Whether you're raising chickens specifically for meat or you just have excess laying hens or roosters, you'll likely want to learn how to butcher your birds. Some homesteaders think they'll just hire out the job, but in most states, not only is it cost-prohibitive to do so, but it's a rare butcher who'll handle small quantities of birds. And while none of us delight in dispatching our livestock, the good news is, butchering chickens isn't difficult. Anyone can learn to do it.
But...there's more than one way to skin a cat - or, in this case, a chicken. No one method of getting a chicken into your freezer is the only correct way, so this post will cover the method that works best for me; feel free to adapt it to your own needs.
Mindset Matters
Before we get into the nitty gritty of slaughtering and butchering, let's take a moment to talk about mindset. If you weren't raised on a farm, or if you raise chickens more like pets than livestock, it may be difficult to wrap your mind around butchering chickens yourself. I get it! The first time we butchered chickens, my husband did most of the work and I found it difficult to even handle the warm carcasses. Fast forward a decade and I now do all the butchering myself. (Although, for most livestock, my husband still does the slaughtering.)
The best way to get your mind around butchering food is to really think about the whys. Why do I raise and butcher my own meat? First and foremost, to give my family truly healthy food. Secondly, because I firmly believe meat is an essential part of a healthy human diet, but I loathe the way grocery store meat is raised. I find it inhumane and, frankly, gross. I know I can raise my own animals to have happy lives and have quick, humane deaths. In other words, their lives and deaths will be much happier and kinder than birds raised for grocery store meat. I also appreciate that I don't have to rely on others to supply me with food - and that I know exactly what went in (and on) my food before I served it to my family. So I encourage you to research commercial meat operations - how the animals are raised, how they are fed, and the conditions under which they are slaughtered and prepared for sale. I think you'll find it motivating.
Finally, I never, ever treat our livestock like pets. From the moment they are born, I think of them as food.
Timing is (Almost) Everything
The first step to successful butchering is knowing when to slaughter your birds. There may be times when you want to butcher an older bird - say a hen who's no longer laying well - but generally, you'll want to butcher at an age when the bird has slowed down its growth and still has tender meat.
If you're raising Cornish Cross chickens (the most popular meat breed - and the one typically used in commercial farming), you'll want to butcher at 8-10 weeks of age. Heritage breed meat chickens have their own timeline. For example, Freedom Rangers and Red Rangers should be butchered at about 11-13 weeks. If you're raising laying hens and end up with extra roosters, feel free to butcher them up to about 5 months of age. After that, their meat will start getting pretty tough (which is not an insurmountable problem, as I'll discuss later, but is not what most people consider ideal). Most of the photos in this post show approximately 6-month-old roosters that were barnyard mix (i.e. mutts) from dual-purpose and layer breed chickens; they were the extras from a flock we hatched on our homestead - and were delicious eating!
Be Prepared
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| My butchering stand and cone. |
It's best to not feed your birds the morning of slaughter. That said, it's not the end of the world if, out of habit, you accidentally feed them; but if this happens, you'll find food in the bird's crop and perhaps throat. As you come across this food during butchering, rinse it away promptly. You may also find manure, which is a bigger issue - but as long as you promptly rinse it away, rinse off your worktable, and then cook the bird thoroughly before eating it, you shouldn't consider the meat ruined. (In commercial settings, fecal matter from butchering chickens is so intense, birds are washed in bleach before being packaged and sold.)
Setting up your work area to make butchering as easy as possible is also important - especially if you're butchering more than one bird. I recommend using a hanging poultry cone; we hang ours on a homemade stand. (On the opposite side of the stand is the hanger we use when butchering rabbits.) Although it's possible to "make do" and use something like a traffic cone, I recommend a cone meant specifically for butchering chickens, as they are the correct size to handle the birds and will make your job easier. (Smaller make-do cones mean trying to jam a chicken inside, which makes the job harder for you and more stressful for the bird. Larger cones mean the bird can get out of the cone before slaughter or during death throes.)
You certainly can dispatch a chicken without a cone, but cones not only prevent dead chickens from running around your yard like old-timey stories tell of, but they also prevent bruising and other damage to the carcass as the bird goes through death throes. In addition, a cone aids tremendously in allowing the carcass to fully bleed out - which results in a higher-quality end product.
If you're butchering a lot of chickens at once, you might consider having more than one kill cone. This allows you to dispatch one bird and, while it's bleeding out, get another bird in a cone and dispatch it. However, for butchering smaller numbers of birds, one cone is absolutely fine - and if you have help, one person can begin cleaning a carcass while the other catches another bird and dispatches it in the killing cone.
You'll also need a worktable (ideally at a comfortable height so you don't have to bend over; I use a folding banquet table raised to the correct height by putting boards beneath its legs); several buckets (one to collect blood under the cone, at least one more for putting the "throw away" parts of the bird, and perhaps a bucket of cool water, if you'll be skinning, rather than plucking, the birds); and perhaps a bowl or bucket to reserve edible parts like hearts, livers, and feet. In addition, you'll need a garden hose, a sharp knife, a pair of sharp garden pruners, and a a cooler filled with ice for safely storing the butchered birds.
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| My butchering set up. |
As I mentioned earlier, I prefer to skin my chickens. Once you understand how to do it, it's considerably faster than plucking a bird, and it avoids the nasty smell of scalding. However, if you prefer to keep the skin on your chickens, you'll need a scalding and plucking setup. (It's possible to dry pluck birds, which requires no special setup at all, but it makes the job slower and more difficult.) Most people prefer to use a turkey fryer or a camp stove with a large pot of water for scalding. For plucking, you can use only your hands (slow), a plucker that attaches to an electric drill (faster), or a plucking drum (fastest, and achieves the most professional results).
If it's your first time butchering chickens, I suggest sticking with hand plucking or a drill attachment, since buying or making a plucking machine is more expensive. You may decide this setup works great for you - although if you know for certain you'll continue to butcher chickens, especially larger numbers of them, it makes sense to invest in a plucking machine.
Catching and Slaughtering
If you have dog or cat crates on hand, a good plan is to snatch the birds out of their coop before the sun rises in the morning. The chickens will be sleepy and docile, and you should be able to just pick them up with your hands and transfer them to a crate. Otherwise, we find a sturdy fishing net is just the thing to catch chickens. (It helps to have two people: One to herd the birds into a corner and the other to do the netting.)
Once you've caught a bird (or removed it from a crate), hold onto its legs, so it's upside down. After a few moments, the bird will relax and stop flapping its wings, at which time, you can put it head-first into the cone, breast side facing you. Usually, we have to pull the head down through the bottom hole in the cone. At this point, the bird will relax and almost go into a trance. (This is called "tonic immobility;" it's a fear response.)
With one hand, hold onto the bird's comb, arching the head back to help tighten the skin on the neck. With the other hand, place a sharp knife on the neck at the base of the skull and jaw, ensuring skin is exposed. (If you try to cut through feathers, it may cause the bird to suffer and you may not get the carcass well bled.) With your knife, cut the carotid arteries and external jugular veins by making a deep horizontal cut into the neck, across the front and both sides of the throat, just below the jaw bone. Blood will gush out. (If it trickles, you haven't made an effective cut.) This method cuts oxygen from the brain and is widely considered the most humane way to slaughter poultry.
Some people like to completely cut the heads off their chickens, believing it results in a more instantaneous death. However, that method also stops the heart from beating - which means the bird won't get bled out fully. As Adam Danforth explains in his excellent book Butchering. there are also scientific studies showing that cutting off the head makes the follicles that hold the feathers in place tighten up - not a big deal if you're skinning the bird, but definitely something to consider if you want to pluck it.
After the throat is slit, the bird will move - usually quite dramatically - as it goes into "the dying quivers" (i.e. death throes). Rest assured, it is dead and the movement is just the animal's nerves turning off. Wait for the bird to completely stop moving and for all the blood to stop dripping out of the neck before you remove the bird and bring it to your worktable.
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| Bleeding out. |
Scalding and Plucking
If you'd rather keep the skin on your chickens, follow these steps after slaughtering the bird:
1. Ensure the water in your large scalding pot is at 125 to 140 degrees F., which will help prevent the skin from tearing. You may also do a "hard pluck" at 140 to 160 degrees F., which makes plucking easier, but may result in skin tears. (As stated above, you can skip scalding altogether, but it does make plucking more difficult.)
2. Dunk the bird into the water, head first, to the base of the feet. Move the bird up and down in the water for approximately 3 seconds. Pull it out of the water and repeat 5 or 6 times.
3. Remove the bird from the water and test it for readiness by trying to pull out a large wing feather. If it comes out easily, the bird is ready for plucking. If it comes out with resistance or doesn't come out at all, scald again.
4. If using a plucker, follow the manufacturer's directions. If hand plucking, remove large feathers first and individually, jerking them in the direction they grow. Smaller feathers should be grabbed at their base.
5. To remove pinfeathers (i.e. undeveloped feathers), you may singe them off with a handheld propane torch, moving it across the skin quickly to avoid cooking the skin. Alternatively, you may use a butter knife, stroking it across the skin beginning at the neck and ending at the tail.
Skinning
I find skinning chickens quicker and more pleasant than plucking them. Here's how I do it:
1. Hold onto the chicken's legs and dunk the entire bird (up to the feet) into a bucket of unheated water. This will help make the feathers easier to deal with.
2. Move the bird to your worktable and, with your knife or pruners, finish slicing off the head.
3. Flip the bird onto its back and tear the skin at the breast with your hands. (With older birds, you may need to use a sharp knife to make an initial slit in the skin.) Put your fingers inside the slit and pull from opposite directions to begin removing the skin from the meat. Continue tearing off the skin, using your fingers to pry between the skin and the meat. When necessary, use a knife to take small, gentle strokes between the skin and meat.
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| Tearing the breast skin. |
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| Use the knife, as necessary. |
4. Once the skin is removed from the breast area, skin the legs as far as possible. When you reach the feet, try bending the leg backward at the joint. With hens or younger birds, the joint should break easily. With older roosters, I'm not strong enough to break the joint, so I use my knife to gently slice around the leg where feathers turn into scaly skin, then I bend the leg backward and the joint pops. Next, use a knife or garden pruners to cut through the cartilage holding the broken joints together. If desired, set aside the feet for making amazing, collagen-rich broth. (Yes, the feet look yucky. But they are easy to peel and the broth they make is well worth the trouble! Step-by-step instructions are here.)
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| What the broken joints look like. |
5. Now move to the wings. Remove the skin to the first joint in the wings, then bend this joint backward to break it. Use a knife or pruners to cut through the cartilage and completely free the two parts of the wing.
6. Next, move to the back of the bird. Here, especially as you travel toward the tail feathers, the skin will likely be more difficult to remove. Use your knife to take small, gentle strokes between the skin and meat. Now all of the skin should be removed, except at the tail.
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| Removing the skin from the back. |
7. Chickens have scent glands on their rear ends that should be removed, lest they taint the meat. This is most easily done by simply cutting off the tail end of the bird with a knife. If you see any bright golden/orangey bits left behind, remove those, as they are part of the glands. Now the glands are gone and so are the tail feathers.
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| Cutting off the tail/scent glands. |
Finishing
1. If you skinned the bird and haven't removed the scent glands, see step 7, above.
2. The esophagus and trachea are attached to the neck in a kind of clear sac. Use a knife to separate the esophagus and trachea from the neck of the bird. Use garden pruners to cut off the neck. Set the neck aside, if desired, for broth making.
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| The sac that holds the esophagus and trachea near the neck. |
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| From left to right: The liver and heart (saved for our dogs) and neck (saved for broth making). |
3. If your hands are too big to enter the bird's vent (anus), turn the bird breast side up and use a knife to cut a small slit upwards from the vent until you have room to fit a hand inside the bird. (If necessary, also make a small cut downward from the vent.)
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| Removing the internal organs. |
4. Slip a hand inside the bird, as far as possible. Curve your fingers downward and pull straight out, removing the guts. Don't squeeze. It will likely take a few tries to get everything out, but as you pull out guts, dispose of them in your gut bucket - don't let them sit on your worktable. Save the heart, kidneys, gizzard, and liver, if desired. (If you want to keep the liver, pinch off the dark, loaf-shaped gallbladder. If the gallbladder breaks before removal, the liver is ruined. To clean the gizzard, slice it open, rinse it out, and pull off the outer lining.)
IF YOU ARE BUTCHERING A HEN, it's totally normal to find eggs at various stages of development inside the bird. If you find a fully formed egg, it is safe to eat. If you find eggs with just the membranes in place, but no shells, I prefer to immediately feed those to my dogs. I don't recommend eating eggs at earlier stages of development.
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| It's normal to find eggs at various stages of development inside hens. This egg has a membrane, but no shell yet. |
5. Rinse the bird thoroughly and make sure everything is removed from inside its body cavity.
6. Now you can clean up the bird by rinsing it and cutting away any remaining feathers. At this point, you may wish to reserve the fat for making schmaltz (see instructions, below). Be sure the place the finished bird on ice; all organs and feet should be kept on ice, too.
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| Keep the birds on ice until you're done butchering. All organs and feet should be on ice, too. |
Resting, Preserving, and Eating the Meat
You may now either cook the bird immediately or rest the meat. If you allow the bird to enter into rigor mortis and then cook it in that state, the meat will be extremely tough.
I like to rest my meat by keeping it in a cooler filled with ice. When I'm done butchering, I sprinkle a little sea salt (optional) over the meat, cover the birds with more ice, and let the cooler sit inside. Check the ice level daily, adding more ice, as needed.
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| Put ice in the bottom of the cooler, with the birds on top of the ice. Salt, if desired, then add more ice on top of the birds. |
You can also rest the meat in a refrigerator. Simply stick it in a container (like a pot), put the lid on, and let it sit in the fridge until it's out of rigor.
How long it takes for the meat to pass through rigor and stop being super stiff depends on the temperature it's kept at. Keep checking the meat daily. Generally, I find it takes 3 or 4 days for my meat to come out of rigor.
At that time, you may either cook or you preserve the meat. A simple way to do the latter is to simply wrap the bird in butcher paper; the downside to that method is the meat won't stay high quality for as long as it would if you use other methods. Some people love to use shrink bags on their poultry. I'm concerned about heated plastic leaching chemicals into my meat, so I prefer to vacuum seal my birds instead, which I believe lessons that risk. You can also pressure can the meat, or freeze dry it.
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| Vacuum sealed chickens. |
Remember, if your birds are older, their meat will be tough. Be sure to cook older birds low and slow or pressure cook them until their leg meat easily falls apart. If you want to can old birds, I recommend cooking them fairly tender first.
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| Older birds are great cooked until very tender, as with this deconstructed rooster pot pie dish. |
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| Younger chickens can be cooked just like grocery store chicken. |
Making Schmaltz
Schmaltz is rendered chicken fat. Traditionally, it's used for savory cooking (if made with onions) and pastry-making (if made without onions). Younger chickens, or chickens that haven't free ranged much, will have pale fat. Older chickens or those who free range a lot, will have bright yellow fat.
To render schmaltz, place chicken fat (it's fine if skin is attached to it) in a heavy, non-reactive pan. Add about a tablespoon of water - just enough to keep the fat from initially sticking to the pan - and spread the fat out so it's in a single layer. Cook gently (slow is key to success here!) until the fat is melted and any skin in the pan is browned along the edges.
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| Rendering chicken fat. |
If desired, you may now add onion, in 1/4 inch slices. Gently cook until the onions and chicken skin are golden and crispy. Do not let the onions or chicken skin get burnt.
Strain the fat through a fine sieve. If desired, you may now continue cooking the skin until it's very crispy. (It makes a good snack - very much like pork rinds - or a crouton substitute for salads.) Drain the skins on a paper towel.
The schmaltz will last at least a week in a jar in the fridge and about a year in the freezer.
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| Schmaltz. |
Making Bone Broth
I don't like to waste any part of the birds I raise, so I always make and preserve bone broth, too. For complete directions on making chicken broth, go here. To incorporate chicken feet into the broth, go here.
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| Beautiful homemade bone broth. |
What to Do With Everything Else
Even when you try to use up as much of the bird as possible, there are still parts - like the feathers and the guts - that you may not know what to do with. There are several options:
* Bury them in the garden, to act as natural fertilizer. Be forewarned that animals might try to dig them up.
* Take them out into the wilderness, for wild animals to eat. (This is what we currently do.)
* If it's fly season, use the guts to make fly traps. (Directions here.)
* If you've plucked your birds, wash and dry the feathers and use them (or sell them to people who will use them) to create fishing flies and crafts.
* Throw the feathers and guts in a plastic garbage bag and take them to the dump.
A version of this post first appeared in the Winter 2024 edition of Self-Reliance magazine.
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