Processing Poultry
Food safety, quality and welfare should all be tawwken into consideration when harvesting your own birds.
Food safety, quality and welfare should all be taken into consideration when harvesting your own birds.
Processing poultry for meat is becoming more common for some backyard-poultry enthusiasts and also small commercial poultry businesses that may offer poultry meat at a local farmers market or via a community supported agriculture mechanism.
Some excellent online resources exists that are largely applicable for backyard processors and small commercial producers alike. The Cornell Small Farms Program has a webinar program that includes a section on poultry processing (https://bit.ly/3zli2gx).
A second good resource is the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network, an extensionbased service at the University of Oregon that provides relevant info for small meat processors. Available resources include regulations, webinars and case studies, fact sheets and a video series (www.nichemeatprocessing .org). You can also check out Hobbyfarms.com for videos and information.
BASICS OF POULTRY PROCESSING
The two most important things to remember when processing poultry are to keep things cold and always err on the side of caution with respect to discarding or condemning the birds. “When in doubt, throw it out” is a good approach in poultry processing in order to reduce the potential risk of food poisoning.
During processing, your goal should be to identify and remove carcasses that show evidence of pathological (i.e., disease conditions) and nonpathological (i.e., bruises, breast blisters) lesions. While most of the abnormal conditions you can visually observe are typically related to meat quality as opposed to food safety, quality is of course important!
This is basically what the USDA’S Food Safety Inspection Service does in large commercial broiler and turkey facilities. However, while most of what the FSIS does is visual inspection, they also collect sample for microbiological testing of salmonella and campylobacter (the two most common pathogenic bacteria associated with food-borne outbreaks in poultry). The practicality of doing this for small producers and backyard enthusiasts is probably not possible. However, focusing on visual inspection and the general health of the birds while they’re alive is a reasonable course to pursue if you practice good hygiene.
USING YOUR EYES
There is no replacement for a thorough visual inspection of the outside of the carcass, inside of the cavity and visceral organs for evidence of pathological and nonpathological lesions. The best way to get good at identifying