Best Way To Bleed A Chicken

In reference to killing broilers (or any chicken for that matter), Squaw Creek Ranch asked, "Now, what is "best" , as far as getting all the blood out, chop off their heads or cut the arteries?"

Well... here are a few links about processing chickens, one of which is me killing a chicken.

Polyface Processing Overview

Me Bleeding Out a Chicken at Polyface.

Joel Salatin Eviscerating a Chicken

Daniel Salatin Cutting Up and Chicken

David Schafer with Featherman Equipment Company sells poultry processing equipment and comes highly recommended by the Salatins. He came out to the farm and took pictures and video and then created these videos in order to help people learn how to process chickens. If you are ever in need of poultry processing equipment here is the company's contact information.

Featherman Equipment Co.

PO Box 62
Jamesport, MO 64648

(660) 684-6035

info@featherman.net

www.featherman.net

Jessica also asked, "Videos? I'd love to see them (The Pigs) moving about." Must be her lucky day. Here is a video I took back in the spring of a group of pigs immediately after I moved them into a new pasture. Notice the grazing.

Pig Update

When I was a small child I asked my father one day, "Dad, can I have a pig?"  

He questioned, "Son, you can barely wake up in time to get ready for school, how would you ever be able to wake up early enough to take care of the pig before school?"

To which I retorted, "I don't wake up early because I don't have a pig."

The logic was simple enough for me, but needless to say, I never got my pig.  Well Dad, I've got more pigs than I ever dreamed and I am able to wake up early to care for them.  If you haven't ever experienced caring for a pig, I highly recommend getting one (or 10) and find the joy I have in them.  Here on Polyface I have become the "Pigboy" (much like a cowboy... no horse).

Anyway, here is a little update on the pigs and Lunch Box, the lead pig.

Currently on the farm we have ~155 pigs.  They range in size from 30 lbs to 300 lbs and are mostly out on pasture or in the woods (save for the little new pigs and the "about-to-be-butchered" pigs).  We run males and females together (males are castrated) and keep them in bunches of 15-50.  

Pigs in the Beaver Pond Pasture.  Notice the grazing?

Polyface is doing something this year that is Brand new with the pig enterprise.  We have put 100 pigs on actual pasture.  I say "actual pasture" because it isn't grass in the woods like the beaver pond pigs above, but rather grass in an open field that, until this summer, was grazed by the cattle.  We have two herds of 50 on 1/2 acre paddocks and we move them about once every 5-10 days.  Movement depends on the age of the pig and amount of feed consumption.  They have all-you-can-eat access to the normal Polyface pig ration (Corn, Soy beans, Oats, Diatomaceous Earth, and Fertril Nutri-Balancers swine mix) and large quantities of lush, tall, jungle-like pasture.  The clover is thick the fescue is tall and the alfalfa is blooming.  When we move them they don't head to the newly filled feeder.  Instead the put their heads to the ground like cattle and graze their way to the feeder.  It's UNREAL and BREATHTAKING.  Probably should be on the 1000 things to see before you die... maybe.

Pasture difference on day of move.  WOW.  Fencing is only a single strand of 12 1/2 gauge  Aluminum electric fence.

Same pasture after a few days.

Lunch Box is part of one of these 2 herds on pasture.  We put her with the newest/smallest pigs to act as a mother with good habits.  When I enter their pasture I usually began calling for her.  In no time she finds me for a good rub down and scratch.  Then something unbelievable happens.  Once I start scratching her, all the other little pigs lose their fear for me and allow me to pet them.  Its unreal.  The day I turned them in with her they had a huge flight zone, but now they aren't afraid and usually like to nibble on my feet.  Displacement in pigs has risen to the top on my list of desired qualities.

By the way...

Pork is the most consumed meat in the world.  Believe it or not.

Here is a link to a video Nightline did with Joel and Steve Ellis (founder of Chipotle).

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7857921

Enjoy!!

Butchering Rabbits

So about two weeks ago Matt and I butchered several rabbits and we have been really busy here lately that I haven't allotted an of my down time to blogging.  Tonight I decided was long enough to wait, so here are some pictures and a little but of the procedure.  Any questions?... Feel free to ask.

The Deciding Factor:

After we wean bunnies from their mother (6 weeks), we allow them to reach 4-5 lbs (12 weeks) before making the decision to butcher or keep for breeding stock.  To eliminate breeding full brothers and sisters, we only keep either bucks or does from a working doe.  We don't always keep every buck or every doe from a litter.  Only if they're awesome like doe #14 and buck #4 (who multiply like... rabbits?) do we keep all does.  We seldom keep all bucks from a litter.  If they aren't kept, they're butchered.

The Capture:

The hunt is simple... put bunny into crate from hutch.  Its best to carry them like a mother cat carries her kittens, by grabbing  a handful of skin on the back of their neck.  Be careful of their kicking feet and sharp claws.  My war wounds (scratches and one bite) just healed up.

Two bunnies ready to be butchered.

The Kill:

Once your are prepared to butcher... burnt peace offering, say prayer, deep breath, or whatever it takes for you to be mentally ready to kill such an awesome creature (I usually just jump right in), grab to fryer (terminology helps desensitize the act) in your non-dominate hand by grasping right in front of the hind legs.  This is different than the description of carrying mentioned above (see picture below).  In your dominate hand grab a heavy stick or metal pipe about 18 inches long.  Give to fryer a good blow to the back of the head, right above the ears.  This will instantly knock-out the fryer and allow you to hang it up by both feet and slit it's carotid arteries.  The fryer will then bleed out and basically die in its sleep.  In my opinion the most humane way to kill.

  

Here I am right before "The Kill."  Notice the holding technique.

Here the fryer bleeds out.  We catch the blood in a bucket.

Skinning 'em out:

Once you get them hung up and bleed out, it's time to skin 'em.  We start with the hind legs and pull the skin down over their bodies like a shirt over their head.  Once we cut the front feet off, the head comes next.  We try to cut the head off at the same cut used to bleed them out.  

Matt and I skinning fryers.  Rope and a clothes line post is all you need to hang them.

Cutting the tail off.

Notice how the skin is in one piece.  Just like a shirt over its head.  

I'm pulling out the front feet to cut them off.

Here Matt cuts off the head.  Notice how he holds the ears and pulls down.

This allows him to cut against something firm, not limp and dangerous.

Evisceration:

One you have the skin off, its time to eviscerate.  If you have ever butchered a deer, the process is exactly the same... only scaled way down.  Be careful not to get any urine or manure on the carcass.  If you do just wash it off... no big deal to me, but for customers you need to keep them as clean as possible.  We keep the liver to sell with the carcass.  The only difficult task is removing the gall bladder.  Its hard to get a hold of, but unlike a chicken, it won't bust easily.  I tried to bust one and its rather strong.  Make sure to go past the diaphragm and remove the heart and lungs.   

Starting the cut into the cavity.  

Use your fingers to protect the guts from puncture and cut up.

The inside of a healthy fryer can be a awesome sight.

Pinching the gall bladder off.  

Don't worry about busting it... just grip and pull.

Clean Up and Cool Down:

Once we have eviscerated, we cut off their hind feet. wash the carcass with cool water, and then place them in a tank of cool water while we butcher the others.  This allows for quick cooling and hydration.  It also keeps the flies away from the meat.  Once we are done butchering, we pack the carcass (with liver in body cavity) in plastic bags and freeze them.  

 

Nice hind quarters after feet have been removed.

Makes you wanna slap your daddy!

Here Matt washes the fryer with clean water.

Cooling down in the tank.  Notice the liver below the carcasses.

I hope this brings you closer to understanding Polyface's butchering process.  It's really simple and only requires a sharp knife and some practice.

Thanks again to Rachel for all the photos.

New Cattle and RAIN!!

Over the past few days the Salatins have been buying weaned calves to replenish Polyface's stock.  We send about 7 to the slaughterhouse that is partially owned by the Salatins every two weeks.   Yesterday we received 25 calves and today we received 50.  We also had about one and a half inches of rain fall over the same two days.  

Moral of the story... If you need rain, plan on working cattle in the corral and the rain will come and make everything sloppy.

New Calf Protocol  (How do you prefer your tail pulled?)

I had always wondered what Polyface's protocol was for receiving new cattle and after the last two days I have a pretty good idea.  Both sets of cattle came from local cow/calf operations.  In fact the first 25 came from the neighbor bordering the south side of the home property.  The others came from about 30 minutes away in Stuarts Draft.  

(It was nice to get local calves since local is a huge word around here.  I heard somewhere that the average steak travels 1100 miles from birth-to-grill or womb-to-tomb, so its nice to think that some of the meat I will eat here on the farm walked everywhere but to the butcher.)

Anyway... Once the calves were sorted off their mothers and/or put into the corral, we had a series of tasks for each calf before turning them out onto fresh pasture.  Here at Polyface we run both steer and heifers.  (We have some cows that produce calves every year also, but to keep up with the beef demand they started buying calves and finishing them on grass.)  One task involves putting each calf on a set of scales to get there weight.  Then we run each calf into a head gate that holds them still so we can put in new Polyface ear-tags.  Both the bulls and heifers are pretty easy up until this point, the only difference being that we still need to castrate the bull calves into steers.  The heifers are turned loose to hang out in the coral, but the bulls are held a little longer by the head gate and a human (I had the lions share this week, but its wasn't to many).  Try and imagine this... I stood on the fence straddling the bull, both feet about belly high on the bull, facing toward his hind end.  This allowed me to pull on his tail and sit on his back while either Daniel or Joel did the castrating.  This worked pretty well under the circumstances and we only had a few that really fought what we were doing.  Once you get their tail pulled over there back, they calm down quite a bit.  In between bulls I would just climb up into the barn, over the chute and cattle to wait till the next calf.  This put me out of sight and allowed for easy access when I was needed to pull tail.

I keep saying calf but I think a different word needs to be used because some of these "calves" weighed in at over 600 lbs.  One in particular weighed 712 lbs.  Surprisingly enough, he didn't fight as much as he could have.  I guess you could say he stood there and took it like a man... or a lesser of a man now?  

This way of working new calves was a little new to me.  I'm used to having the calf either at the end of a rope pulled by a horse and cowboy, or in a head-gate with a squeeze chute.  This is how I've always castrated and tagged cattle growing up.  I can say that I prefer roping over all, and the squeeze chute is next followed by this new method.  With that said, I also respect the way Polyface does it.  All the infrastructure was low cost (home-made head gate with home-milled lumber and posts for the corral) and we got the job done right.  It's not worth doing unless you do it right.

 

Week 1: The Beginning

I arrived at Polyface at 2:00PM on October 1st and the feeling of intensity was enormous. That morning the summer crew and family had butchered several hundred chickens and were milling around getting chickens into bins and bags to be cooled so they could be sold. That afternoon chores consisted of feeding lots of chickens and collecting, cleaning, and sorting eggs. When we sat down to dinner I looked around to see faces that spelled relief and accomplishment. I knew I was surrounded by a group of hard-working, self-motivated, optimistic people. What an environment. What a place. What a group of people.

So, I've been here less than five days and today my body let me know that my current routine was out of the ordinary. It keeps asking: What happened to that recliner? Where is the Mountain Dew and other various soda pop? Why do you walk so far and carry all those heavy buckets of feed and water? Fast Food? Beer? Are we on some sort of diet or at boot camp? I guess I forgot to tell my body that we were headed for an experience that might equal an farm business fat camp. The second of third night at dinner I commented to Matt and Andy how much food the both of them could and did consume. Endless bowls of tomato one night, chili the next. Trays of no-bake cookies. It was incredible. Matt made a great comment.

He said, "Grady, here in about a week or two your going to sit down for dinner and begin to eat. You're going to wonder why you're not getting full and how it appears that your stomach is a bottomless pit. Don't worry, that's normal." I got a kick out of that. We'll see if he's right, and if the way he and Andy eat is any indication then I'll probably join them bowl for bowl, plate for plate.

Where I sleep is cozy and efficient. Large and drafty are not proper words that would ever describe "The Cottage." I share this one and a half-ish room with Andy. We have a kitchen area, bathroom area (This is the half I mentioned. I call it a half because there is no door, only a curtain which works quite effective.) and a sleeping area which consists of bunk beds. You guessed it, I'm on the top bunk. I'm working on making a writing desk area and getting a cushy chair so to have an office area. There isn't much more room to make any more areas, but we'll see what we can do.  I made a shelf today that doubles as a hanging rod for Andy and I's nice clothing.  It worked out really well so I guess we also have a closet type area also.

My goal is to post every sunday at least and maybe more... We'll see what happens.  Polyface is starting to slow down so I'm sure I'll be able to keep up.  Hopefully I'll be able to expand some philosophy and tell stories.  Stay tuned.