Time to kill the chickens

The scene of the crime at the end of our driveway. I have the buckets, cooler, table, hose, and a fire under the water filled drum for scalding. I kept out the gruesome pics, well the ones I thought might be considered gruesome.



Here I am just starting to dip a bird in the 140+ degree water. This is called scalding. It loosens up the feathers so they pluck easier. You have to be careful not to dip too long or you can start to cook the skin(not good).

Here is a plucking machine that we borrowed from the Roy's(Thank you). It hugely reduces the time it takes to pluck. We only had 16 birds but it still saved a lot of time. When the Roy's use it they kill upwards of 110 birds! The next pic shows what they look like after the plucking machine. Cassandra finishes plucking, cuts off the feet and passes it on to me and today Geoff who wanted to learn how to slaughter so he came to help(Thank you Geoff you saved the day)! Geoff and I gutted the chickens and then they went into cold water waiting to go inside to get a final check for feathers and a final rinse before going into bags and put in the fridge over night.