Transport chickens to the buyer in sanitized closed totes, packed in ice, properly secured.
Advice to a Farmer from the Chicken Crew
Jefferson Munroe offers the following tips:
As the farmer, if you can assume an observer’s perspective (as opposed to a doer’s perspective) during the day, this is extremely helpful for food-safety oversight.
All farmers should take a ServSafe course (see page 53) or at least a low-level slaughter-specific food safety class for farmers. Ask your regulators if they can offer this to you. Farmer food safety education supports and builds confidence in regulators, Crew, and customers. It also builds communication and understanding between the Crew and the farmer.
Plan ahead for reliable refrigeration. A typical home fridge (33 inches wide by 66–69 inches high by 32–25 inches deep) can hold about 35 birds at 34°F (1.11°C).
Ideally, the MPPT will have access to hot water. This will help heat the scalder faster so it will use less propane. Hot water is also helpful if you need to add water to the scalder throughout the day, and it makes cleaning the MPPT much easier.
Mow the grass where the Crew will be working. It’s lovely to imagine working in a hay field, but it’s good to be able to see the ground.
Spread wood chips under the kill cones, plucker, and the evisceration table. Do NOT spread wood chips under the scalder.
Prepare lots of ice, more than you could ever imagine. Not big blocks. Smaller is better. Shaved is fine if you go by weight and not volume.
Stop feeding the birds ahead of time. The recommended time is 8 hours, but it’s better if it’s closer to 12 to 15 hours, especially if they are on pasture. For example, if you’re aiming for an 8 am start, then pull feed around 3 pm the day before, as birds’ systems quiet down during the night and will take longer to digest.
Why Pull Feed
If they’re on pasture — as in living in mobile chicken tractors with access to grass all the time — then to “pull feed” means to move the birds to fresh grass around 3 pm the day before. Do not give any grain or dry feed, but do have all the water they can drink available to them. Water aids in digestion and helps keep stress levels down.
There is a big difference in processing birds that are on pasture with some grain and birds on an all-dry-feed diet. Because grass is relatively wet, if there is some sort of breakage in the intestinal tract during gutting, the grass is less likely to get embedded in the carcass. In instances of breakage, wash, rinse, and sanitize processing area and utensils for one minute.
Minimize crate time. Collect and crate the birds as close to slaughter time as possible.
Gently catch and crate the birds one by one. Grab–collect–scoop up a chicken over both sides of its mid-section and pin in its wings. It’s useful to have a second person to help open and close the crate as the birds are being caught.
Never catch a chicken by one leg. If you must go for legs, always go for both.
Keep the birds shaded when they are in their crates. Being in the crates is stressful enough. Keep them cool.
Wash your hands. In particular, always wash your hands with hot water and soap when you move across the threshold between the kill side and the evisceration side.
Allow the meat to rest in refrigeration for at least one full day before freezing. It makes for a better-quality chicken.
Schedule delivery and distribution of your birds to markets (restaurants, grocer) the same day you process because: 1) there’s an inherent risk that your refrigerator may fail; and 2) the birds take up a lot of space.
Don’t sell directly to home cooks the Day Of. Or if you do, have them wait 12 hours to one day before cooking their fresh and humanely slaughtered bird. It will still be going through stages of rigor mortis, and this natural process is slowed when the bird is chilled. If they eat it the Day Of, they’ll experience a tough bird, which will reflect badly on you and your product. Farmers, note: according to the Massachusetts DPH, a freshly killed refrigerated chicken should be sold or frozen within 4 days. A frozen vacuum-sealed bird will keep for up to 6 months in a –20°F (–28.9°C) freezer.
Chicken Crew Documentation
Oversee the time/temperature testing and documentation of carcasses and giblets using Clean Technique: sanitize the probe between birds, and sanitize hands and pen before and after the documentation.
Document the number of birds falling out of the kill-cone and other events on the kill side.
Document ingesta-spill, gall-bladder rupture, equipment contamination, and mitigation during evisceration.
Do a final inspection of birds out of the chill tank prior to packaging, and document any problematic findings (broken wings, sick birds, contamination, and so on).
Advice to a Farmer from a Local Board of Health Agent
by Marina Lent, Chilmark, Massachusetts
Marina Lent, Chilmark Board of Health Administrator, worked closely with her colleagues in the six town boards of health in our community and with the state office in Boston. With a commitment to a strong, safe, and local food system, Marina embraced the MPPT with vigor, determination, knowledge, and all the caring one could hope for. That she works for the town government is more than fortunate. Marina graciously offered three tips to all parties for public health and food safety, from her position as a board of health administrator. It demonstrates an inspector’s perspective and priorities, in the language and realm of public health. Here are Marina’s “Three Principles of Safe Slaughter”:
1. Prevent contamination of the edible bird.
2. Maintain time/temperature controls to prevent bacterial growth.
3. Prevent contamination of your farm.
Gray Water Awareness
The departments of public health and environmental protection expressed great concern about the wastewater from the slaughter. The state was asking for elaborate water collection devices or traps so nothing would hit the ground — ice melt, water from the scalder or plucker, hoses used in gutting and dressing the birds.
Lessons Learned about Water
Farmers, have your water sources tested for potability and have copies of certification on hand.
Select on-farm location(s) for the mobile slaughterhouse that are away from water sources like ponds, lagoons, streams, and wells.
Chill tanks are cold. Investing in some leg hooks to pull chickens out of tanks will make the Crew happy.
Be prepared to shovel, scrape, rake, or hoe the post-processing water-soaked woodchips and dump the used water from the scalder and the chill tanks into your compost.
In the early days of running the MPPT, at a slaughter on Morning Glory Farm, I’d asked a local water expert, Elmer Silva, to observe what was going on and suggest any good ideas about water collection, this sticking point with the public health department. Elmer is an engineer, had worked for the town waterworks, and runs a successful pool and hot tub business on the island. He knew how to collect and move water and wasn’t squeamish about slaughter either.
He looked around the farm while Flavio and Crew carried on their business. I laid out for him the health department’s concern with all the water. “Should we have the Crew stand on top of some kind of kiddy-pool thing?” I asked. “Or modify a Slip ’N Slide with a safer surface to stand on and a gutter to collect the waste water into a container?”
The Elegant Solution: Wood Chips
Wastewater from the slaughter day is of concern to regulators. The wastewater from the plucker, scalder, and chill tanks will contain biological bits of bird: there’s no preventing that. With proper management this water can be collected and added to the active on-farm compost that should be a part of your poultry program. (See Lessons Learned about Water, box on page 100.)
Spread clean wood chips (never pressurized wood chips) under water-intense areas in the MPPT setup: kill cones and especially the plucker and the evisceration table, but never the scalder (that would be a fire hazard). The wood chips soak up the water and create a
safe work surface for the Chicken Crew. After the day’s events, when the equipment has been washed down, shovel up the wood chips and put them into the on-farm active compost. (For composting information, see Resources.)
He looked at me as if I was crazy. I felt crazy saying it, too — endangering the crew that way. I was trying to collect this gray water in a way that would satisfy the regulators and still make our operation functional and realistic. The water was dirty, but it was dirty with natural, biological bits of animal. You don’t call in the Department of Environmental Protection to permit road kill. How bad could 100 chickens be when you’re composting the bulk of it? And how much water does your neighbor use washing his car in the driveway every weekend — that’s runoff that goes into our sewers and lakes, rivers, and oceans, and no one’s making him get a permit for that … but regulators don’t really like to hear those arguments.
“A couple of things,” Elmer said, after watching for a while. “Don’t set up near a stream or a pond. And you don’t want the Crew standing in water, so set up on slightly higher ground so the water runs off and doesn’t pool around them. But about collecting it? This is a farm. Things happen on a farm. They may not be pretty and they don’t happen in a city. But it’s a farm.”
Enough said. We took his advice and kept on going, kept on learning.
How Many Chickens in a Day?
by Jefferson Munroe
A long day is 125 birds, once everyone’s trained up. Try not to do more than 100. Have three trained crew members plus a helper (the farmer or a volunteer). If you’re set up and ready to go by 8 or 8:30 you should be done with 100 birds by noon.
Calculate that one Crew member can do about 25 birds in a day, from setting up to breaking down. So 75 birds should have three people, 100 birds four people, and so on, since there are attendant tasks outside the killing and eviscerating. If there’s a bottleneck in the work flow, it’s going to happen at the evisceration table.
Having three Crew members is ideal from a labor standpoint: one on the kill side, two on the processing side. With less skilled folks, 25 birds per person per day is a good rule of thumb to avoid situations where time becomes an issue. No one wants hand cramps from eviscerating chickens for seven hours.
On the kill side, a skilled Crew will take 1 to 1.5 minutes per bird from killing to scalding to plucking. (The scalder fits three or four birds at a time). That’s 100 to 150 minutes for 100 birds. On the evisceration side, a skilled Crew can do 20 birds an hour, or a bird in 3 minutes.
We’ve found that with a proper ice slurry and pre-chill tanks we can lower the temperature of birds under 6 pounds (dressed) to below 41°F (5°C) within 2.5 hours. Bagging can be done at our own leisure at that point, as long as chill tanks remain below 40°F (4.4°C) throughout. With a trained crew of three or four people we can process 100 birds in about three hours from kill to chill tank. (There’s a bit of lag time on both ends of the process: when the kill side gets going and while the residual birds are eviscerated after the kill side is finished.)
When the evisceration side is really kicking we can do around 40 birds per hour for a few hours, but we generally average closer to 30 to 33 per hour when temp taking and monitoring is factored in. I can eviscerate a bird every 2.5 minutes once the season gets going.
If you’re doing more than 100 birds, it’s helpful to have a fourth Crew member to get birds through faster.
Talking Turkey
Turkeys take much longer, about 40 minutes per bird from kill cone to chill tank, whereas a chicken takes 8 to 10 minutes. The chicken minutes include killing, plucking, and eviscerating time that generally requires two people — one on the kill side and one on the eviscerating side — plus bagging time. Turkeys, being larger birds, usually require three to four people on the kill side, and each turkey has to be individually killed, scalded, and plucked in this type of MPPT. This vastly increases the person-hours required for the Thanksgiving dinner.
If it’s a commercial processing, extra time is $4.25/bird to monitor and keep records to ensure that all food safety precautions are being taken.
For example, here are the costs of processing 100 birds with the Crew manager plus two workers (three Chicken Crew total):
$135 MPPT rental fee
$90 for ice. In this scenario, ice = 20 cents / pound. Each bird requires, on average, 4.5 pounds of ice but more ice is always better). That equals: 90 cents of ice per bird multiplied by 100 = $90
$425 = labor
Cost to process 100 birds under license = $425 labor + $135 rental + $90 ice = $650. Cost to process 1 bird under license = $6.50
When Things Happen: Advice from an Advocate
There is no doubt about it, Day Ofs are stressful. You’ll be sure you’ve forgotten something critical or missed something obvious. I never knew if we were going to be greeted by an inspector, an officer of the court, an animal control officer, an animal welfare activist, an upset neighbor, or a dog off-leash. Best thing you can do is to breathe.
Many things can and will go wrong on the Day Of. Arguably, one strength of IGI’s strategy in developing its poultry program is having a trained crew dedicated to the jobs at hand. If there’s not enough ice, the propane tank runs out, or the scalder’s auto-timer is broken, it’s up to the Crew to troubleshoot potential problems and address them professionally. And if the farmer’s cows get out or she goes into labor, she can attend to that and not stress about the slaughter. With a trained crew, everyone involved can focus on their priorities and responsibilities.
As organizer and advocate of the program, especially in its early stages of its development, your job is to ensure that the Crew, the farmer, and the animals are all safe and that the Day Of results in high-quality food produced, waste managed, and people paid. It’s best to be able to anticipate. Be ready to grab any arrows shot your way right out of the air before they hurt the farmer, your poultry program, the farming community, and any other mobile humane slaughter programs out there. Put on your figurative armor or invoke your white light, however you want to think about it. At the end of the day you can wash off it all off in a hot shower with some good-smelling soap.
The point is to be on point. Anticipate.
Be Present on Slaughter Day
Be open, alert, calm, mindful, and ready on slaughter days. They are truly amazing. You’re working outside, on a farm, and supporting the farmers who raised their birds and are now taking responsibility for the humane slaughter of their animals as well. This is a gift that few people get to experience. These days are honorific, a testament and proof to life cycles, and you get to be part of it. The culmination is pretty damn awe-inspiring — safe, quietly respectful, and full of dignity. Your job as an advocate is simply to keep it that way.
Unexpected Visitors
If anyone comes to the farm looking to stir things up — an animal-rights activist, curious journalist, health inspector — be polite, introduce yourself, shake hands, and ask for his or her card.
Put yourself between him or her and the Chicken Crew. Once the day starts, the Crew needs to keep focused and working. Be respectful and firm in your convictions and your knowledge.
Ask your guest what he or she is there for. Is she with the press, is he a concerned citizen or neighbor, an inspector, a friend, or a foe?
If they’re there on official business — such as to shut you down, as in a cease and desist (see What Is a Cease and Desist? on page 92) — ask them to hold on a minute. Let them know you’re calling your legal defense and then the newspapers. You can even ask if they’d like to give the reporter a quote.
If and when the Crew’s workflow allows, ask that the Crew manager be available to meet and speak with your guest, if that will help.
Not every Day Of will present itself with these types of challenges. But it could.
Other Tips for the Advocate
Charge your phone.
Pre-program your speed dial with:
The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defens
e Fund hotline: 1-800-867-5891
One or two local reporters — television, radio, or print
One or two regional reporters
Bring a camera, charged and ready to go. If it has audio and video, all the better.
Do not offer regulators or inspectors anything to eat or drink. It could be misconstrued as a bribe.
Enlist a friend or neighbor to document the activities.
Have a Facebook Fan Page and/or Twitter account (see pages 75–79) and don’t be afraid to use it.
If you are presented with a Cease and Desist, alert and inform the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. They will help you follow up.
If you’re facing trouble and need your supporters to rally around you quickly, sound the alarm that you need them to show up and make their voices heard. Don’t cry wolf, but do cry for help.
Know your rights and don’t give them up.
Why Wear Pink
I wear pink on slaughter days. I wear pink so I can be found. I want farmers, regulators, animal rights activists, and reporters to talk to me. I want to be found so I can do my best to catch any arrows in midair before they hurt farmers or blow a hole in the program.
Plus, pink is a happy color. It makes people smile. Even when there’s not-very-nice work to be done.
Custom Chicken
“Burn it!” the customer said loudly over the yellow flame dancing from the blowtorch, her voice bouncing off the echoey walls of the slaughterhouse. Chickens could be heard squawking in the room next door.
The Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse Page 11
