About this episode
We get a lot of questions about butchering chickens over here on the podcast, and those questions range from “I have a backyard flock and I would like to be able to cull a few hens and some roosters every year,” all the way up to, “We are planning to raise enough meat birds for ourselves and our neighbors and we need to know what tools we need to get started on that.” In this episode, I am going to do my best to get you comfortable with the idea of butchering a few hens on your kitchen counter, and reassure you that you have every tool you need, and it really is a simple and straightforward process - but there is a learning curve, and it is worth learning. This is an ancestral skill that used to be fairly familiar to many people; if you have read many older books you know they are always butchering this, that, or the other chicken and it doesn’t even barely make a comment in the book because it is such a simple and familiar process to people in the days of old. We will cover the tools you need for both a simple few birds a year, all the way up to the larger batches that involve more equipment; we will talk about involving your kids in the process, and we will talk about the clean-up and packaging process at the end as well. I hope you find this episode to be very useful and interesting, and please be aware that we are going to talk about all the blood and guts in this episode and it is appropriate for all ages, but please be aware before you jump in. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The organ supplements we use and trust – get a 5% discount (and free shipping) on grass-fed supplements, including liver capsules by visiting: https://www.oneearthhealth.com/AncestralKitchen * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here. For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here! Get our two podcast cookbooks: Meals at the Ancestral Hearth Spelt Sourdough Every Day Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP . Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies. Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and UK link here . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Our podcast is supported by a community of ancestral cooks around the world! Come join our community! You can choose to simply sponsor the podcast, or select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live Zoom calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content from Alison and Andrea, and a Discord discussion group. To read more about becoming a supporter and explore the various levels, click here! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts, mean the world to us! Here's how you can leave one: Open the Apple Podcast app Find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews' Click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening in the box below * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Resources: Meredith Leigh, Episode 77 Modern Homesteading Conference The Small-Scale Poultry Flock by Harvey Ussery AbundancePlus.com FarmsteadMeatsmith.com FeathermanEquipment.com Thieves Cleaner Some helpful YouTube videos (go down the rabbit hole!). Use each of these videos as a jumping-off point and take advantage of YouTube's algorithms to watch video after video of the processes! You may find one particular creator speaks to the way you learn best, and dive deep on their videos: Justin Rhodes butchering with minimal equipment Justin Rhodes butchering 100 chickens Brandon retiring laying hens Brandon shows how to scald and pluck a chicken using a drum plucker (could do it by hand, too) Brandon demonstrating how to take the guts out of a chicken Joel Salatin demos broiler processing and as always, he touches on the sacredness of taking a life to begin his process . This is an excellent demo as Joel has butchered hundreds of thousands of birds and he casually drops lots of little useful details. Note that if you attend a homesteading conference there will almost always be a broiler processing demo on the schedule, and those are well worth attending! Even after butchering many birds we still like to watch these and learn new things or just be encouraged. However, those demos don't typically teach finer points like how to get the crop out; you will more get the broad scope of processing birds. Mini Urban Farm processes chickens Stoney Ridge Farmer butchers chickens You can also see Joel Salatin's early cameo butchering chickens in the documentary, Food Inc! This was the first time I saw cones in use back in 2009. Do you have memories, documents, recipes or stories of those who cooked ancestrally? If so, we would love to hear from you! Visit our website here for how to share. Thank you for listening - we'd love to connect more: The podcast has a website here! Alison is taking a break from Instagram. You can stay in touch with her via her newsletter at Ancestral Kitchen The podcast is on Instagram at Ancestral Kitchen Podcast The podcast is mixed and the music is written and recorded by Alison's husband, Rob. Find him here: Robert Michael Kay