Chicken Processing

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Processing Day: Things We Have Learned

Saturday was beautiful.  We worked at a leisurely pace and wrapped up processing and packing birds in about 3 hours of work time then went to church in the evening.  No big deal.

Sunday was awful.  Awful.  The wind picked up and I felt like I was fighting the scalder all day long.  Just awful.

As a quick review, we really like our Featherman equipment but you have to know its limitations.

The Featherman kill cones are awesome.  We find cleanup is easier if we fill the base with sawdust before we begin but the cones themselves owe me nothing.  The plucker may be the best thing ever.  Compared to the Whizbang we used before, the Featherman plucker is a dream.  Where before the birds would tear, legs would get stuck or the belt would fall off, with this beauty there is no belt, the fingers are very soft and we have never had a leg (or head) fall through.  On top of that I suspect, were one so inclined, the plucker would work on the moon.  Really.

But now the fun part.  I’ll start by saying in the old days we used a pot on a turkey fryer in conjunction with a number of pots warming water on an electric stove.  It was awful.  I was married to the scalder, holding two birds at a time in the water, hoping I was keeping the water at a consistent temperature and trying not to splash water into the burner.  Please understand, your whole processing experience hinges on getting a good scald.  If your scald is poor, your day will be long.  You will pick feathers all the way through to packaging…slowing that process down too.  So we got the Featherman one.  Bigger burner, larger thermal mass, automatic dunker.  Should be awesome right?

Well…it is.  But only under fair conditions.  You can’t expect a miracle.  If you are working outside in a 20 mph wind on a 30 degree morning you should hold off for better weather.  That was reinforced for us yesterday.  The first 10 or 12 birds were great.  From then on it was all downhill.  At 30 we decided to call it and go eat an early lunch as the propane tank had frozen.  The kids and I even fit in some goof-off time.  I fell asleep playing video games with them.  The kids thought it was hilarious.

By 1:00 the air temperature had risen enough that the scalder was back on top of its game…but out of propane.  I changed tanks, heated some water on the stove to kickstart the process and we dove into the work.  We worked at a slow pace as we were tired from processing the day before and finished up 115 birds by 3.

Beyond just understanding the limitations of the equipment, over the years we have made a few adjustments to make things better.  Let me start with the scalder:

  • Work with the weather.  If it’s cold and windy either move indoors or wait until it is not cold and windy.  Similarly, if you want to play baseball at night, turn on bright lights or hold off till daytime.  I don’t know why this is so hard for me to remember.
  • If the birds dress out above 4 pounds each you can only put one bird in each basket.  Smaller birds can double up.  The roto-dunker motor can only do so much lifting.
  • Refill the water frequently.  Keep it full.  Refill with warm water if available to keep the burner from working so hard.
  • There is an overflow location on your scalder.  Plug it.
  • Be sure your scalder is parked level.  Even 1/4″ out of level and you risk the birds falling out.

Other processing tips?

  • Sharp knives.  If your knives are razor sharp you do less cutting or sawing.  Less work means less tired.  Less tired is more good.
  • Keep a bucket of water near kill station to clean your kill knife(-ves).  I now keep a gallon bucket of warm, soapy water on top of the kill station and drop my knife in every kill.  It is just more pleasant to use a knife that isn’t coated in dried blood.
  • Be careful what you sell.  Years ago we offered a group of Asian customers more than we could deliver at a profit.  We offered chicken with feet and head still attached.  They loved it but the bird didn’t fit in a gallon Ziploc bag.  Again, it sold well but was inconvenient for us.  Sometimes customers ask for heads or feet or gizzards.  It would be nice to sell every part of the bird but there are no free lunches.  At some point we have to say no.
  • Don’t use gallon Ziploc bags.
  • Say no.  Yeah, I know.  Look.  Pencil it out.  It may sound like a great idea but every new idea takes more time.  And more energy.  And more packaging.  I have better things to do with my time than split gizzards.  Maybe when the kids are older.
  • If you are going to cut up a bird make sure you are getting paid to do so.  The total of the bird cut into parts should be greater than the price of the bird intact.  If it’s not, either raise your prices or stop wasting your time.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.
  • Give yourself enough time.  We can kill 100 birds in about the same time it takes us to clean up from killing any number of birds.  Clean up takes longer than you expect.  Plan for it.  After we clean up we shower, change and begin packaging the birds.  Again, this can take more time than you expect at a time when you are already tired.
  • Plan to rest.  Chicken processing is intense, hard, heavy work.  I kill, scald and pluck.  That means I pick up each 7 pound bird when I pack it in a crate, load it into a cone, place it in the scalder, move it to the plucker and carry it to foot removal and final picking.  Along the way I pull the head.  Let’ me tell you, I’m sore the next day.  Plan to rest.

Other tips:
We (I) have made (make) a lot of stupid decisions…usually based on emotion.  Fear can keep you in bed.  Carelessness can cause major injury.  Short tempers can damage your relationship with your children…er…co-workers.  Raising chickens can make you swear off raising chickens.  But fear is paralyzing.  Fear is the mind killer.  Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.  Confront your fears.  Chicks will die for no apparent reason.  Chickens may not always die quickly.  A dying chicken will fling poop in your face.  You will cut your finger.  Some customers may complain about your prices.  Freezers full of meat may thaw.  You may lose money.  Your family may say, “I told you so”.  Once those fears are counted and compelled, they can quickly be dispelled.  Don’t be afraid.

Let me know if you have any additional tips for butchering day.  It’s hard work but little changes to the routine can make it better.  It seems to get better for us each year, beyond the kids growing up and becoming more helpful.

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Featherman Product Review Update

This post serves as an update to my original review in April 2012.  Though I think that post is still worth reviewing, the scalder and I have gotten to know each other better and I have more to say about it.

I’m nearly 900 birds into my new Featherman equipment.  Today we processed 75 birds in just under an hour working at an easy pace.  As usual, I was kill, head removal, scald, pluck, foot removal and tail gland removal.  I also plucked whatever the plucker missed.  Three of my children stood at the table to hang up to 8 birds for mommy and to help me pluck feathers.  The oldest daughter also cut feet and glands.  My wife eviscerates 4 birds at a time cutting all crops, setting down the knife, pulling the crop and trachea from each, picking up the knife, cutting all the vents, setting down the knife and gutting each bird.  Finally, the oldest son collects the finished birds from the shackles, removes the lungs, inspects and rinses the birds and places them in chill water.  We started at 8:45 and by 10:30 we were scrubbed, had the offal in the compost and relaxing for a few minutes to write a blog post (this one).  Again, 75 birds took an hour to dress out for 2 adults and 4 children (aged 11, 9, 7 and 6) working at an easy pace.  This was not possible before we had our Featherman setup.

Even with our Featherman setup, I have a few issues.  Every part of the process hinges on the scalder.  If the water is too cold you don’t get a good pluck.  That translates into extra time spent picking feathers out later.  If the water is too hot, the skin tears and you end up with a mess you have to salvage by cutting up the bird.  When we processed on Wednesday we spent 3 frustrating hours trying to keep the scalder lit and warm.  When we finally finished I was sufficiently frustrated that I emailed Featherman to ask what could be done.  Was I using it wrong?  Am I trying to force the equipment beyond its design?  Should I sacrifice a chicken before firing up the scalder each time to appease the scalder gods?

David replied just over 2 hours later.  I’ll say that differently.  The owner of the company replied to my email almost immediately.  That’s cool.  Anyway, here’s his full reply.

Hi Chris,

I very much appreciate the time you’ve taken to outline the problems. I regret you are having them, but this is how we learn, grow, and improve. I am confident we can rectify every problem area you have identified.

I’m just back from Falling Sky Farm In Arkansas and got a big education there. Cody does 8000-9000 birds per year. At this level they are more intimate with the equipment than I can ever be. Although he doesn’t use our scalder (but one with the same burner) he says he had to move indoors. The slightest bit of wind kept it from warming up.

If you are committed to an outdoor space-the way my wife and I always did it-do your best to shield the scalder from the wind while still giving it plenty of combust/exhaust air.

Steel baskets with sharp edges remaining are a huge mistake. I will let our machining and our shipping people know. A potential injury like that should never have gone out. I got cut at the beginning too. They were all supposed to be well sanded down. Due to the extra weight and chore of sanding, we have redesigned with a heavy wire mesh (1″ opening) rather than the flat and sharp expanded metal. We are adding fingers at the ends to help deter heads and feet from dragging on the outside. If you want to swap yours we will be accommodating. They are not out of production yet, however.

I have seen the Ashley and Poultryman scalders – with identical burners as ours – produce at 200 birds per hour. There is no reason ours cannot. You do have the new model scalder, correct? Our first scalder is limited by the burner to 70 bph. Either there is a perennial problem with wind or there is some obstruction in the gas or the air is choked. Look at the flame. It should be a bright blue with only a bit of yellow at the tip and about 1 1/2″ long. If not, check for dirt in the orifice (clean with air, not an object), adjust the air intake cover to see if that helps. If the flame looks good then it is environmental cooling.

Poor location of the scalder, too much or too little air flow, jostling causing movement of wires or thermocouples or pilot light or air intake cover, dirty burner orifices – all of this I have seen or personally experienced as I used the equipment. On one video shoot we waited four hours for water to heat outside, finally broke down and set up inside a green house and zipped along fine (rooster video with roto-dunker). Stainless takes up and gives off heat incredibly rapidly and I’m guessing and hoping that is the culprit here but it is always a challenge to sleuth from far away.

I’m very keen for your demo to go well and for the quirks to disappear. Please keep me informed and let us know what we can do.

One last suggestion. Get a digital thermometer and put the probe safely in the scald water so that you know immediately if the temperature is falling off.

Thanks again,

David Schafer
Featherman Equipment
www.featherman.net
660.684.6464 farm

I was and am pretty satisfied with his response.  The fire under my scalder looks good so I need to find a way to shield my scalder from wind if we continue to do my part of the job outside.  It was pretty breezy toward the end of our processing on Wednesday.  Also, primarily because of sharp edges, we’re working on replacing my roto-dunker with the one he mentioned above.  David writes later to say that, like the newly redesigned scalder, the roto dunker will evolve in time.

I’m watching the roto-dunker closely. I don’t think we are done with it yet. Nobody knows better than I the frustration of equipment mishaps at processing time. This business from Heaven was born of blood, sweat and tears. We are a long way from being finished with a line of equipment.

I am at the summer break in my schedule.  900 birds down, 300 to go in the fall.  Here are my thoughts regarding my Featherman purchase:
-The cones and stand are great.  If you want to process 200 BPH, you’re going to need more than 8 kill cones…lol.  Look for a post coming up on how we clean up the stand.
-The scalder heats up quickly and it does work well but wind and cold weather both tax its abilities.  In May I heated water three times from one 20# propane tank.  That shows it can be efficient at heating water when conditions are right.  Conditions were wrong, wrong, wrong Wednesday.
-The roto-dunker can be your friend.  If your birds dress out below 4 pounds it will turn two in each side.  If above 4 pounds, one in each side.  As I say above, using the roto-dunker under those parameters frees me to go do other things for a few minutes.  That time counts when I’m working to keep my cones full.
-The plucker is absolutely trouble-free.  I do wish I had gotten the turkey plucker though.  I had gotten the milage out of my poor Whizbang plucker.  I remember the frustration of using it on large batches of birds last year.  The Featherman plucker has asked nothing of me.  Not so much as a hiccup.
-Evisceration shackles of any make will speed up your process and help your back but the Featherman shackles are, not surprisingly, the best value we have found.  I hung ours with some inexpensive carabiner clips.
-The chill tank is durable, easy to clean and holds a lot of birds.

I wrote to David because I was frustrated with his scalder.  Looking back, I was really frustrated with the wind.  Any scalder would have given me the same trouble and any other scalder would have cost me more money.

Thanks David for all you do to help small farmers like me and for taking the time to respond to my questions.

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600 Birds Later…

We processed our 600th bird with our Featherman equipment.  We did 56 birds in a little under an hour with just two adults early Sunday morning.  I was kill/scald/pluck/head and feet removal…as usual.  My wife hung them on the shackles and eviscerated, inspected and placed in the pink chill water.  Our kids woke up and joined us when there were a few birds left.  I was happy to see this pace though we haven’t broken any records.  In Pastured Poultry Profits, Salatin says he did 150 birds in 2.5 hours with his wife and young son helping.  I think that’s doable, we just aren’t quite there yet.

We need about an hour to scrub and sterilize the work area.  We need an hour to process 60 birds.  We need an hour to clean up and compost.  Then we need about 2.5 hours per 60 birds to package them because I had so many cut-ups.  Yikes!

The packaging process is the worst.  It’s a big chunk of the reason I need $3 per pound tending toward raising the price.  Darby reminded me, “You may as well do nothing for nothing as something for nothing”.  Something has to change on the packaging front.  Something has to change.  A label printer would save a few seconds and a bit of frustration.  Working to get a good scald would save a bit of time cleaning up birds before packaging.  Otherwise, it just takes time to cut and bag them.

I stand by the Featherman review I published earlier.  The kill cones are great.  The scalder does a good job but I have found the burner to be a bit fiddly.  The roto-dunker needs work as my fingers are cut from sharp edges on the dunker and the motor isn’t powerful enough.  The plucker does a fine job on the birds and the shackles are awesome.  Porter Pond Farm offers independent verification of the issues I am having with our processing equipment.

Raising chickens is easy…even with Cornish Cross.  We lose less than 2% of the birds to natural death.  The percentage goes up just a little bit when you include accidental death from pre-teen feet and very rare accidents when moving the chicken tractors.  Killing and eviscerating isn’t too bad.  It’s manageable work.  Packaging the birds in shrink bags is rough as cutting up and packaging parts eats away at the day.

I’m happy to report three 90 degree days later the compost pile is mostly containing the odor.  I put in equal parts sawdust and chicken offal along with a bale of straw on top of it all.  You can smell bad management.  My management must not be too bad…but that means it can be better.

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Another 100 Down

Today is chicken butchering day.  If you’re our customer you already know that…lol.

We had some operator issues with our Featherman scalder today.  I started with a propane tank I knew was not full, expecting it to run out.  It ran out…but I forgot to expect it.  Consequently, we were late getting started and slow going.  After the first 30 birds we thought we should go ahead and feed the kids breakfast.  We started again hoping to push through in record time and as always happens…we failed.  My pilot light went out in the scalder and I was paying no attention.  It took forever to get that water up to temp again.  Along the way we hand-plucked a ton of birds.  No fun.

So we did 100 birds in 3 hours including clean-up.  They aren’t packaged yet so I’m off to do that.  I also have to expand my compost pile.

I also want to note that this is the third time my hands have been shredded by the Featherman roto-dunker.  The baskets have sharp edges and twice today I cut my fingers as I was loading birds.  Every time I have to stop, clean the wound and put on a band-aid.  It’s another mark against the roto-dunker.  Be careful, kids.

OK.  Gotta go.  Can’t be lazy today!