Chicken culling

Quick and easy killing cone, safety cone with the tip cut off to make the opening larger.

Utility sink with bucket under, used for rinsing birds.

Repurposed bathroom vanity used for gutting birds. Placed a garbage can under opening so there is quick and easy disposal of guts and trimmings. Used tin snips to remover head and tail.

Kept a bleach solution to wipe down cutting boards, knives, tin snips, and sink. Tried to keep thing as clean as possible.

Used a cooler with ice water to cool the birds down and keep cold after butchering.

Place chicken upside down in the cone, locate jaw bone, and make an incision just about jaw bone and let bird bleed out.

Had a pot of water heated that I kept around 140° F but not above 150°F. I would dunk the bled out chicken in the water for 20 seconds and pull some wing feathers out and keep dunking until the feather come out very easily.

Hang the bird by the feet and pull out the feathers.

Once the feathers are gone bring over to the cutting board and cut the head off, cut the feet off, and gut. There are still some tail feathers because I just cut the tail off.

I butchered my laying hens also and while gutting them I found the next week of egg yolks forming inside.

Once the cooler with ice was full I took the birds in, bagged them, and put them in the freezer.

The culling went fairly smooth with much trouble. Hand plucking was not the most fun but went well. We averaged about 12 minutes a bird.