Yesterday was our annual silence of the crows day. Poultry processing on the farm. Neighbor brought theirs over and we all teamed up to process all our cull cockerels. All the equipment is mine.



This table top plucker strips each bird to 95% clean in one minute.





I like these induction plates as you can set a precise temp for scalding.



I will be pressure canning the meat from mine and make and can stock from the carcasses. Good winter project. Can't beat the soups, casseroles, sandwich spreads, stews from all this.

Sure emphasizes their bright yellow leg skin doesn't it? Is the scalding to make the pin feathers easier to remove, Ann?
Some folks apparently eat the feet as I see bags of them frozen at Wallace's World.

Chinese/Asians like the feet, popular in Chinese restaurants.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Sure emphasizes their bright yellow leg skin doesn't it? Is the scalding to make the pin feathers easier to remove, Ann?
Some folks apparently eat the feet as I see bags of them frozen at Wallace's World.

No pin feathers depending on the age of the bird and time of year. The plucker is very good at what it does but scalding really helps that process too. Not all chicken breeds have yellow skin. There are many with white skin and some cultures prefer them. There are also hypermelanistic poultry that have black skin, muscle, bones, etc and are highly prized in other places.

Chicken feet are often used to make soup stock, dog food, etc. Most cultures and Americans before ultra urbanization did use chicken feet just like trotters on the pig, etc. You can see how beautifully clean the feet are on that cockerel. Many other cultures do not waste, are not squeamish and still utilize as much of the animal as possible.

Kind of sad to see how our boneless, skinless, veganized and over sanitized food supply is actually really unhealthy and terribly bland!

Nice set up, Ann. I sure don't miss the days of boiling water + plucking. That smell still gets in my nose + I could never eat chicken the same day. Along that same line, there was this woman who was tired of singing off the hairs on her plucked chickens + decided to try using her husband's Shick razor to shave the hairs. It worked great, so she sent a letter to Shick + loved the idea so well that now they offer 3 models, The men's Shick, the Woman's Shick, + the chicken Shick. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.

We didn't have any stink with these guys which was nice. I withhold food for 24 hours (they do have nice clean water). I do notice more of it with actual Cornish cross broilers since they tend to lay around more than walk at butcher age.

We also rinse feet and hand pull any soiled feathers right after bleeding the bird out before scalding. That really helps on smells too.

Back when we were raising chickens in the 70s + 80s, I built several metal cones, like a cheerleaders trumpet + soldered a hook on the side. Stuff your chicken down the tube, heads out, chop off, hang + let bleed out; no damage to meat by flopping around.

Ann,

You are an inspiration, but when it comes to poultry feet, I think I'll pass. I've had some Chinese friends who swore by them, but I know where they've been.

Randy, that cone design strikes me as ingenious.

quote:

Originally posted by Norman Conquest:
Nice set up, Ann. I sure don't miss the days of boiling water + plucking. That smell still gets in my nose + I could never eat chicken the same day. Along that same line, there was this woman who was tired of singing off the hairs on her plucked chickens + decided to try using her husband's Shick razor to shave the hairs. It worked great, so she sent a letter to Shick + loved the idea so well that now they offer 3 models, The men's Shick, the Woman's Shick, + the chicken Shick. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.

I agree very nice set up. As a youth, we did the chopping block, a big kettle of boiling water and freezer bags to put the processed bird in after finished. We did between 100 to 150 birds a year on a couple days work.

I did not use the feet in this stock but this is finishing up on my stove top today. The carcasses and skins. I have removed all of the meat and will can it today. Stock gets canned tomorrow.

Smells good in the house today!



I will be using the heads, feet and offal for my predator trapping.

BTW- I will make pet food out of the bits of meat and skins after straining my stock.

Not a lot wasted here.

Ann, that reminds me of that Far Side cartoon, where this Indian is explaining to the kids while holding up this little thing. "We don't know what it is, but it's the only part of the buffalo that we don't use."

Yeah, the stuff not used is always intriguing. When I killed a giraffe they took everything but his penis.

Looks wonderful Ann!

Wish you could buy chickens with the feet on, with the feet on you can make a shallow cut around the knee joint and just beneath the skin to pull and twist all the tendons out of the drum. Chicken feet are very gelatinous, good to add when making stock.

I know that the orientals hold chicken feet as a great delicacy, I however have put that off, but truly, I should not condemn something that I have not tried.

quote:

Originally posted by Norman Conquest:
I know that the orientals hold chicken feet as a great delicacy, I however have put that off, but truly, I should not condemn something that I have not tried.

No, I would say you showed good sense. My wife (Thai) loves eating chicken and duck feet. They are like eating the cartilage of the knee of a chicken leg except harder to chew. I don't eat them or pig's feet either.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim@IMReps:
Wish you could buy chickens with the feet on, with the feet on you can make a shallow cut around the knee joint and just beneath the skin to pull and twist all the tendons out of the drum. Chicken feet are very gelatinous, good to add when making stock.

Raise and butcher your own and you will have what you need. I pressure can all my stock and thus always have some available.

That set up seems to do a wonderful job.

Scalding makes all the difference, but I have opnly hand plucked them. Plucker sure cleans them or is that bird after a second hand plucking.

Chicken feet are eaten a lot in south africa as well....they call them "runaways"..... I don't much like em.....

quote:

Originally posted by TCLouis:
That set up seems to do a wonderful job.

Scalding makes all the difference, but I have opnly hand plucked them. Plucker sure cleans them or is that bird after a second hand plucking.

This is right after using the plucker. Then the little fringes are hand plucked.

Ann: Is there a reason that your pics are not showing? Your posts say" "postimage, free image posting, image not found or was removed"