[Sca-cooks] RE: Sca-cooks digest, Vol 1 #1235 - 16 msgs

[Marilyn Traber]

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We would place the various sized poultry in 'kill bags', simple conical bags
made out of synthetic canvas that confines the wings and body, with a small
hole in the bottom for the head and upper neck to stick out. The blood
rushing to their little brains seems to sedate them and a quick swack with a
machete [well, we occasionally would try out various swords and axes on them
too ;-)] and they hang confined and bleed out fairly quickly - a matter of a
few minutes until the twitching stops and probably a total of 20 minutes or
so [while the kettle for scaulding them heats up] until they are ready to
pull and pluck. Of course the 3 44 lb turkeys were a bit problematical
because we had to make a different arrangement as we didn't normally do
birds that big ;-)

The proceedure isn't that squicky, and as they are containerized you don't
have to worry about just wounding them. The real icky part is the drawing,
and the plucking is just tedious.

margali

the quote starts here:
  I don't know who can teach me to slaughter, though.  I've seen a few
books on the subject, but I hesitate to do it without a real live
teacher.  I'm not squeamish about killing an animal... but I am
squeamish about the prospect of doing it wrong and having to chase a
half-dead, frantic-from-pain animal around my yard.

-Magdalena
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