When butchering chickens I know that you need to be careful not to break the gall bladder because it will spill bile. Is the chicken no longer edible if the gall bladder breaks? What is the best way to get the insides out without breaking it?
Question about butchering chickens
I've not run into trouble yet. {{{yuck factor alert!!}}} Just be careful when you reach inside to clean to get your hands around things and pull slowly and steadily. greenhouse_gal should be a good one to ask...it's okay to use a knife to separate once you can see what you've got. Rank beginner myself or I'd say more...
I've never broken a gall bladder by pulling the innards out. It is possible to accidentally cut into it when separating the liver from the rest if you are trying to keep the liver. But if that happens I just throw out the liver. At that point he innards should be outards and not close enough to the chicken to get any gall on the meat.
Smedge! I don't butcher, I've gotten to be a softie in my old age, but I know there are certain tool you can buy to clean a chicken for there is no danger of breaking innards because yes bile will destroy the meat. Good luck and please call me when dinner is ready...LOL
We just have too many roos we need to make into dinner. We had about 40 babies hatch since last February and surprisingly we got more hens than roos. There are a couple roos we are keeping back that are beauties that we will give to friends who want chickens, but the other roos have to go, too much crowing. I found a really neat website that explains the process very well.
Haystack I'll let you know when dinner is served,lol
By the way, thank you all for the info. It is much appreciated.
Happy to oblige a very nice lady. I know what you mean about too many roos. WOW you guys have really hatched a lot of birds, and it's great that you got more hens than roos. I just hatched a bunch of cuckoo marans, (eleven) not one roo in the bunch. I was so surprised cause I usually get about 50/50. Smedge I am going to order some birds that are incredibly different than anything you have seen and their egg are the most incredible eggs I have ever seen in my entire life, as soon as I get a response I will let you know first and send you a picture of the eggs. I want to get the info correct before I show it to anyone, but you will be first on my list to show and give the info to. You'll be shocked when you see what I mean. A very Merry Christmas to you and your entire family. Howie
Did I hear my name mentioned? Smedgekles, here's a great website on butchering chickens:
http://butcherachicken.blogspot.com/
When we're removing the gall bladder we try to let it hang from the liver and trim it off that way. If it tears we just rinse the liver off well, immediately, and we've had no problems with the livers being affected.
One thing that this site doesn't mention is that it's important to keep the birds chilled at refrigerator temperatures for from 24 to 48 hours BEFORE freezing. This results in a tenderer chicken. We also often dry-brine our chickens before bagging them for the freezer, and then as they thaw prior to use the brining seeps into the meat. That's another way to help get your free-range barnyard poultry a bit more tender for the table.
Smedge!!! I tried to send you a pic of some incredible eggs, as I had promised, but I could not get it to work so I asked ZZ.s to post them for me. She did on a thread called Haystack's new project. Hope you enjoy the pic as much as I did. Haystack.
Greenhouse Gal ~ on the dry-brine, your own blend or commercial? I think that would be an excellent way to do it.
Podster, I mostly just sprinkle coarse sea salt on the chickens and rub it in a little. I don't add any other spices or herbs because I never know what I'll be doing with them when I thaw them to cook them. I think the brining does make a bit of a difference.
Our neighbor called us on Saturday to tell us that he had shot a mess of ducks, and could DH help him with our plucking machine. We told him we could do it on Sunday, and I asked DH whether we could butcher our oldest hens at the same time as long as we had the equipment out, which is almost the worst of it! I've been thinking we'd never get to it. So yesterday we spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon cleaning and plucking our neighbor's ducks - maybe about seven of them - and two of his geese, and then we butchered and plucked and cleaned eleven old hens of ours. The plucker didn't do as good a job on the ducks, or the geese, but he was amazed at how clean it picked the chickens; you didn't have to do anything more with them after they had whirled around for a couple of minutes. We ended up with one of his ducks, although he was trying to give us more, and we gave him one of our hens. He was fascinated with the chicken process because he'd never seen that before. I am pleased to report that he did a good job severing the chicken legs at the joint for me; last time we worked together he really hacked the bones, leaving sharp shards sticking out, which is funny because he's an orthopedic surgeon. I told him he was giving me far more confidence in his medical skills.
I packaged those chickens and put them in the refrigerator to age slightly, but I didn't brine them this time. First of all I was too tired, and second of all, since they're stewing hens anyway, I don't expect them to be tender, so I just use them for chicken soup or other long and slow-cooking dishes.
I need to start. The butcher blog is really good, except it ignored how to get a " dead, bled, scalded, and freshly plucked chicken"
Owell. And that's more of a commercial set up, hey? Gee, I'm not a plumber.
Melissa who needs to get rid of fourteen feral roosters. I plan to spare the one in the photo...
This is a great thread! Although I got a lil queezy cause it's too early in the morning to mention "bile" eeew.
Good Luck to ya Molamola, I'm sure the first one is the hardest.