my chicken processing disclaimer to you sharp objects will be used in this if you do not want to see where your food comes from then don't watch this video because this is food and this is where it comes from thank you very much hey folks this is josh tony rich farmer welcome to the farm vlog today today is a really special day here on the farm we've got a lot of stuff going on we're going to be processing our chickens today we have 48 chickens that we're gonna be working with they're Cornish cross chickens from Myer hatchery and first of all I want to thank a couple companies for helping us out with this they gave us some good deals on some products right farm products or coops and more calm and Meyer hatchery we've been working with Meyer hatchery this whole time and we've got a whole setup going right here we'll walk around the setup well tell you about what we're getting ready to do and we'll show you a few things hope you learned something today [Applause] alright let's start at station number one so these are quote unquote hugging cones or killing cones but basically the thought process is we drop our Birds down in here they kind of get a little bit of a euphoric feeling as they're laying upside down the blood kind of rushes to their heads and then we will dispatch the birds these buckets right here or for collecting the blood so we don't have a big bloody mess we can spread that blood on our garden it's good for our garden right here is our scalding pot this scalding pot is warming up right now and it's ran off of propane we pick this up from coops and more they'll be links down in the video description and also we have the pro plucker this is the extra-large pro plucker alright here's the on switch will turn this dude on show you what we got really really cool setup so you guys will get to see this thing in action the feathers spit right out here I've got to get myself a tote to put right there to catch the feather so we can dispose of those now this is an economy plucker and we'll show you how we use the economy plucker will kind of show you the difference so if you don't have 500 bucks to spend on this guy you can spend a little less money and this is available at Meijer hatchery now from these points here the plucking stations will go over here and we'll take the feet off the birds and we'll gut them we'll take out the gizzards and the livers and then we'll drop the birds over in these three basics and they'll be full of ice so we'll have some nice cold water all these bays will be full of water next step in the process we're going to go over to this table we'll have this table set up and these are bags to non BPA bags or BPA free bags and zip ties and straws I'm going to show you how all that works that'll be the last thing that we do and then we'll drop them in the freezer we also have a fan running right here to keep us cool and a nice canopy so it's early early in the morning here on a Tuesday morning my dad's coming up here I got all this stuff set up well most of this stuff set up we've had storms at night so I took the canopy down last night but I've had all this stuff set up for I'm gonna say a day or so and we've got a few more things that we need to do we've got to go get some dog crates out of our tobacco barn so that we can get our birds so we'll walk you over here to the birds birds aren't too far from the area where we're doing our processing but we don't want to right up on there so we'll be capturing the birds and taking them on the Gator over there we'll put them in a crate now here is our setup for our birds if you haven't seen the video on this mobile coop this PVC mobile coop it's up here somewhere alright lots of cool information guys be sure you click that like button subscribe to the channel we've got tons of awesome stuff here on the farm so right here are our birds are looking good they're looking healthy they've been moved around on pasture pretty much their whole lives they look crowded in there they are fairly crowded in there but you got to think about it these birds have had more square footage of grass to eat than any bird you've probably ever tasted beautiful beautiful morning here on the farm guys beautiful Suns peeking through the trees right up here to our tobacco barn where we've got our dog kennels and dog crates beautiful here's our tobacco barn this is our corn garden got a monster corn garden up here this is our corn garden this is silver queen corn and our goats are right over there going by eventually we'll probably convert this tobacco barn into a cabin but for now it's a storage cabinet alright so the next step here is to capture the chickens and they're all kind of thirsty and hungry so it shouldn't be too bad a capture oh don't move very fast we'll put them in these crates here on the back of the Gator hey little buddy so let's talk about these birds so you guys know a little bit about what's going on these are a Cornish cross bird they're ready for slaughter in eight to nine weeks sometimes people slaughter them in the four and five week range these birds will dress out somewhere around six to eight pounds apiece they're a big big bird they're very robust bird they're very tender and delicious bird and what we've been doing is moving them on pasture and basically the pasture has been our front yard because I want to show you guys that you could do this in town you don't have to have a big place I'm gonna say we're on a sixteenth of an acre right here and we've basically just moved them around there's not a lot of smell there aren't a lot of flies there's a little bit of dead grass here and there but that stuff will come back and it will just pop so it's gonna save you on lawn fertilizer and your birds will taste delicious let's get them over here and get started folks I want to be abundantly clear that these are not our pets these are our meat birds we have chickens that lay eggs that have names like petunia and Daisy and this is not petunia and Daisy this is our food for our family and this should dress out somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pounds-plus meat for our year that'll be cool and I'm trading my pops a few Birds for helping me it's gonna be awesome good family activity here and we're living off the land the purpose of these birds is living off the land all right so this is our scalding pot we can do two chickens at a time in the scalding pot and two chickens at a time in here in the plucker successfully I think you could do three or four chickens in the plucker but it just kind of bogs the Machine down a little bit then we're running off an extension cord so I would say it would do four if you were right next to a receptacle but we're gonna stick with two at a time so we'll dip two and then we will pluck two and then we'll process two and we'll keep this little assembly line going if you had four people you could really really roll with this our 50 chickens is probably going to take us somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half to three hours all right so these are our birds and they're gonna slide them down into our chicken hugging combs right here and basically you just slide the bird down into the cone make sure his head comes out the bottom and then move on to the next cone in the next bird okay these birds will flip over in the cones if you don't watch there's not really a perfect size comb for these birds so this is the turkey cone the x-star extra large and this is the extra-large size so the extra extra large is a little too big and the extra large is a little too small now we put the birds in these and their heads are poking down through the bottom my father's over here pulling their heads down this kind of gives the birds I guess a little feeling of euphoria the blood kind of rushes to their heads and basically we'll just cut them and that's it we're not going to show you the killing but you get it I think you get it all right so the birds are in the killing cones this is the knife that we use and you can get this knife at Meijer hatchery it is a chicken killing knife it's specifically designed for killing chickens pretty cool so we'll reach down here well turn on our plucker right here and we'll get you a little bit better footage as time goes on with this plucker take the lid off of our scalding pot and we're at 145 degrees we can scold two birds at one time in this scalding pot to fully submerge the birds for about 45 seconds less than a minute for sure the best way to tell is get a hold the birds feet right here and when the skin starts coming off the feet just like that you're ready to go I can drop them over in here just like so now it's important that we run cold water down in here and that helps to release the feather it's a little bit better that cold water will open the birds pores up it helps to release the feathers it looks like a very violent process but it doesn't harm the meat at all well turn off our blocker and this is what we have beautifully clean bird what a time-saver well hand this off to grandpa stony Ridge here's what I'm experienced and I'll tell you about it with the scholar you're gonna have to put water in it every time you scald 2 or 4 birds so every time we scald four Birds we've probably got to add somewhere in our neighborhood of a quart of water maybe a little bit more we fill it up till it's about that far maybe four inches from the top now our birds that were plucking that to be sure that we're constantly rinsing that's what helps release the feathers okay now as we rinse the feathers are coming out the bottom of this machine and we'll get you a close-up detail of that also we have the water turned on high heat right now and we're just going to start working our way through these birds this process is really really going to move along very fast what you have to understand is you can't leave your birds in too awfully long or you'll cook the skin you don't want to cook the skin you want to find that fine line where the skin releases and cleans your birds you'll find there's a specific setting on your scholar that will help you a whole lot so again we'll scald them for about 45 seconds reach in here with our little fire poker and kind of check the skin on the feet if it's starting to come off the skin on the feet the bird is ready to go I think both birds and we'll throw them in the sucker and we'll hit them with cold water all right we're going to show you how we do a bird here basically take and cut a little slit right here these knives are really good this is a Dexter brand knife here very good paring knife you get in here and you pull out his craw we call it the craw but it's the esophagus and the trachea so you get in here with your hand and you just kind of tear it out comes right out then you go over here I'm going to take the feet off and we go right at this knuckle you just cut right there pull up through that's one foot gone we save the feet we make broth out of the feet or where my dad will save the feet I'm not that hungry and we'll cut here in the belly open him up just like so push instead of cutting push through okay we'll get in here we'll pull out the intestines very very simply that esophagus the rest of it all comes out in here is your liver be careful not to bust the gallbladder I'm gonna pull the liver off everything just pulls apart this is really really soft and pliable we've got a specific pan for the liver put it over here then we have our gizzard and we save the gizzards and we eat the gizzards some people don't eat gizzards there's the gizzard we put that in a specific pan that mrs. Stoney Ridge is bringing out right now and then we'll cut out the rectal part here and what we call the Tudor or the Parsons nose is what I'm told it's called in Europe so we'll cut that tailfeather portion out and we'll throw it away and that's it our chicken is good we'll rinse him off make sure we got all the feathers out and that's it processed chicken awesome I'll show you one more time in detail we're going to cut right at that top little knuckle right there on this leg cut that foot off again cut that foot off very very easy we'll start with the feet then we'll go right here and we'll cut a tiny slit here and make sure your knife is sharp butchers worst enemy is a dull knife so get in here we haven't fed these birds for somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 hours and therefore their craw or this area right here of their esophagus is empty so we'll pull that out you see a little grass in there that's okay this is his esophagus and trachea now he want to access the inside of the bird go in very lightly then take your finger and push okay look got a little little manure there that's okay all right you want to reach in where that manure smells great we're gonna rinse that off first if you get manure just that simple just rinse him off so here is our liver liver goes over there here is our gizzard our gizzard contains all of the feed that the bird needs to grind up in other words the bird doesn't have teeth so he use this big is 'red as his teeth and that's full of grit now reaching back in here a little bit further we always save the heart so there's the heart we'll put it in there with the livers and gizzards because it's delicious also and we'll rinse our bird off okay good deal there we go this one had a little bit of grass in it that's okay this is normal this is real world real life we'll cut a little slit right here we'll take the foot we'll tuck him in right here we'll take the other foot and we'll tuck him in right here come on little feet all right yeah sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't work so good but this is real world real life that didn't work it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't they also have to take out the rectal organs and just cut down right through here and boom out comes a rectal organs beautiful bird if you're working in a two-man station it's best to go and try to get all the feathers off that you possibly can before you hand it over to the man that's going to be doing the gutting portion of this thing so feathers just come out so super duper easy on these birds really really awesome and we found that the birds when they're in the plucker it slings them so fast that it tends to drop the head off of the bird so we went ahead and took the whole head off when we use the killing cones over here to dispatch the bird check those feet when the skin starts coming off the feet like this right there you know it's ready for the plucker I'll post a link to these nitrogen's if you guys want to get yourself a pair for doing this stuff they're awesome for working on your car - great stuff they have a grip to them so you can hold onto stuff runner water it feathers will come out right here cleaning these birds very good reach down and I turn it off and here are our cleanly plucked Birds SuperDuper awesome so again we go from the cones to the scald to the pluck to the gut and into the sink with cold water and ice and over here are our livers and our gizzards now guys we're going to get busy we're going to work our way through these birds and that the end of it we'll show you how we seal them in these bags they're really neat you just basically dip them down in hot water at 185 degrees and zip-tie it will show you the trick to that they'll be pretty cool and I'll kind of give you an overall review of how all this worked out at the end of the day here so stay tuned alright so we've got our birds over here and they're all on ice and the sink and we're almost done with everything to do with this process we're going to run some cold water over them and put them in their bags for the freezer we're gonna drop our birds and they shrink tight BPA free bags and we got these bags at coops and more and we got some from Myer hatchery too so they both carry these bags very very handy so you drop the bird in the bag it goes into 185 degree water with this little straw just like that then you twist it up on the bird and then you put a zip tie right around it zip it closed and your bird is vacuum sealed and a bag just like you'd buy it at the grocery store so check it out so we've got the bird in the bag we'll drop him down in here in the hot water 185 degree in water and that's whether you got to Bob him up and down a little bit bring him back out twist him tight throw a zip tie on good deal pull out your straw all right just like you'd get it in the grocery store alright once again birds in the bag take our straw drop our straw down in there you need kind of a stiff straw ours are a little flimsy for what we're doing here now you drop the bird down in drop him down in 185 degree hot water and we're using an old broomstick handle to push him down in there and you pull them out and the vacuum bag just seals right closed on him just like that roll him tight shut your straw out get your zip tie on good deal snug as a bug just how you'd buy it in the store that's it we're wrapping it up I want to give you a quick overview of everything and what I felt like the killing cones I've already put them up here on the top of the hill the killing cones did a really good job they were fairly easy to clean the stainless steel one was a little bit easier and the double XL was a little bit better a little bit easier to work with than the XL so we could get the chickens head down a little bit better thus Calder has done an awesome job I can't say enough about it the plucker did good the helper did real good everything just worked out great the bags are really neat I would suggest if you use the plucker be assured that you're going to spend a couple hours cleaning up after you get done with this job the shrink bags work great they're non bpa you can get them at Meyer hatchery and coops and more down below we'll be links to everything used in this video guys thanks a lot I hope you really enjoyed it I hope you learned a lot and if you have any questions post them down the comments I'd love to hear from you alright we'll see you next time I'm a Stoney Ridge farm whoo Pierce we've had some ways the knees don't really kick it so this is the tabletop economy plucker with from ducks industries I got this at Meijer hatchery also this is how you use it so it basically strips the feathers off and puts them in your mouth