Chicken butchering supplies needed

[Doulanobles]

I need to butcher my red broilers this week. Does anyone know where I can find a turkey fryer or something like it for scalding? Or does anyone nearby do butchering for a per bird fee? I just need to compare costs to see if it's worth buying equipment or not. Mahalo!

[Rene Siracusa]

I always used a 5-gal. stockpot. Maybe if you move your post to the Unclassifieds, someone may have one they no longer need. Good luck.

[dayna]

Yeah a stockpot over a propane stove that you can put outside.

Another easy way if you are parting the bird out, is to just skin it. Makes the whole process about twice as fast!

Dayna

www.E-Z-Caps.com

[Oregon Woodsmoke]

I've used a couple of different things to scald.

A turkey fryer works. A large pot (tamale steamer) on a Coleman Camp stove works.

Also a small pit dug, a wood fire built, a few pieces of rebar used as a grill works. That will blacken your pot, but I use a large designated wash tub, so soot doesn't matter. The large tub is necessary for scalding geese and turkeys. Big birds don't fit into a turkey fryer.

The turkey fryer pot is a tight fit for large Cornish Cross chickens, but it does work.

I paid less than $30 for my turkey fryer, so if you are going to do more than one batch of chickens, it is worth investing. I've done the deep fry on a couple of birds, and personally, I wasn't all that impressed, so I don't use the fryer for deep frying. It's good for steaming large batches of shellfish, so you can use it for more than one thing.