hog and lambs time.

 

[deermaster13]

I do wash them mainly to clean blood out of them but there’s not much fur to wash off. If you’ll cut the feet and tail off, make a slit across the back, then pull both ways at same time the skin will slip right off both ends. Gut it and cut head off last.

When we were doings this daddy took a half sheet of plywood and attached a thick piece of hard white plastic down it. Put 2 nails apart enough to hang them by their back legs. Skin, wash with hose, gut wash with hose and into a cooler. Hair blood washed right off the plastic.Do you save the liver to eat? I'm not a liver fan but those fresh rabbit liver was off the chain.

 

[Spotlite]

When we were doings this daddy took a half sheet of plywood and attached a thick piece of hard white plastic down it. Put 2 nails apart enough to hang them by their back legs. Skin, wash with hose, gut wash with hose and into a cooler. Hair blood washed right off the plastic.Do you save the liver to eat? I'm not a liver fan but those fresh rabbit liver was off the chain.

Yes I save the liver and gizzard off all my meat chickens and liver off all my rabbits.

They’re better than the store bought for sure!!!

Pretty neat way of skinning rabbits!

 

[Spotlite]

Think I’m done for the season. There’s some of that highly sought after fresh rabbit liver that’ll be fried tomorrow night with some mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. Had a few young fryers (rabbit) that I wanted to stuff with my cajun recipe and smoke next weekend.

 

[deermaster13]

Oh geez that liver! I could put a hurting on some fried soft with onion gravy over rice with black eyed peas with hot banana peppers and a couple slices of fresh maters. Oh yeah! Makes me wanna dig out daddy's gear and start raising some again. Thanks for posting as I enjoy the memories.