I have an urban farm for the relationship to the soil, connection to life cycles and richer understanding of food it creates. After my initial broccoli confusion, I was committed to dig deep to learn how to grow, raise, and prepare my own food. I chose to have a flock of chickens for the memories of my grandfather’s flock as well as for fresh eggs, nitrogen rich manure for compost, and meat. To that end, this post is about the process of preparing my hens for dinner. Growing up in cities for most of my life, I had next to zero knowledge of how to do this. Instead of helping my gramps as a teenager, I was being “cool” with my friends and walking around complaining about having nothing to do. As adult this left me with having to do research information on best methods for killing a chicken, how to pluck and how to eviscerate. I will eventually get around to posting on the different methods out there, pros and cons. For now, I will describe my chosen methods.

My friend Omar came over for moral support and to lend a helping hand. The first thing I did was out a pot of water to boil for plucking, then wash and sterilize the surface on which we’d be working. I then spent a good amount of time sharpening my knives so all cuts would be fast and sure. I keep three knives on hand, a chef knife, a boning knife and a paring knife. We next arranged a wheelbarrow with straw under a traffic cone that had been drilled to the side of the sink. The traffic cone had been cut so the hole was ~4″ in diameter.

I next gathered the chosen hen, a three year old hen whose egg laying had tapered off. I placed her in the come head first so that she could not flap around.

I held the hens head carefully but firmly to the side and made a quick and deep incision to the jugular vein. The image of avian anatomy has the vein marked lower on the neck but the vein runs all the way up the head. The most accessible spot is beneath the lower jaw. After the hen was bled and died (a very brief period), we removed her from the cone and dunked her in the pot of scalding water that had been prepared before hand.

Omar did the plucking which went really fast and did not require too much pulling but rather a rubbing motion took the feathers right out. A last dip in the scalding water helped remove tougher wing feathers.

We then had to remove the head and feet.

I have not found an “easy” way to remove the head. It seems to just take force to get through the neck bones. As for the feet, I bend the foot in the opposite direction of it’s natural bend and the leg cartilege frees itself. Once that is done, I can take my boning knife and cut around the leg cartilege, freeing the foot.

The next step is to open a flap of skin around the neck and gently follow the trachea and esophagus down to the crop which can be hard to spot. The crop is like a sack that lays closely against the birds breast. It is recommended that the bird not eat for a 24 hour period in order to minimize the contents of its digestive system. In the photo included I circled the crop in red. Once the crop is located this portion (crop, trachea, esophagus) is removed. The neck also needs to be removed. I cut the neck at the base. Apparently one can pull it out but even Omar “Strong As An Ox” could not remove the neck this way.

We then flipped the bird over and removed it’s uropygial gland located at the base of the spine.

It does not take much to cut the gland off. The next part of evisceration is the second hardest for me. The first being actually killing the hen. To remove the remaining innards of the chicken, you have to delicately slice around the cloaca. It is important to note here that there is a good chance that feces will come out of the cloaca, and yuck dirty. I had a squeeze bottle of diluted hydrochloric acid (HCl) off to the side in case. Should it have occurred, the best thing to do to avoid contamination is STOP. Wash off the bird. Set the bird off to the side while you clean your station completely and spray with the HCl. There are alternatives to bleach for cleaning a surface. A researcher, Susan Sumner, Professor and Department Head of Food Science and Technology at Virginia Tech, studied the effect of using common vinegar and then spraying hydrogen peroxide as a disinfectant on a surface, and even straight on food, kills virtually all Salmonella, Shigella, or E. coli bacteria on heavily contaminated food. Yet each ingredient on its own in small amounts is nontoxic. My recommendation is use HCl on the surface and the other combo on the bird for extra measure, if need be.

After cutting around the cloaca, we laid it to the side. Then widened the hole AROUND the intestines leading to the cloaca. It is extremely important to not puncture the intestines. Once the hole was wider, I gently insert my bare hand keeping it along the breast bone and away from delicate organs as much as possible.

Once my hand was in there, I could feel for the opening I’d made by removing the neck. I scooped around the organs (which are encased in a membrane sac) and carefully scoop everything out. Most everything came out at once except for ovaries and lungs.

Though everything is “out” it is actually still attached by the large intestine to the cloaca. I had to take my sharp knife and cut the remaining skin around the cloaca and then the innards were removed. To remove the ovaries and lungs, I had to pry them lose with my fingers. The lungs are a bit tricky because they are so flat and protected against the “ribs” coming off of the spine.

We then rinsed the chicken, weighted it (3.0 lbs and 3.5 lbs for each), and placed the carcass in a pot or container with lid filled with water and ice and placed this in the fridge. I have been told by multiple sources that chickens require being chilled for two days before cooking to ensure they are not rubbery. I would imagine this is even more so with older chickens. Also, note, older chickens not only make perfectly good eats, they have grown in popularity according to the New York Times article: Old Chickens Never Die, They Just Bubble Away.

Each bird took about 40 minutes, not including time to clean in between birds. We placed the remains in a paper bag with the straw and feathers in the wheelbarrow. In Alameda County, the composting program accepts food scraps, including meat and bones, so I put it in my green bin.

There are some blogs and listservs that may be helpful for those considering eating the chickens from their own flock. I found the blog, How To Butcher a Chicken the most helpful. I have also looked to both Dom Birds and Organic Chicken yahoo listservs for all manner of chicken related questions.

Recipes to follow.

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