Chicken "processing" on the Big Island? (Hilo: refrigerator, quality of life)

[cagary]

Friend of mine has "meat" chickens, but doesn't want to do the killing.

Are there any places that process the chickens for you for a price or trade for some of the chickens?

[AuburnAL]

Put an ad in the paper. I assure you there are folks who know, and failing that if you or someone else is willing to do it the internet or your county extension agent can provide information on how to do it.

[KAILANI]

REALLY....

Say a blessing first, then:

Chop the head off then throw them in a clean container with a lid.. then once they settle down, dip em in a hot bubble bath!!!

Shoots, I wish i was there, I'd do it! They're FOOD!

[OpenD]

Seems to me like you might get a better response if you ask on a more agriculturally oriented forum like hawaiichickens : Backyard Chickens or punaweb or maybe konaweb.

[OpenD]

I'll add that since I grew up just three doors down from a poultry market that killed and dressed dozens of live chickens a day, I've seen it done a jillion times, though I've yet to try it myself. My day may be coming...

As I recall it, they used big plastic funnels mounted to the wall. Put the live chicken upside down in the funnel (which immobilized the chicken), slit its throat to bleed it out. Plunge the chicken into boiling water for a moment to loosen the feathers. Pluck the feathers. (They used a big moving tub full of rubber fingers that mechanically rubbed the feathers off). Dress out the innards. Chill.

They wore rubber boots and rubber aprons and had hoses and a drain in the middle of the floor, but they still seemed to get an amazing amount of blood and crap and stuff all over.

But man, their chickens were fresh. Redding's Market, R.I.P.

Reminds me of Stroud's, in Kansas City. Their claim to fame is they fry your chicken dinner to order in an individual cast iron frying pan, and when they started the bidness during the Depression they had cages of live chickens outside and butchered them while you waited. They've been featured in Gourmet Magazine, reviewed by Calvin Trilling, and their motto, famously, is... "We choke our own chickens."

[hotzcatz]

How many chickens is he talking about and what part of the island is he on? I may know some folks.

There is a slideshow in Hawaii Chickens about processing the chicken after it's been killed and plucked. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hawaii...20885/pic/list

It's not hard. Don't feed the chickens for about eight hours before killing them, but let them have water. Kill the chicken by your preferred method. The neck across the stump and axe routine leaves a chicken flopping about the yard which is messy and bruises the meat but it does get the job done. If you don't have a killing cone, hanging the chicken up by it's feet works pretty well, too. If you happen to have something to wrap around them to keep the wings from flapping, that's good, too. According to my cookbook (circa 1957) the mouth of the bird should be opened and a thin sharp knife used to pierce the roof of the mouth and into the brain. That kills them instantly and keeps the feathers looser. Then slice the jugular on the sides of the neck behind the beak and let them drain. They will still wiggle for a bit, try not to let them get bruised or spatter blood everywhere.

My grannie's neighbor would just grab the chicken by the head and then twirl them around until the head came off. That was a bit shocking to my granny's grandkids but it was also effective.

Kill them, hang them for a couple minutes to drain and then pull the big wing and tail feathers off with a short choppy pull a few feathers at a time. When the carcass cools, the feathers won't come out as easy. Dip the bird in a big pan of very hot but not quite boiling water. About fortyfive seconds to maybe a minute and a half. If it's too hot or too long, then the skin will start to cook. The feathers will then pull out very easily. If they don't slip without a lot of effort, then dip them back into the hot water.

Then, cut the head off. If the knife doesn't work, a pair of hand garden shears works nicely. I keep a pair especially for kitchen duties. Bend the feet back and cut at the knee. If you want to save the feet for soup, then dip them in the hot water and peel the skin off. Bend the neck forward and cut at the back to cut the neck off. There is a windpipe along the neck to be removed from under the skin, that can usually just be pulled out. There is a crop under the front wishbone area, pull that out and cut if off near the breast meat.

Turn the chicken upside down and make three slices in a triangle shape around the okole. Under the tail and between the okole and the bones on the sides. Once you have the okole entirely loose, pull it free and the innards should come with it. Try not to squeeze too much or goopy bits will come out. Pull the innards out in a big lump and cut the liver free from the gall bladder. That's the green bag like thing hanging near the liver, don't cut into that or let any of the contents of that green bag get on the rest of the chicken. It's very bitter flavored, or at least, so I've heard. Find the heart and cut it off. The gizzard will be a yellow lump like thing. Slice halfway into one lobe of it so you will have an edge to work with. Cut the membrane off from around it and peel the yellow membrane off. There will be a bunch of small rocks and grass stems and such inside, throw that part away. Scrape away the spongy pink lungs, those will be wedged up inside the rib bones.

Wash out the inside of the bird and put in salted water in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, rinse and either cook or freeze.

Note: chicken soup cures crowing.

[DeirdreDedra]

Originally Posted by cagary

Friend of mine has "meat" chickens, but doesn't want to do the killing.

Are there any places that process the chickens for you for a price or trade for some of the chickens?

I'm a big fan of this forum and read it almost every day. But I must say that the answers I have read to the OP's question in this thread have made me very uncomfortable and then upset enough to write this.

Please note the question asks about any PLACES, not how to do it. Without going into my personal beliefs regarding the humane treatment of farm animals, I do want to point out that the answers went off topic enough to be not relevant at all when it comes to the general topic of Hawaii. Some of you gave helpful answers as to where the OP could look for the answer. That's on the general topic of where in Hawaii can I get some chickens processed. Describing the poor animals flopping around and the blood involved is not.

Lots of Aloha to you all. I'm not being picky just to make trouble. I just bet there are others out there sensitive like me.

[hotzcatz]

I'm sorry you find this topic unpalatable, DD, but it's pretty explicit in the topic's title that it will not exactly be a sensitive or vegetarian friendly topic. Like the mayor of Fremont mentions about their Solstice day parade - "you know there will be naked bicyclists there so if they offend you don't go there". Which, if you don't mind painted naked people riding in public before the parade, the parade is a hoot. Anyway, that's totally off topic.

As far as I know, there are NO places on the Island of Hawaii which will commercially process chickens to eat. That should directly answer the OP's question. Therefore, if they want to eat locally raised chickens, they will have to either process the chickens themselves (which is why the detailed descriptions) or get someone else to do it non-commercially (which will probably be more difficult to find).

As for the humane treatment of farm animals, it is a lot nicer for the animals to be raised in a non-commercial farm situation and as a responsible meat eater, I personally try not to eat any commercially raised meat. I know exactly how the animals I eat were treated, sometimes I can even tell you the name of the animal being eaten. I appreciate their life and death and hope they have a good afterlife and a nice rebirth if that's within their religious views. I'm sorry you find this less than sensitive, but if we weren't eating these animals, they wouldn't have been alive in the first place. Half the animals hatched or born are male and amongst many of the animal populations, excess males die off from infighting and those are generally the ones chosen first for consumption.

There is a commercial slaughterhouse in Hilo, called Kulana. At some times they have a waiting list, especially when there are drought conditions and not enough pasture for the cattle. They also process sheep and perhaps goats, but I don't know about the goats. There is also a commercial slaughterhouse in Pauuilo makai, but neither one of these places does chickens.

If everyone who was able to have a few chickens raised them and ate their own responsibly kept chickens and eggs from their own chickens that would shut down a few of the big commercial chicken farms and a few of the big commercial egg farms. Shutting down commercial farms would increase the average chicken's quality of life. At least, IMO, YMMV.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by DeirdreDedra

But I must say that the answers I have read to the OP's question in this thread have made me very uncomfortable and then upset enough to write this.

I'm sorry to hear you were upset, truly, but it seems to me the responsibility is yours not to read something that clearly is going to upset you.

That's the beauty of the internet, and newspapers and books before it... nobody forces you to read anything. And in this case I think it was quite clear that the thread was not going to make you happy, so why read it?

For those of us for whom sustainability and self-reliance are critically important in the current financial disaster this is just a realistic exchange of useful information. If it's not for you, it's easy enough to avoid.

[DeirdreDedra]

I read the thread because I was curious if there was any poultry processing on the Big Island. I really didn't expect such lengthy graphic details.

I totally agree with you HC. I do believe that raising your own animals for food is a superior and much more humane way of eating meat. Factory farming is the exact opposite. And Open D, I appreciate your statement: "I'm sorry to hear you were upset, truly." I do take responsibility for my actions, which as far as I could tell was to find out if there was processing on the island.

I will agree to disagree about whether the descriptions were either over the top or necessary. I am happy to see that I could state my discomfort and that no one attacked my opinion. Much appreciated.