One of these days I’m going to post a tutorial on processing chickens, but for now I will show you the chicken processing equipment we use for our small batches of 120 cornish cross. These 7 tools are a must have!
Chicken Processing Equipment You’ll Want to Purchase
Kill Cones
Kill cone, restraining cone, processing cone, whatever you want to call it. It’s quite a bit more humane than the old chip the head off or wring the neck method… You stick the bird in upside down, pull the head out the bottom, narrow part of the cone and slice the throat letting the blood drain. A restraining cone holds the bird, mostly, for you. You’ll still need to hold the feet at the top to be sure it doesn’t flip out of the cone or move around so much that it bruises but otherwise it’s pretty simple and a very much needed tool for us. I’ve seen people use big clips above the cone to hold the feet. I haven’t tried that yet but it seems like a great idea!
There are different brands of restraining cones and they can get kind of spendy. I will post the link to the search results for restraining cones on Amazon. I have bought the Yardbird one, but looks like it’s more expensive now. The two cones that I have been using are made from Little Giant and I bought them at Coastal Farm on sale. If you can find them at your local farm store, you may pay less. Surprisingly, they seem to be more expensive buying online.
I really like the Little Giant restraining cones and they have worked well for 3 seasons so that is the brand I would suggest. Yardbird and a couple other brands are shaped similarly so would probably work just as well.
Sharp knives
Both killing the chicken (cutting the throat) and removing head, legs and organs, needs a very sharp knife. It just makes things so much easier and faster. And believe me, you don’t want to make multiple attempts at slicing a chickens throat during the kill. I’ve done it because my knife wasn’t quite sharp enough and it’s just not a nice feeling. You want the chicken to be able to die quickly and as humanely as possible! Then there’s cutting off the head, neck and feet, and opening up to take the organs out and cutting separating the gizzard, liver and heart from the rest of the organs if you are saving those.
A good quality sharp knife is a must. The knife I love is the Havalon Piranta-Edge. It has disposable blades which make it so nice not to have to sharpen them and each blade lasts quite awhile and are very easy to replace. I bought my first one in 2020 from Sportsmans Warehouse on the suggestion from an employee. I bought another one this year off Amazon since I somehow lost the first one. This is the knife I recommend. It is small so makes it easy to handle especially when needing to work quickly removing head/neck, legs and organs.
Along with a very sharp knife, you should have cut resistant gloves. I learned this the hard way on our very first batch of chickens that we processed ourselves. I do the removing of limbs and organs, so there’s a lot of cutting involved and of course I slipped and barely got my finger but it cut it pretty good (using my very sharp Havalon knife!). So I bought a pair of cut resistant gloves on Amazon and haven’t had many slips since, but it’s so nice to have the extra safety! I only use on my non cutting hand since I use my right hand to hold the knife/cut and pull the organs out and it’s easier to pull out organs without a glove on. I’ve listed the exact gloves I bought below. They’ve been great for 3 seasons now!
Propane Burner
A propane burner is a must have in your list of chicken processing equipment. I just bought a new propane burner this year and decided to buy a bit heavier duty one. The last one I bought was a bit less expensive but ended up having issues with a connection and it was kind of light weight with the legs seeming a bit weak. You’re going to have a heavy large pot filled with water sitting on top of the burner so you want to buy a nice sturdy one that will last.
This time I went with the ARC Propane Burner 200,000 BTU. I also wanted it to heat the water more quickly and this burner did the trick! Plus it is stout being cast iron and has a larger cook area than the burners I’ve used before. I highly recommend this one so far. I just used it for the first time on 2 days of processing birds this week so far, but it has withstood burning on and off over 4 hour periods both days. The regulator seems to work very well and it gets nice and hot, heating the water probably 30 min. faster than what we had before.
(I did buy this on Amazon, and the link is an affiliate link meaning I make a little money if you decide to purchase.)
Scalding Pot
Along with the propane burner, you’ll need to buy a scalding pot. This will be something like a large Turkey fryer pot which is what I have. It is perfect for scalding one chicken at a time which is just fine for small operations or personal use. There’s probably not much difference between turkey fryer pots but the one I bought was due to the good reviews and more affordable price (though I’m still a bit surprised how much they cost lol).
I bought the Bayou Classic 4225 42-Quart, in 2020 and it is still going strong! It comes with some extras for deep frying turkey but the only thing I use that it came with is the thermometer. However, that thermometer started getting a little off which I noticed this year after our Spring processing so I decided to use my digital kitchen thermometer this time around and found that the old one was showing 10 degrees warmer than the water actually was. That makes a big difference in scalding your birds! If the water is supposed to be 145 degrees and the thermometer is off, then we were trying to scald at 135 degrees. Not good!! We found we had much less issues this batch with not enough feathers coming off cleanly or skin cooking a little bit once we had a correct thermometer!
Here’s the exact turkey fryer I bought on Amazon 2 years ago:
Digital Thermometer
Like I said above, I definitely recommend a digital thermometer to keep track of your scalding water temp, as well as when you are shrink bagging. You need accuracy when scalding the chickens for proper plucking and making sure you don’t cook the skin. If the water isn’t warm enough, you end up holding the birds in the water longer increasing the chance of cooking the skin but also making it so feathers don’t come off as cleanly. Too hot and you definitely end up cooking the skin!
This isn’t the exact thermometer I have but any good quality digital thermometer with a probe will do. Usually I buy much of my items on Amazon but I happened to see the one I have at Costco and bought it.
This digital thermometer has excellent reviews.
Chicken Plucker
We live in a wonderful age of technology and machinery! I can’t imagine trying to pluck 120 chickens by hand! Enter the Chicken Plucker. Absolutely amazing how quickly it plucks the feathers. If you are only doing a few chickens every once in a while for yourself, you might not necessarily NEED a plucker, but even for a few chickens it would be worth the money over time. I wouldn’t say it’s an absolute need, but it sure feels like it lol And I’m sure if you’ve ever plucked chickens by hand, you would know what I mean!
The Yardbird Chicken Plucker has been an essential piece of chicken processing equipment. We bought it in 2020 and have used it for 3 seasons now. It’s a wonderful, marvelous machine 😉 Only this year have I noticed there a couple of the rubber fingers that need replacing but I think that’s pretty good considering it’s plucked over 600 birds so far. The replacement fingers are only $19.99 for 10 on the Yardbird website so I think that’s not too bad.
You can usually find them at your local feed store like Coastal or Wilco but I bought mine on Amazon since it cost a little less.
Shrink Bags
How do you package the chicken once they are all processed and chilled? Shrink bags from Texas Poultry are the way to go. I don’t have an Amazon link for this one because it’s just best to buy directly from Texas Poultry’s website. They have been awesome to order from! You can get labels, and you can have them customized as well. They are affordable and they ship quickly. A couple times I forgot to order bags until a week before processing but they got here 2-3 days after ordering!
These bags are wonderful and they seal really well. I love them!
Texas Poultry Shrink Bags Website
Some of our chicken processing equipment in action on the farm:
