There is a growing interest in growing and producing food for personal consumption instead of purchasing from a grocery store or other vendor. While it is a bit of a misconception that producing food yourself is innately cheaper or less expensive than purchasing it from conventional retailers, there are many benefits to locally produced food. Being able to care for livestock personally allows the consumer to know exactly how they were treated, fed, and medicated throughout their lifetime. When considering raising livestock, many folks begin with poultry, since they are small, easy to keep, and produce both meat and eggs. Today, I wanted to highlight some things about home or backyard poultry processing that we covered in a recent class at the Lincoln County Extension Office.
First, as with any agricultural endeavor, make sure to follow all federal and state guidelines for processing, food safety and handling, and legal requirements. For example, if you want to sell meat or eggs in Georgia or South Carolina, you need to be properly licensed to do so. Information on licensing is best found through your state Department of Agriculture website or a simple phone call. Even if you don’t intend to sell meat or eggs, you still may want to check out the standards of food safety and storage for your own personal protection. Poultry is known for having fairly high risk of bacterial contamination that can cause foodborne illness.
If you’d like to raise poultry for meat, be sure to select breeds that are known for their feed efficiency and growth. You can produce meat using heritage or novel breeds, but conventional broilers like Cornish cross will grow more quickly and efficiently. Poultry should be cared for with appropriate housing, feed, and water, and be maintained in good health. Those poultry used for meat should appear healthy and well-finished at processing time- discard any that look “off” in any way. When processing birds for meat, you will want to withhold feed for 8-12 hours prior to processing to ensure the digestive tract is mostly empty and make evisceration easier.
Having poultry processed by a USDA facility can be expensive with estimates ranging from $6-10 per bird. For many individuals, it is more cost effective to handle the processing and packaging yourself. Processing poultry is a fairly simple process that requires little to no special equipment. You will need an area that is clean with access to fresh running water. For supplies, you will need several sharp knives, some garbage cans and 5-gallon buckets, a turkey fryer, thermometer, and heat source for scalding, a work table that can be disinfected, a cooler filled with ice water, and packaging. Optionally, you may want to invest in kill cones or a plucker. There are a number of good visual and written tutorials available on the internet that walk through the process of killing and dressing poultry that may be helpful. Most importantly, please follow the American Veterinary Medical Association’s guidelines for humane euthanasia and the USDA guidelines for food safety and handling.
If you have questions or would like additional resources on poultry processing, please contact us at uge3181@uga.edu or 706-359-3233.
