man it's been hot these past couple days we're processing chickens and it hit like i don't know
35 degrees in the morning and we just had to shut her down so to this morning we're going to be
continuing with processing chickens and i'm going to show you how we do it on our homestead without
all the fancy gadgets and tools that you see a lot of people have nowadays with their stainless steel
pluckers and their drenchers to make sure you can get the feathers off easily i'm not gonna be
plucking the feathers today i will be skinning the chicken that way uh the feathers uh and the skin
we don't have on the chicken because first off the skin is the worst part of the chicken so
we don't eat the skin and it also makes it easier and a lot more efficient to process the chicken so
you're gonna need a couple things right off the bat you're gonna need a couple sharp knives i have
a filleting knife that i just finished sharpening um with a stone here uh that i use it's a thousand
grit and a six thousand on top so i sharpen that stone down i also have a um a butchering knife
here that i uh was using earlier uh or the other day when i was uh processing chickens and what i
used this one for is to cut through bone and i was halfing the chickens the legs from the breast uh i
don't think i'll be doing that today i gotta check with kimberly and see how many she wants full
and you're also gonna want some scissors and these scissors i use are really heavy duty
these are for clipping off the tips of the wings because there's nothing to them on that uh on this
side here i have a garbage can uh that i will be uh throwing all the scraps from the chicken
and bleeding them out in uh i have a log here that i put two nails in the nails are probably about an
inch and a half to two inch apart and that's where i put the uh chicken's head in and uh we're just
going to be using a good old wax um this is how i've done it from uh from a child and i know some
people like to slit the throats in a cone again we don't have the fancy cones uh that a lot of
them have out there and i find this a lot more efficient and painless for the chicken because
just bleeding them out by slicing their throat i don't know i just still feel that there's a uh
a feeling to the chicken when they're getting drained out now i don't know
but this is the way i do i just take the head right off and drain it or drain it in there
and then start processing from there also what you're going to need is a bucket of water here
that once you process the chicken that you can toss it into cool water and you're also going
to want constant flowing water that way you can clean off your table as you're processing the
chickens in between chickens rinsing off the chicken and the feathers and all that jazz so
you're always going to want plenty of water so keep that on hand let's get into this now
all right so i like to grab the chicken by its feet like that it kind of contains them
down a little bit and now obviously this one's uh a poor example but
typically they um settle down like this and they could become a little bit more docile
um when i was doing these chickens the other day we were averaging about five pounds of
chicken that's fully dressed and that's at seven weeks so these ones might be a little bit more
uh just because uh i've had them uh feeding for a couple extra days and uh we'll see today
so now he's gonna go on to the butcher block and uh we're gonna drain them
and then we're gonna put them on the table and uh start processing them so here we go
go roxy go
okay so now i've got the uh chicken completely bled out and that takes about two to three
minutes depending on how long the organs keep on going in there but you'll notice the
chicken go limp and then there will be no more blood and then you're pretty much ready to go
um yes this is a little bit of a disturbing video but this is real life homestead this is not
your go to the grocery store and pick up your food this is what you got to do on a homestead uh to
survive so the first thing i like to do is grab my scissors and i like to take off the wingtips
so all you do is cut those off with your scissors because there's nothing to the wingtips right
so those can go right into the bin
now the next thing you want to do is uh deal with the legs and i got roxy here and tanks
sitting behind here just waiting for these feet uh dogs totally love these uh things so
i do give them um a bit of a treat once in a while but i don't over do them because they'll
just just eat until they throw up so what you want to do is um there's a joint right here on the leg
some people like to bend the leg the other way but i like to bend it the way it's supposed to
and you'll feel a little uh little cave in there and that's where you want to cut so once you cut
it there you'll go right through the cart cartilage and cut it off clean like that
you want that roxy no tank you want that there you go tank will like that and then same with
the other leg completely off there's no bone to go through it's completely cartilage uh the
bone starts uh below and above that joint that you cut so here's another treat for them you want that
no okay so she doesn't want that it is what it is so now what you're going to do is start skinning
the chicken so typically what you want to do is after you bleed out the chicken on the normal
process you want to keep the legs on and what you'll do is put it in hot water i believe it's
150 degrees uh that you'll want the water at but we're not doing that because we're not saving the
skin so what you do is right at the belly of the chicken you're gonna make a little slice like that
exposing all the breast and then what i like to do is run my knife right through right to the top
and what you want to do also is take off any of that connecting tissue and uh so that it comes
apart nice and easy and then you can do the same on here you take off all that connective tissue
and you expose the breasts now this is where it gets a little bit uh savage is you basically have
to uh pull off the skin all together uh that comes in bits and pieces but uh this is a lot
quicker and uh a lot healthier to eat than when you have the skin on and you gotta pluck it all
so to get the feet up i'll uh reach into the leg and i'll pull down above that leg that i just cut
and it comes right off so you have one whole leg exposed there and then same on the other side
some of the tissue is really on there really well so you'll have to
kind of get your fingers in there and uh and just pull
so there you go now you got two legs exposed
um what i like to do now is work this top part over where the neck was
and then over onto the wings
so once you got the neck exposed there you keep on working it through over the wings and
sometimes this doesn't come off in one piece this one is kind of working out very well for me today
must be the first one i'll guess i'll have it be more interesting on the next ones
so you got one wing out there so what i like to do is take my fillet knife and cut that skin
off there and then i don't have the feathers on there either and then you work the other side off
as well that one didn't come off as easy so just give it another little pull
and then what you do is you work it all the way back down and under and uh that's basically as far
as you get there now you're gonna get the knife involved and start cutting all everything out
i'll throw all that out so now what i'll do is i'll start out the wings and i'll cut the wing off
in all the skin as well
so that's one clean wing right there
and then you're gonna go on to the other one
flip it over maybe this way
and it's important like i said at the beginning of the video to uh have a nice sharp knife because
the feathers here will dull up the knife really quick so make sure you sharpen it before um not
every chicken but every time you start a process of chickens it's good to sharpen your knife so
once you get those off toss them out now you're going to get to the tail here so the tail here has
a little uh sack that you've got to cut out so you cut that sack out
then you can flip over the chicken cut the sack out on this side here
and then you have a pretty clean chicken there
clean that out now is where the water comes in
you want to give this a good clean
if you don't clean it off well you're going to
have to deal with all the extra feathers that are kicking around
and it just makes the process a little
easier
so now once you uh rinsed off your chicken you can either start at the the bottom of them or
at the top i prefer the top that way i can cut out the neck and the crop and the esophagus and
so when i pull out the intestines and everything else that i'm not pulling that crop out it the
crop should be pretty empty because i like i said it's been about 12 or 16 hours since
i've uh fed these chickens and they've only had water so there shouldn't be much of a crop left
and then i pull out the neck you can keep the neck for stews and things like that but i like
to keep them for the dog treats it's uh personal preference really so we'll start up at the neck
and what you'll do is you'll make incisions on either side of the neck
and you'll cut out the esophagus and the crop that's right there
and if you're gonna be going through a little bit of bone it's good to use your butcher knife
this one's giving me a little bit of a difficulty so i'll just get the scissors in
so that's your neck the dogs really love these as well there you go tank there you go he loves that
so now that you've taken off the neck and the esophagus is out there
the crop was in there i should have showed you but it is what it is you work on the back end
so you're gonna get your knife again and you're gonna start cutting around the sack
or the vent and then down the sides here the down the rib cage or what is the rib cage
uh the skin is very thin so what you can do is cut down this this will lift open the whole breast
of the chicken giving you access to the insides of the chicken so some people like to run their
fingers in there to prevent from puncturing any of the organs i like to uh just make sure that i
stick as far as i can over to the side and cut it because then you're going to get into the livers
and then i do the other side as well and so now you have all the connective
tissues that you want to kind of get out in there
and you want to maybe pull it open like that so now you can access everything else
just basically pick this up and then you want to cut the vent out
and this part here is very important not to nick the uh
the intestines because then it's gonna get a little dirty
just work your fingers in there kind of pull everything out
get your knife in there cut any of those tissues that are holding it back
and then you got a couple extra tenants in there now you basically have a clean chicken inside
you do have to deal with the lungs a little bit um and then just rinse it out however
if you want you can get into this these are your livers that's your heart and if you're
ever gonna be uh eating your livers and stuff like that make sure you don't hit
this green sock here because that'll um taint the meat or the livers uh because
that's its bile so you can either pull it off or cut into the ribs a little bit
and cut that completely off so there i got one lever there
and i got there so now all that that goes into the bin there and i get rid of that
and what you want to do with your organs and everything is toss it in your water start cooling
it down because the meat is still warm right now you want to cool it down as quick as possible
to prevent it from um spoiling so you'll get your water out again now rinse out the chicken
make sure you rinse it out really well
now you can just uh see it's nice clean in there uh you can trim off these fat glands here um
but however i like leaving a little bit of fat on there just to uh when you're cooking it helps with
the flavoring so if you do have any feathers stuck on the chicken you can always just cut them off
that's still part of the skin so you just pull that off give it to the dogs if you've got dogs
around and they'll uh snatch that up in no time and now once you're done processing the chicken
it goes into the cold water and then it'll stay in there for uh i don't know 10 10 minutes to
half an hour and then we'll toss it into the freezer after we bag it up so make sure you
rinse it out with so that there's no blood in there and you're good to go it make sure you
rinse off your table and you can get started onto the next chicken anyways thanks for joining me
to the uh actual behind the scenes of how you live on a homestead and the things
you've got to be doing on the homestead to to survive so i'll catch you on the next
video