We are a small, homestead farm. We aim for zero waste processing and have achieved it with our chicken processing. Here’s how we do it.
We started with 42 Cornish x White Rock cockerels. They finished between 3 and 7 pounds (mostly toward the high end.)
Today we processed them down to dressed carcasses (what you would buy as a whole chicken in the grocery store.)
The first thing I do is remove the feet. They go into the feet bag. Some of them will go to Asian customers who want to eat them, some will go to pet owners for pet food.
Next I remove the skin from the top half of the neck then loosen and remove the glands and crop. These go in the gut bucket.
The necks go into the broth bag.
Next I open the cavity, carefully cut around the vent, and remove the organs.
The cavity fat goes in the schmaltz bag to be rendered into schmaltz.
The hearts go to one of our customers who will eat them.
The gizzards go to one of our customers who will eat them.
The livers go to one of our customers who will make pate from them.
The other organs and the contents of the gizzards go in the gut bucket.
That leaves us with clean carcasses.
I have two 5 gallon buckets (the gut bucket and a bucket of blood and heads). The feathers fill the tops of both buckets. These get buried in the muck pile to be composted. Within a few weeks they will be reduced to worm castings.
Tomorrow, I will part most of the chickens. I will make wing parts, boneless skinless breasts, boneless skinless thighs, and legs.
The wing tips, bones, skin and fat, and carcasses go into a roasting pan and my wife roasts them. When they are nice and brown she fills the roasting pans with water, onions, peppercorns, and vegetables and puts them in the oven overnight. In the morning she picks all the meat from the carcasses, This picked meat will become chicken salad, chicken quesadillas, or other dishes that require pulled chicken. Anything we don’t use right away gets frozen to be used later.
What little is left of the carcasses goes into the muck piled to be composted.
Nothing goes to waste.
Everyone should do this. I don’t raise my own animals but when I buy a whole chicken I don’t waste any of it. I usually spatchcock it then smoke it in my charcoal BBQ (I keep the spine in my stock bag).
After it’s cooked I break it all apart, put the bones, skin, etc in my stock bag and vacuum seal the meat then freeze it. I use the stock bag to make chicken stock then pressure can it.
If you’re going to kill an animal for food, you shouldn’t be throwing much of it away. I hate how wasteful society is.
It’s amazing how many meals you can get out of one chicken if you make the most of it. My wife can make three meals for our family out of an old, spent hen. You should see what she can do with an 8 lb chicken.