Raising and Processing our Meat Chickens

Crossing Jordan Farm

Raising and Processing our Meat Chickens

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Our meat birds at just a few days old.

They'll grow, quickly, and be ready to process by the time they are eight to nine weeks old.

We kept them in a brooder for the first two weeks.

We moved them from the brooder, when they outgrew it, to a large pen.

Here, they are four weeks old. All they do is eat and rest and eat and rest. We fill their feeders to overflowing twice a day.

Picture of the birds on processing day.

The heads of the birds are chopped off and then they are hung upside down.

If the temperature is just right when this is done, no feathers will be left on the bird when it comes out of the chicken plucker.

When the chicken comes out of the plucker, the legs are cut off and the insides cleaned out.

Here the birds are at eight weeks old. They are ready to process.

Checking the temperature of the water before we get started. We'll use it for the scalding the chickens.

Once we have five or six birds hung up, we move on to the next step of scalding.

The chicken plucker can clean the bird in just a few seconds. It saves so much time and work.

When the cooler is full, the chickens will be taken to the house and bagged.

These are shrinkwrap bags and all we have to do is put the chicken in the bag, twist and tie the end and dip it in hot water.

We processed thirty-five birds in about two hours.

Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. Genesis 9:3