Working knives?

Chris Pierce

Chris Pierce

Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
4,837
Howdy Folks


I figure that there's got to be somebody here who uses their knives on a farm? Or at least has some animals to butcher every once and a while. I don't live on a farm and I don't work on a farm (much). But I do live near a lot of farms and ranches and most every one I know has animals.

My Brother's Wife's Mother recruited me to butcher her turkeys last year ( and reminded me recently that I'll be volunteering next year) I used my thinnest sharpest knife. A Cold Steel Master Hunter with a full flat ground blade and a distal taper. It worked alright. But getting between the neck bones was an impossibility so I had to force my way through them, which isn't fun for me or the animal.

But I digress...

I just thought I'd see if anybody wanted to have a conversation about farm knives, butcher knives, butchering animals etc etc
and maybe share some pictures.

I happen to have the day off (and it's raining) so I was checking out the youtube and saw a fellow on there butchering a turkey. It's not at all the way that I do it. He went and hung up the turkey by it's legs, then hung a 10 pound weight from it's beak. Slit it's throat and held it while it bled out. Then he plucked it and used pruners to remove it's wings and head, while it was still hanging.

Here's how I do it. I grab old tom and sit on him. Grab under his beak and cut his head off with my knife. Throw the head at the dog, and let tom run til he get's tired. Then tom gets a nice hot bath for 2 minutes in near boiling water and the kids pluck him. Grandma guts and freezes.


Here's some quick and dirty pics that I drug up.

2011-11-10075150.jpg



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Growing up on a farm, we butchered a lot of chickens but only occasionally a turkey. As I recall both were butchered in the same way.


Generally we used a corn knife (machete) but occasionally a hatchet was used.

Catch the chicken/turkey and (holding them by both legs) place them so the neck is on a stump of wood. Whack!

Off goes the head.

I’d always toss the body to the ground as I got a big kick out of watching them run while headless. (yeah, I got scolded for being so morbid).

Gut em.

Pluck the feathers we could, then scald them and finish plucking the pin feathers. We tried wax one year, but that seemed less effective and really messy.

Freeze em whole or butcher them and freeze the parts.

No pics though. That was nearly 50 years ago.
 
seelow123 said:
I don't work on a farm but I really like that wrap on your cold steel:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Thanks. The knife used to belong to gunknifenut. He made the sheath and did the handle wrap. It's soaked in some kind of epoxy so it's water proof and hard. I like it quite a bit, my wife is actually using the knife to made dinner at the moment.
 
I don't live on a farm but I hunt and clean a few deer and few hundred birds a year. Never thought of grabbing the camera to take a picture tho.
 
The only reason I took pictures was to show my son. He wasn't around at the time but I want to start teaching him about these sorts of things. He'll turn 4 in a few months. And next year he'll come along. (BTW I did the Turkeys back in late October)
 
I don't work on a farm but this is a knife designed for one.

TV2IYA3OGD.jpg


It gets used.
 
Just a few tips to make things more easy killing chickens, turkeys etc.

  • Get yourself a little wooden brush (it's a perfect small baton), a hatchet (or sharp knife) and a wooden stump.
  • Use the brush to knock the turkey unconscious at the back of the head. Yes it takes some practice; if you do it too hard you crush the skull and kill it (and the hart stops beating which is required to get rid of the blood in the body). If it's too soft you have to whack it a couple of times (which is a pity for the animal suffering).
  • Chop of the head with an axe and hang it upside down to allow bleeding. Though it's better to just cut the jugular vein.

Prevent stress of the animals. If an animal becomes stressed it produces a substance that makes the meat tough. So chasing your turkey for 10 minutes and doing some clumsy slaughtering results in bad tasting meat (and it's of course not nice for the animal). That's the main reason why animals are not directly slaughtered after transport, they are allowed to "rest" a day to get rid of the stress hormone and more tender meat is obtained.

By knocking it unconscious you don't have the problem that it starts running around as soon the head is off. It's also easier to knock the head off since it doesn't move anymore :) And there is less stress so better meat.
 
I am a long way from the farm now but when I was growing up on one my "do everything" knife was a carbon steel two-bladed Uncle Henry trapper pattern. For rendering of farm animals or game, I used an old leather-washer handled fixed blade Boy Scout knife that my dad had reshaped into a very useful semi-skinner pattern after I broke the tip off throwing it. With these two and an old Iver Johnson single shot 12 gauge I inherited from my grandfather, I was king of my domain. Ah, the good old days on the farm, where I worked and studied so hard to escape:D!
 
I help a friend of mine, who raises chickens (egg birds and meat birds). I just use a Jarvenpaa fillet knife I picked up at Walmart. Works great. Our methods are similar to yours, except we use a "killing cone" (sounds awful, but works great and lets us be humane).
 
The "killing" cone or "chicken cone" (sounds less morbid) really is a great way to do it, certainly calmer for the chicken. Just do the processing AWAY from your home unless you want your dogs barking at critters at night attracted by the smell. You could also use easy-to-clean equipment or process indoors.

Anyway, hang chicken/turkey upside down & cuddled (i.e. in cone), stretch head down and cut major blood-ways (carotid & jugular - if you cut only the jugular, spatter is reduced, but it can take a little longer to distinguish the two which increases chicken stress... if you care), allow animal to bleed out - death by exsanguination, they calmly lose conciousness first.

Process as desired.

The last chicken I butchered (a week or so ago), I used only my Benchmade 745 Mini-Dejavoo and I skinned the bird rather than plucking - MUCH faster and easier. The bird went from coop to stock-pot in record time (stock already made up from earlier birds). Minimal mess, minimal fuss :thumbup:
 
I remember my grandfather having a funnel looking piece he'd hang on the fence. Chicken went in the big end and the head stuck out the little while hung lower over a pre-dug hole. Out came a big butcher knife and off with the head. Turkeys got a hatchet.

Lare evenings involved milk and cookies while watching him sharpen that old carbon butcher knife at the kitchen table. Usually after a chicken dinner of course!
 
When we did the turkeys last year, my brother (who used to be a hunting guide) offered to skin the turkeys, but Grandma likes the skin so we plucked.
 
Knew a lady who raised chickens for eggs and meat. Guinea hens, too. Guineas are supposedly especially prone to the bad taste if killed under stress. She'd always throw out some scratch, slip up behind them with hefty pair of hedge trimmers, whack, get 'em in mid peck.

- OS
 
MY great grandmother used to grab them suddenly by the head and swing them so that their head popped off, no knife involved.

I can process a squirrel or rabbit entirely with just a set of kitchen shears, looks like chickens could be done the same.
 
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