Home Processing of Poultry

Introduction

Poultry can be processed at home with little or no special equipment. If you are processing only a few birds you can improvise facilities for the job quite easily. However, if you are processing many birds you might want to consider more adequate facilities and equipment to make the job easier or even have the birds custom processed if there is a custom poultry processing facility nearby.

Federal and state laws regulate inspection of meat and poultry products. Producers may process birds they raise for their own household consumption and up to 1,000 chickens, turkeys, ducks, or geese for sale to other consumers within the state without inspection. Uninspected poultry is not allowed in interstate commerce. Refer any questions concerning the exemption of small sales under the provisions of the Poultry Products Inspection Act to your poultry extension specialist, or state meat and poultry regulatory agency, or office of the Meat and Poultry Inspection Program, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This publication should help you understand the importance of cleanliness and the procedures for properly processing poultry. In processing you must follow a number of steps to convert the live bird to meat for human use. You must develop your processing techniques to prevent contamination of the meat with intestinal or crop contents. Poultry meat can also become contaminated from dirty equipment and facilities or from people who have a transmissible disease. Any form of contamination of the poultry carcass lowers its quality and shortens the storage time as a wholesome product. The following suggested procedures provide an orderly manner for converting your live poultry into a clean, attractive, dressed carcass. Study the procedures, develop your techniques and proceed in an orderly manner to process each bird.

The job is not unpleasant if properly done in clean surroundings even with a minimal amount of equipment.

Selecting Birds For Slaughter

Top quality poultry carcasses can only be obtained from live birds in good health, well-finished, and well-fleshed by slaughter time. So good care and management during the growing phase is an important part of producing poultry meat successfully. The many strains of poultry, as well as the different breeds, vary in the growing time required to reach the best size and condition for slaughter.

You will normally process all the healthy birds from a farm flock. Some birds may show symptoms that raise questions concerning their health at time of slaughter. If the bird appeared reasonably healthy before slaughter and shows none of the following conditions when processed, it should be suitable for human use. Do not use birds that have any of the following:

1. lumps or spots of any size on the surface of the liver.
   
   
2. any measurable quantity of fluid in the body cavity.
   
   
3. fat in a poorly fleshed bird which is orange rather than yellow or white.
   
   
4. any individual internal organ two or more times the normal size (compare with similar sized bird). Ignore gall bladder size in this observation.
   
   
5. breast meat with the same coloration as meat of the thighs and legs.
   
   
6. meat showing white streaks or an area of abnormal enlargement when compared to the same area on the opposite side of the bird.
   
   

These observations form a basis for those slaughtering poultry to make some reasonable judgments on suitability of birds for meat purposes.

Select your best birds for marketing. Youth project members will likewise want to select only healthy, well-fleshed, well-finished birds free from defects for exhibition. Breast blisters, bruises, skin tears, and similar defects must be avoided when selecting birds for competition. These birds can be processed, the damaged tissue trimmed, and yet a wholesome carcass remains for meat purposes. Do not attempt to dress pinfeathery birds. Wait a week or two until these feathers have grown out and are more easily seen and removed during processing.

Poultry to be processed should not be fed for 6-8 hours before slaughter but should have access to water. Fasting reduces the feed and ingested material in the digestive tract and helps prevent contamination during processing. It is best to have a wire-bottom holding cage or crate for the birds during the fasting period to help keep them clean. Dirty birds contaminate the scald water. Keeping the scald water clean will reduce contamination of the poultry meat being processed.

Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of Minnesota Extension.

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