← Poultry and eggs in the kitchen H42-01 · Module 1 of 7 · Pages: 22 · Worksheets: 6

Preparing poultry

From the bird in the yard to a packed carcass: equipment, humane killing, scalding, plucking, evisceration, chilling, jointing and freezing

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Preparing poultry

In short

  • Take feed away 8–12 hours before killing, leave the water. An empty crop and gut mean a clean carcass.
  • The bird is stunned or killed in one quick movement and bled at once. The first time, work with an experienced person.
  • Scalding hens: 60–65 °C (140–149 °F) for 30–90 seconds, until the wing feathers come out easily.
  • Carcass below 4 °C (40 °F) within 4 hours, then 12–24 hours of resting in the fridge before freezing.
  • Changes on the liver, heart or gut: do not eat the carcass, ask a vet.
  • Killing for your own table and selling meat have their own rules; check with the competent authority where you live.

What's inside

Chapters

  1. Plan, place and equipment
  2. Preparing the birds
  3. Humane killing
  4. Scalding and plucking
  5. Evisceration
  6. Checking the carcass and giblets
  7. Chilling and resting
  8. Jointing
  9. Packing and freezing
  10. Giblets, feet, feathers and waste
  11. Other poultry in brief
  12. Common mistakes
  13. Printable checklist

Worksheets

  • Processing day plan
  • Yield and time calculator
  • Processing record
  • Freezer date calculator
  • Poultry processing calendar
  • Freezer labels

Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.

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