Comments on: Butcher Your Own Chicken

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:14:31 +0000

I have 70+ chickens that I’ve raised from peeps. I get around 4 1/2 – 5 dozen eggs per day which I sell. I ended up with 6 heavy bred roosters that I am going to butcher (starting with cutting off the heads) and if you have never had home-made noodles cooked in real chicken broth from one of these fresh, range fed roosters that are almost as large as a small turkey, you don’t know what you are missing. The worst thing of killing, cleaning etc your own is that they can get pretty smelly when they are scalded.

By: Dawn Nakroshis

Dawn Nakroshis — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:25:33 +0000

Folks seem to get all in a knot over your reference to “butchering” your chicken. You did butcher your bird, i.e. you cut it up. “Slaughtering” is the correct term for turning the live bird into dinner.

By: Celesta Dickerson

Celesta Dickerson — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:29:02 +0000

Well, We are going to butcher our brood of eight hens, in which we have had for 3 years. We have never done this before-as they were just used for laying eggs. I think its a great return to have raised them, as it costs less than $20 every two months, and we get eggs everyday. Big brown fresh eggs-that we have enough for friends & family to buy! I can’t wait to try this out. Thank you for the information!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:58:37 +0000

I’m sad to say you missed an opportunity, there. If you’re making stock, don’t throw the skin away…throw it in the stock pot. Lots of collagen in skin, and that’s what you want for stock feed. (There’s also, of course, a lot of fat in skin. But when you’re making stock, the fat gets skimmed off at the end, so that’s not really a big factor.)

I doubt Vanessa and I will ever buy whole chickens regularly. Neither of us likes breasts (I’m a leg-and-wing man, and she’s ga-ga for thighs), and when you consider strictly the parts we actually _want_ to eat, it’s cheaper to buy them pre-butchered. But if you’ve got productive uses for the whole chicken, you definitely save money by buying it that way.

By: Donna Freedman

Donna Freedman — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:19:23 +0000

A friend of mine told a story about his mom, a city gal, marrying a country boy. Mother-in-law said she was going to market and would new daughter-in-law like a chicken for Sunday dinner? That’d be lovely, thank you.
Back comes MIL with, you guessed it, a live chicken. My friend’s mom panicked inwardly, thinking her MIL would think she was an idiot for not being able to deal with this.
Mother-in-law looked at her closely. “You don’t know how to butcher a chicken, do you?”
No, replied my friend’s mom in a faint voice.
Pause. “NEVER LEARN,” advised her mother-in-law, and went out to do it for her.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:31:22 +0000

Cool experiment Jim to show how it can save to buy a whole bird. I would really like to buy a whole bird from a local farm where there chickens are naturally raised and contain no hormones. These types of chickens in whole foods and other natural stores are usually much more expensive than chickens from purdue when cut up. I bet the savings on cutting up this type of bird would be huge over buying them in the store.

By: fred@opc

fred@opc — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:27:35 +0000

Jim, this type of article is what makes your blog great.

I have heard (although never had confirmed) that Rotisserie-style chickens at the supermarket are actually loss leaders. It costs the market more $ to buy the chickens, prepare them, and keep the oven running than they make on the sale. They’re hoping you’ll buy all the fixins to go with that chicken while you’re there.

The Sams Club by us frequently sells these already cooked for $5.99/bird (up from $4.99 last year). Add a side vegetable (which we buy in bulk) and milk and a dinner for 4 costs only $8.00…and you get some leftovers.

By: Anon

Anon — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:12:16 +0000

We have backyard chickens, yet to butcher one yet. The rooster will be first to go, that mean, cock-a-doodling alarm clock! I thought you meant that! Come on, cutting up a whole store bought chicken, people! I remember a friend of ours from Canada said her mother would never think of buying expensive pre cut pieces when cutting up a whole one was so easy and you had all the tasty pieces. That got to me thinking our friend in California (he was typical from what I could tell) who hated any chicken with bone. Only chicken tenders thank you. He visited us on the East Coast and we went out to get lobster, he had no idea what to do with it! He told the waiter the only lobster he had was butterflied lobster tail. He had NO IDEA what to do with a whole lobster and was horrified by twisting the tail off, breaking it open, juice squirting, etc. Hilarious and so true! People would be much happier I think to know what it means to really be living!

By: Mary@SimplyForties

Mary@SimplyForties — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:19:41 +0000

Well, my goodness, I thought you were talking about buying a live chicken. I guess times have changed! I had no idea cutting up a chicken was any big deal. I think I was probably in junior high when my mother taught me to do it. I just assumed everyone knew how! I bought a couple of chickens the other day to make dog food and paid .69/lb for them. Everything is expensive here except for meat, I guess.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:13:31 +0000

Julie, luckily there is already an excellent video on how to do it on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-8tMEwBnSA

As you can see, it really does only takes just a minute or two. This video is less than 4 minutes long and he’s taking his time explaining everything.

Any any type of scissor will work. Just use something that can be thrown in the dishwasher or cleaned since you’re cutting poultry.

By: Julie Ali

Julie Ali — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:20:18 +0000

Dear Jeremy,

Perhaps you can provide all this information about chicken dissection in a video format for whole chicken butchering averse types like myself? Sure to do god, there is a reason why we go to the supermarket and buy our chickens in deconstructed kits?

I admire a man who cuts his own birds. Hubby won’t do it. But I’ll goad him into attempting it with the details of your courage. Only problem is I don’t think we have kitchen sheers. Will a hedge pruner work?

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:50:35 +0000

Hah, you are a chicken n00b!

No, seriously, I buy whole chickens, or whole pre cut chickens all the time, it’s a huge savings. And I don’t know where you get your boneless/skinless breasts for 2.99/lb. We’re lucky to get that as a sale price around here. But we always see whole chickens for about 99 cents or maybe 1.19/lb.

But rather than spending time butchering it into separate pieces, I have a great tip. Spatchcock it. No, I didn’t make that word up, google it. But all it means is you basically cook a whole bird in the flattest means possible. It’s simple to do and won’t take more than 2 minutes to prepare.

Take your kitchen sheers and cut out the backbone. Cut all the way along one side of it, and then all along the other side and completely remove it. Then, open the bird up and look for the sternum or breast bone. Cut some of the thin silver skin that covers it so you can get your finger under it and wiggle it and pull it up. It helps if you spread the bird apart even further and the breast bone thing will start to pop out. Once you can pull the little triangle bone thing out, flip the bird over skin side up and press down and flatten it. If you want to make a really nice package, cut a little slit in the skin by the ends of the legs and tuck the legs into the skin to hold it close to the rest of the chicken.

And there you go, whole bird that’s all flattened out and you can grill it, roast it, broil it, or even pan fry it. When it’s time to serve, just take a knife chop off whatever piece you want to eat.

This way you don’t spend all of your time fussing with butchering the raw chicken, you don’t have a bunch of loose pieces to worry about, and the flatter meat means faster cooking time.

By: Jackson

Jackson — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:23:53 +0000

@ Jim

> I went to a live chicken mart in Taiwan
> with my grandmother and watched them kill one.

Ha! I did the same thing as well. For me the weirdest part was carrying it back and realizing the meat was still warm…

@ Kent

Do vegetables really cost less than meat? I guess it depends on what kind, but whenever I check out my grocery aisle the fresh veggies are often equal or more expensive…

By: Kent @ The Financial Philosopher

Kent @ The Financial Philosopher — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:09:10 +0000

Perhaps this process will inspire you to become a vegetarian? Vegetables generally cost much less than meat and are much more healthy. If done properly, there is no reason to eat meat at all…

By: jim

jim — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:58:03 +0000

When I was younger, I went to a live chicken mart in Taiwan with my grandmother and watched them kill one. They grab it by the neck, slap it dizzy with the flat edge of the budget knife, and then cut off the head. They drain the blood into a bucket and then dump it in hot water to open up the pores and release the feathers.

There’s no way I’m doing that.