I've thought about raising some meat birds, but I just don't want to deal with processing. Anyone know a place that will?

I think you'll find if you're not willing to butcher your own fowl, it will be very much cost prohibitive. I'm sure most any mobile butcher would do it, but I've never seen or heardof it being done. Honestly, fowl is by far the quickest and easiest to butcher yourself.

What Jäger said.. We had egg layers for years but when it was time to 'retire' them it was put on the waders and get the hatchet.. Hiring it out would make for $15 + / pound chicken, maybe more if you weren't processing several dozen. If it's only on the home hobby level it's much cheaper to just go to Safeway..

There are youtube videos online on how to butcher chickens. You can also rent in some counties chicken processing equipment if you have enough chickens to process. However, old layer chicken meat will be scarce and tough.. However the dogs will like it. Good survival skill, my gramma used to know how to do all this stuff.

Costco has chickens fresh off the rotisserie for $5.
That's gotta be a tall order to beat.

http://www.stewartsmeatmarket.com/ ?

Having them processed really drives the price up. It also isn't that difficult.

If you do get birds, request all roosters, and feed them turkey/pheasant starter instead of 17-19% feed. The Pheasant/turkey starter is 27% and gets them off to a better start in their short 7-10 week life.

We have processed as many as 125 CX in a single day. That was a little ugly, but we rented the equipment from the local conservation district for $25 in Thurston County. That included the kill cone carousel, scalder, and plucker. It worked well.

Over the last few years we downsized our flock of broilers that we raise to 15-20 birds. We would then go out and start culling the non-performers around 6 weeks, butchering 3-4 each week. The ones we wanted to cook right away we let rest for 3 days, and the others were shrink-bagged and frozen. Get your shrink bags here http://www.cornerstone-farm.com/shrink-bag

We had a few go out as far as 20 weeks. Biggest finished carcass was 19.8 pounds. That was a monster.

Processing a few per week is easy on you, and takes just a few minute per bird. Upside down traffic cone, slit the throat on both sides. Bird will die in 60 seconds or less. Get a pot of water to 155 degrees, add a little dish soap to break surface tension, then dunk the bird in for 60-70 seconds. I use my crab cooker and a large pot. Once the wing feathers release easily, the rest of the feathers pretty much wipe off. A pair of nitrile gloves is all you need. Butchering is easy. Make a Y incision near the vent, gut, take off legs, neck, chill in icewater bath for an hour. Toss in a shrink bag, ziptie shut, dunk into boiling water and freeze. Five birds might take an hour to process.

I also have two spare 8'x8' chicken tractors if you don't want to buy or build one. PVC models that have raised hundred of birds.

There is something to be said about raising your own food. Anybody can get a Safeway Club card.

Reasonably thorough write-up and pictures (not bloody) of the process here - http://melissaknorris.com/how-to-butcher-chickens-part-2-of-raising-meat-chickens/
She's local and I think the article might include a link to the place where she rented the equipment along with rental cost figures.

I haven't heard from anyone who raises chickens for meat that there is a cost-effective processing option other than doing it yourself.

that's kinda what I was afraid of. Probably best just to get them from Olson or Stewart or something line that.

hang it upside down, cut the throat, hold on to the neck after it's cut off, let it bleed for about 30 sec, cut the head off completely, pop in boiled water for a second, feather comes off, done. it's pretty easy. they even make cones you can put the whole body through so the head is hanging out of the smaller hole so they don't move around and freak you out, plus it helps the bleeding process. try utube, i ruined the first 2 but the next 30 we did it super fast.

All the odd equipment you need is an axe, knife and chopping block.
Gather wing tips and legs in one hand, lay neck of bird on the block,
chop off head and quickly thrust body against base of chopping block
until it quits struggling. It will also have bled out. This avoids it
"running around like a ...."

Lay bird on its back, grab skin at top of breast and tear it open clear to the vent.
Chop off unwanted wing tips, peel skin and feathers off like taking off a coat.
Slice open skin just below breast bone and scrape guts into a bucket on floor
beneath edge of table. Pull wind pipe and such down from neck.
Rinse and package.
The skin doesn't do you any good and plucking is nonsense.

We butchered 100 chickens each Memorial Day weekend Saturday for year
this way. Had pigs to eat the offal, beaks, claws, feathers and all.

As for old laying hens/tough meat... boil it. There are many fine recipes for chicken bits in
gravy, etc. for which boiled chicken works great.

Cost: Unless you have "free range" chickens, living on bugs and worms,
(and NOT being lived on by cats, dogs, coyotes, raccoons, etc.) you can't
buy feed in small quantities (100 birds or fewer) and suffer the invariable losses
due to chicken stupidity and frailty and still save money over Safeway (or even Cash 'N Carry) prices.

Chickens are SO dumb they'll crowd together for warmth and suffocate the bird that's
against the wall in the corner. Next night a new bird is suffocated. Commercial operations
keep their birds separated.
And once one bird exhibits weakness, sore spots, blood spot, floppy spur... the rest cannibalize it.
They are prone to pneumonia, etc., hence the antibiotics some people complain about.

Still a good skill set to have, though. Same method works on ducks, geese, pheasant, etc.
We got so fast at it we could get the heart in our hands b4 it quit beating.
Kinda like cleaning fish.

You won't get birds like this at a store.

I'd only be able to do something like 10, maybe 20 at most, so it looks like meat birds is probably off the table. Don't have space for 100 right yet.

Anyone know a place to process chickens?


I always did it behind the barn. A large piece of wood we hadn't split yet, a hatchet, and a long 2X4 with nails in the edge closely spaced to hold a chicken foot.

A 5 gallon metal pail full of water supported by bricks and heated with an old fashioned kerosene fueled weed burner.

Off with the head, hang until bled out, a dip in the near boiling water, and remove all the feathers.

Every year we "processed" at least 100 for the freezer. I was the "hatchet man" and "dipper". My little brother and sisters were the "pluckers". Mom and dad saw to it that they were cleaned and cut up or left whole for the freezer.

I will say that it does take a month for the taste of wet chicken feathers to get out of your mouth but that's the price one pays for good chicken that isn't loaded with whatever the big producers choose to fill them with.

Hardest part of raising your own chickens is keeping predators away. While living on the farm I shot more damn skunks, weasels, wandering neighbor's cats/dogs, in order to have the number left we usually did. If you raise them outdoors there are plenty of critters willing to "stop by for a meal".