Plucking and dressing a bird (graphic images)

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
I've posted this across from our blog as we have been having a few discussions around processing birds. It contains very graphic images so please do not read if this may shock or offend.

I claim no particular knowledge or skill, just some experience. I found the first time dressing birds and games a little confusing and was concerned about getting it wrong. My aim here is to encourage people to "have a go". There are many different techniques, and I would encourage those that use a different method to photograph it and show it.

I won’t show how to dispatch a domestic bird, but the most commonly used method is to dislocate the neck either free hand or by using a broom handle across the neck. I would advise getting an experienced poultry keeper to teach you these techniques. Ensure you also learn how to bleed a bird into a neck cavity or via hanging and cutting.

So first up, this is “Pioneer” the cockerel.

22059541034_aa0cc1e957_z.jpg


I’m not big on naming livestock (you don’t name your food), but my lady wife insists that we need a way to mention that chicken “x” has gone lame. So names they have. It is important to us to remember that they are living, sentient beings and that there living and dying and beyond should be respectful. That does not mean forgetting that they are here to feed us, but it does mean ensuring their time is natural, engaging, stimulating and healthy (not trying to be preachy, just explain our approach).

Prior to killing the bird, you may wish to isolate the night before and to only offer water to ensure that the crop and bowels are relatively empty during processing. It may also be useful to “de-louse” the bird prior to killing as plucking a lousy (literally) bird is no fun. That said, its sensible to check for, and treat, chicken lice. This should really be part of your standard health checks in any case.
I believe that a calm bird at the point of dispatch will have a much improved flavour. A bird that is stressed in unfamiliar surroundings may not be placid. Equally a bird chased around for catching, or held and struggling may be flooded with adrenaline. For this reason getting birds used to be handled will make the dispatch process less anxious for them and you. To this end we hand feed our birds treats – they will come to and even perch on us with no stress. This is not incompatible with then killing them – but you need to keep in mind that this will eventually happen and these birds are not pets.

17092809565_4ddabb35b4_z.jpg


Having picked up your bird, take it out of sight of the rest of the flock prior to despatch in order not to distress the other chickens.

Once you have despatched your bird and hung it up to bleed, you face a plucking choice. You can “dry pluck” (pluck before the body cools and rigor mortis sets in). Or dip the bird in hot (c. 53C) water for 1-2 minutes (no more or it will start to cook). Dipping loosens the feathers but makes the skin more delicate. My opinion is that dry plucking is fine for a single bird, but if you are despatching a number of birds, then sipping is worth considering as the birds will cool before you can get them all plucked.

In this article I will show dry plucking. The process is similar for a dipped bird other than the dipping process. Everyone will have their own technique but this is mine.

It is easier to pluck feathers from warm flesh, so don’t delay if dry plucking. The bird does not cool evenly so there is a logical order to plucking. We pluck in the workshop as feathers go everywhere, it’s a job for outside the cottage – in the garden on a nice Summers day.

Whilst sitting, lay the bird on your lap face down and pluck the tail feathers first – these are large feathers and removing them gives access to other areas. You may need to pluck one feather at a time.

22854954636_9c1485c864_z.jpg


Next remove the primary (big) wing feathers. Again, one feather at a time and, on a very large bird, pliers if needed. A birds extremities cool most quickly so plucking wings and legs should happen first.

22854868196_cb205eecab_z.jpg


Next hang the bird up somewhere convenient on stout cord. To those who follow my blog, you may recognise this doorway. The nails in the frame are used for stringing onions – and plucking chickens!

22881050875_68a6853a69_z.jpg


Pluck the legs next

22693028520_b09529fa99_z.jpg


Then the wings and start on the breast

22892334671_b39a682f94_z.jpg


Finally pluck the back, neck and around the vent

22488781689_c741c01dda_z.jpg


That is your bird roughly plucked. The next job is to “dress” the bird.

Having plucked your bird, transfer it to a clean work surface. I use these tools in plucking and dressing – pliers (for stubborn feathers), anvil shears (for cutting bone) and a small, slim sharp knife. No need for some great big thing – a two inch blade is ample.

22692904680_35a4080baf_z.jpg


The first thing to do is remove the legs below the knees. Commercially this is done by just cutting through the bone in the lower leg with shears or secateurs. I prefer something a little more precise. First I slit the skin around the knee joint. After that I bend the leg forward and use the point to cut through one tendon (the white line you can see) then backwards and cut the other. A sharp bend and the knee joint separates with no bone fragments or splinters involved.

22854987996_5d3643811e_z.jpg


Next slit the skin of the neck (just the skin, do not pierce the wind pipe or food pipe that lay just under the skin outside of the neck meat

22462502447_5194ee7188_z.jpg


Using the shears (or knife if you prefer) sever the neck meat and spine (without cutting the wind and food pipes) at the torso and just behind the head. This leaves the head connected by only the food and wind pipes. The neck can then be kept for use in the giblets. By pulling gently on the head, the wind and food pipes can be pulled outwards and cut as far into the torso as possible. The head and pipes can then be disposed of. Insert your fingers gently into the body cavity and loosen the organs at the upper end of the cavity.

22258372634_e3ddf05e67_z.jpg


Next we need to free the other end of the organs at the vent (cloaca). The vent is the “all purpose orifice” in a chicken and serves both sexual and excretion purposes. The chickens intestines pass through the skin at the vent and the beak. In order to remove the intestines intact, you have to cut around the skin surrounding the vent.

22880869695_015192f8bf_z.jpg


Having cut around the vent, slit the skin above the vent up to the rib cage. You can then gently insert the fingers between the vent and carcass and gently separate the organs from the sides of the cavity.

22892047441_2760c35840_z.jpg


You should then be able to remove the intestines intact. You can see the dark mass of the liver on top. If you wish to use this for pate etc. you need to remove the gall bladder (the greeny black point you can see in the middle).

22867684332_c36fa32459_z.jpg


You then need to put your hand inside the cavity and remove the lungs (on the back wall – you may need to scrape these off) and heart.

You can then weigh your bird and leave it to relax in the fridge for 3 or 4 days

22693079170_ecce42fd72_z.jpg


After the bird has been cooled for a few days it can be frozen or cooked

23016855156_e0a44f516c_z.jpg


Pioneer was roasted with all home grown potatoes, veg etc. Even the sloe jelly came from the homestead – a really self reliant meal. Remaining meat formed a cold meat salad and a satay stir fry. Much too good to waste.
 

Macaroon

A bemused & bewildered
Jan 5, 2013
7,209
362
73
SE Wales
Excellent, very clear and concise.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are unaware of how much better un-stressed meat tastes; better for the beast/fowl, and better for those who consume it. I suspect that meat free from adrenaline and other stress hormones makes a huge difference to health.
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
Thanks for that Hugh, good, clear and informative post.
Used to keep chickens and followed what you did pretty much. Very much believe in treating with respect in life, in death and afterwards. As with anything else I've decided to eat.
More often than not I used a pruning knife for the initial cleaning and butchery as I found it particularly good for tackling the joints. Though a fine knife if I was boning the chicken whole.
Do you use your feathers for anything? Was always the thing I felt bad about as though I had uses for some there was always some I had no use for. (Though will admit to not being a fan of eating the feet and combs, though they did go in the stock pot.)

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
I will offer some feather back as I have one Light Sussex hen in moult and birds have been known to eat feathers for the protein. Most of the rest get composted tbh. People who have never done it are often surprised at the 10 litres of feather one bird produces!

Feathers by British Red, on Flickr
 
Nice one British Red...

I've always done birds as part of a get together with friends and family, it makes the processing time a lot faster on multiple birds and people get particularly good at different bits of the process, I find I have a real hard time getting the left overs out as I have size extra large hands.

We always hot dunk the birds, but then i don't normally use the chicken skin apart form as stock and then dog food, and then pack on ice to bring home a big chiller box is your friend. The water does need to be hot, but they really do peal off quick. You can also cheat if you don't want a bird for roasting, split the skin from bum to tail across the breast, unwrap, cut out the breast. Same for drum sticks and bury the left overs in the spot for the next fruit tree.

And don't split the gall bladder, or the nona's will get you!

ALM
 

GGTBod

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 28, 2014
3,209
26
1
Well wrote informative posting thanks for taking the time to do it and sharing, only problem is now i am bloody starving
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Thank you for the kind words guys. I was in too minds whether to post this material on here for fear of someone being...unprepared....to see the realities.
 

GGTBod

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Mar 28, 2014
3,209
26
1
It's a funny conundrum of the modern world where some meat eaters get upset seeing meat processing in any stage before it is wrapped in cling film
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Not at all, BR. Better to have such an informative turotial than clumsy ignorance. Would you attempt to follow the same dressing procedure for grouse?

Our Ruffed and Spruce grouse are similar to the British Red Grouse in both size and general appearance. Our Blue Grouse (aka Dusky) are somewhat (1/2?) bigger and range above maybe 3,000'. Near and above the tree line are a couple of ptarmigan. Think Willow and Rock-. Bag limits are 10/day each. In the last 50 years got my limit no more than 4 times.

In any case, there's little to no meat on the legs or wings. Rapid chilling is the key to good taste. Consequently, we field dress the birds by laying them in their backs, stand on the wings and pull steadily on the legs. Everything comes off but the breasts on the rib cage and those 2 wings. We are required by law to keep at least 1 wing on the bird for ID purposes until we get home to the kitchen. There, I cut the wings off with side-cutters and tidy up the rest.

There's a smallish group of village women who make an event out of grouse hunting with the most elegant possible lunches. Big GMC Suburban for travel. They put the dead grouse in a box in the back, proposing to clean them all at the same time. As they were driving along one fine day, apparently one grouse was not dead. It woke up and commenced to flying around inside the Suburban. I wish I had been a fly on the wall to see that.
 

hughlle1

Nomad
Nov 4, 2015
299
7
London
You've done a good job. Brings back many memories. I can't pretend to know the number of birds i have had to dress. A different method to that which i used as a butcher, but clearly just as effective :)
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
Would you attempt to follow the same dressing procedure for grouse?

I don't do many grouse these days tbh they are a moorland bird and I live at sea level in a marsh. We get pheasant, partridge, lots of pigeon & geese.

I find with many game birds that, as you say, there is not much beyond the breast and perhaps the legs, so I don't pluck them, I skin, then breast and remove the drumsticks. This requires a longer knife ideally - I use the PFK. I skin with my fingers alone, just use the knife for jointing up. Skilled men crown the whole bird with fingers alone in under 10 seconds. I'm not one of them!
 

Goatboy

Full Member
Jan 31, 2005
14,956
17
Scotland
On game birds my father was of the school of only eating them if the had been well hung. Bumping into green meat hanging in the woodshed wasn't my idea of a lovely meal. Some things like woodcock he cooked guts in, as was traditional, but again I kind've baulked at that. Most of the birds I'very eaten I will prep akin to Red's tutorial. Sometimes I'll bone a chicken whole then stuff it so it slices neatly. If you're careful you can bone it with almost no meat loss. Some wee things like partridge & pigeon I'll just cook off the breasts though the carcass goes into the stock pot. Peacock I've only prepared once and to be honest I wasn't a fan.
Things like capercailie again not really worth eating them (and frowned upon rightly so now) as they taste of turpentine. Supposedly you were supposed to bury them to get rid of that taste. Personally I think it was in the hope that you'd forget where you'd put it. Puffin was okay though a bit fishy, I think it's Seoras of this parish you'd put have to speak to about gugga.
Costs/Moore, Kephart seems to think a meal.can be made of them but to me they're foul rather than fowl.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 
Thank you for the kind words guys. I was in too minds whether to post this material on here for fear of someone being...unprepared....to see the realities.

I believe that true horror would be seeing how huge chicken farms operate to produce cheap chicken. It's an awful thing that we've become so disconnected from our food, where it comes from and how it can be raised and processed in a proper manner.

I am curious as to how you feel about killing cones. Strangely I'd never seen one before some friends started raising chickens, and since I was never passing by their place when the cones were in actual use, I am curious as to whether the birds do calm down in the cone and whether the adrenaline produced during catching and coning the birds affects the flavour.
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
I have no problem with the use of cones - whether the commercial ones with the built in neck breaker or the simple cones. I see them as a method of controlling safely the spasmodic wing flapping in death and a convenient way to hold the bird inverted for bleeding. What matters is their state of mind going into the cone and the method of dispatch. Over here the norm commercially is an electrical stun then put in the cone for neck break and bleed. If the bird is calm at the point of stunning, it should remain so thereafter. Personally I will never afford an electrical stunner so my use of one would be a dead bird going in for bleeding only. If you think of them simply as a way of holding a bird upside down without being beaten by wings, then that's all they are. This is something we have to do on occasion when health checking the vent whilst the bird is alive (not using the cone) - the process of being inverted and held never seems that stressful - just a little undignified :)
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,709
1,947
Mercia
I believe that true horror would be seeing how huge chicken farms operate to produce cheap chicken. It's an awful thing that we've become so disconnected from our food, where it comes from and how it can be raised and processed in a proper manner.

.

I agree with you there - I have seen it. Its why we decided to raise our own meat birds. We do consider the raising of livestock and the consumption of meat to be both ethical and indeed necessary to balanced farming. We also believe those animals can live a decent life and have a decent death.
 

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE