If you are raising your chickens for meat and not just eggs this is probably one of the more unpleasant experiences you will encounter in dealing with chickens.
There are many ways to kill a chicken. An axe or hatchet is probably the most common. They also make a small chicken guillotine but I have never seen one in a store. I also know that the one I saw was in an older book so it’s possible that they don’t even make them anymore.
Killing cones or funnels are often used. I don’t know that these are good for beginners as the chicken is stuck through the roof of its mouth into the brain with a sharp knife. The advantages are that the chicken doesn’t flop all around and bleeds out well. I do know of some experienced farmers that tried this method with varying degrees of success. I assume the chicken suffered horribly.
Another way is to hang the chicken up by its feet, hold the head, then cut its throat. Again, blood can go all over. A solution to having the chicken flop around was to drop the chicken into a burlap bag. I don’t know that burlap bags are available for this purpose. If the chicken flops around it can bruise the meat.
I believe the killing cone, especially if short enough, would allow for the chickens head to protrude enough so that the throat could be cut with a knife.
For the beginner, I believe the axe is the best unless you take them somewhere and have them slaughtered for you. In recent years, I take them to a professional.
Killing the chicken shouldn’t be done until you have some near boiling water ready. The actual temperature that is recommended is 128 to 130 degrees and varies with the age of the bird. I actually prefer the water a bit hotter, but this is the advised temperature by the professionals.
If you do the job yourself, I assume you use something other than a funnel so you put the bird down to let it flop around until the last of it’s life is drained, and the nerves are relaxed. When this occurs, take the bird and dip it in the hot water for about 30 seconds. Then take the bird immediately to cold water so the skin doesn’t begin to cook. If the bird’s skin begins to cook, it will tear when the feathers are removed. This won’t hurt the meat unless the cooking is excessive and probably won’t even then, but it doesn’t make for a really nice looking bird for the table.
Generally if this is done you can quite easily pull a few wing or tail feathers out. If they don’t come out easily, the bird needs to be dunked in the hot water a second time.
Once the bird is plucked, cut it’s feet off, at the joint below where the feathers ended, just below the drumstick.
The chicken can then be cut or incision just ahead of the vent to the breastbone. It is best to do like when skinning any animal and cover the tip of the knife with your finger so you don’t stick the intestines. This cut is only to open the stomach cavity and is not deep.
You then put your hand in the cavity, loosen the organs as best you can then roll them back and out of the chicken. Once you have the organs out of the chicken, carefully cut around the vent so they can be totally removed from the chicken.
To clean the crop/gizzard you can cut around the edges and remove the tough skin inside, with all the food the hen has eaten still contained. There is little chance this will happen with your first chicken, so you will probably end up rinsing the grain and whatever out once you cut halfway around the edge of the gizzard. Once you get used to this, you will probably be able to make a shallow cut on the gizzard, roll the skin back and remove the inside skin with the feed still inside.
The small green bile duct on the liver should be removed. If it is punctured in this procedure, it will probably give the liver a very bitter taste. Even with this it is somewhat a learning process. It won’t destroy the liver if the bile duct is damaged, however it very likely will lower the quality of the liver.
One of the more difficult things to get out are the lungs, way up inside the chest cavity. Roosters will also have their testicles still inside. Lungs seem harder to rip out but the testicles are no problem. You might find a small egg cluster in the hens.
Once this is completed, put the chicken on its breast with the neck facing you and make a slit in the skin on the back of the neck to the body. Pull out the windpipe and crop, then cut the neck off.
On the back of the chicken there is a small oil gland just ahead of the tail that needs to be removed. It is the oil gland the chicken uses to dress it’s feathers. Be sure remove this making sure you go deep enough to get it all. It is just a little nub, but if eaten, it tastes terrible. I don’t know if it flavors the meat in that area, I just know you don’t want it on the chicken.
This completes the job. Generally I give the bird a quick wash in very cold water, I generally pat then dry with paper towel or clean dry rag of some sort, wrap and put in the refrigerator. I read somewhere that the meat should stay in the refrigerator for at least a day or two, before putting it in the freezer. If the chicken isn’t aged in this manner, the meat will be tougher. The meat will spoil very rapidly if it is still warm. The sooner it is cooled the better to reduce the risk of salmonella bacteria.