slaughtering and preparing muscovies.

[loving_allsorts]

I would like to start by saying I know this will be a controversial subject. If you don't agree with producing your own food I would appreciate it if you read no further and accepted that some folk do,

I on the other hand will be breeding Muscovy ducks and have the intention of doing so for my own consumption. I have three reasons for wanting to do so:

1 - The chickens you buy from the shop are treated god awfully and fed all sorts of rubbish and hormones. I can give these birds a much better life than the poor chickens I buy from the shops.

2 - I don't believe you should eat something that you couldn't kill and prepare yourself.

3 - I have heard they taste absolutely amazing.

Again these are my opinions and I understand if people either have their own incentives to breed to eat or if they don't breed to eat at all.

As the subject is so controversial there is very little information on the internet how to undertake the slaughtering and preparing of the birds. Could somebody either point me in the direction of or spend some time writing some detail of an in depth explanation step by step how to kill, bleed, pluck and gut a duck.


Thanks guys.. hope all an be mature about this,

Cheers
Mark

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Mark,
I think that ducks have much stronger necks than chooks,so you will need a different method.My ex-husband used to dispatch geese using a broom handle,goose neck under handle,stand on handle(foot either side of gooses neck)and I believe pulling the bird upwards to break it's neck.I don't know if ducks are the same or not.
Have you looked on this page for humane slaughter http://www.hsa.org.uk/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.htm#Q18
It should help.
If not,do you have a local traditional butcher?If you do,ask them.

 

[loving_allsorts]

Thanks for the advise. I looked at their website and I think I might get a wall mounted dispatcher but I need to look into that first. Think the electronic stun equipment is a little ott for the odd duck every now and again.

Any ideas about preperation? how long do I need to bleed for? what is the best way to gut them? how are the feathers easiest to remove.

If I dispatch a duck out of view but not out of ear shot of the other ducks will this distress them or will they no know what is going on?

Thanks for your advice.

Mark

 

[snifter]

Firstly I'd like to say that rearing birds for meat and posting about the subject here isn't controversial in the least. Plenty of us do so. Myself included. There are various discussions around the forum on the subject. We are all grown up and have never had any problems or arguments here about the subject. Don't feel the need to defend what you intend to do with regard to rearing for the table.

Ducks are *really* hard to pluck. We had some done and they use wax iirc to get the feathers out. Even then it may not be brilliant. And iirc you have to pluck them soon after slaughter. Dunking in hot water and waxing.

 

[Anonymous]

in my opinion , most poultry dispatchers don't work , as ducks (and geese) have much stronger necks .
So one quick swing of a appropriate sized axe or simuliar should do a good job . Personally i can't think of a quicker method of slaughter , although some sort of stunner would also be helpful , it is not pratical/viable on small scale.

 

[loving_allsorts]

Thanks for the comments,

I'm in the same thinking regarding the wall mounted dispatcher. I would be distressed let alone the duck if I kept having to ram it shut on the beasts neck because it wasnt dislocating. Can you imagine it.. Horrid!

I think a machette and a stump of wood may be best. hold the head firmly against teh block and WACK.. People agree?

I have an air rifle which could take out rabbits, but I worry that the bird would just get a chunk of metal stuck in its head and still not die.. is this possible?

Also do they have an oi gland or something you have to be careul of when gutting?

how long do I need to bleed for? what is the best way to gut them?
If I dispatch a duck out of view but not out of ear shot of the other ducks will this distress them or will they no know what is going on?

Thanks guys,, Much appreciated.

Difficult to get this information to be honest.. nobody wrote the book 'How to dispatch your own Duck'

Mark

 

[Anonymous]

i think the block of wood and a machette would be the best option,also the quickest and kindest.Regarding your other ducks,I believe muscovies are supposed to be very quiet,if yours are,I would do the actual killing out of sight and preferably out of smell rather than hearing.I don't know if this is possible though.
Do ask a traditional butcher re gutting and preparing,mine are really helpfull and have offered to do this service for me.

 

[loving_allsorts]

I would like to do the gutting and preparing myself. It's easy to do the quick act of dispatching the bird. It takes a lot of emotional work to rip the insides out and take all the feathers off a duck you have fed by hand everyday and looked after. I want to make sure I can do that and still eat it. It's a test of my character and I want to make sure I should be eating meat. If I can't do it then I feel eating meat is really unfair.

If I don't find it an issue I may approach the butchers to do the dirty work first but I'd like to experience the whole cycle of growing the bird for the table, dispatching, preparing and consuming to make sure I am ethically happy with eating meat. I know some of you may find this crazy but each to their own

I still think the machette and wood block is the best idea but I have a friend who has read up on the wall mounted dispatcher http://www.pandtpoultry.co.uk/product/categoryid/33/productid/1584?sessionid=12639421433480c488764a5ba733ce606702d5f781

Has any body checked this out or tried it? It dislodges the spinal chord and allows a cavity to collect the blood so not too messy,

Has anybody trid this?

Cheers

Mark

 

[Tim]

I really don't like the wall mounted dispatchers and when I spoke to the Humane Slaughter Association, they were not keen either. They crush the neck and unless they are set up perfectly can cause the bird a lot of pain.

The neck dislocation method is still the one for me, the broom handle method works really well for ducks and geese and won't cost you either.

I wrote a blog about this last summer: Method of Dispatching a chicken - the same applies to any poultry really.

There is also a link from there on how to dislocate the neck as well as what to expect when you do.

Hope this helps you a little Mark and as Snifter said, there's no problem at all talking about these sort of things on here. It's part of life for many poultry keepers and as you say, you can always choose not to read these sort of posts

 

[pedros]

i killed a goose yesterday with help from a local friend.

We tied the legs and held the neck, then the friend scraped away some neck feathers and make a small inscission into the jugular, the blood was kept in a bowl and the whole process was over in a matter of seconds. The goose did not make a sound or flutter in anyway and went peacefully.

After seeing decapitation and the broom handle, this seemed like a very clean, effective and humane method.

 

[chrismahon]

Death by bleeding isn't classed as a humane method in the UK Pedros. I'm pleased it worked well and the goose didn't appear to suffer. The Humane Slaughter Association put the process into two stages, stun then kill. Some methods do both at the same time. Commercially they administer an electric shock and then bleed. We used to use a wall mounted despatcher carefully adjusted to the individual chicken. But we intend to shoot ours in the head in future, however I need to study this carefully as the shot needs to be positioned exactly and the air rifle or pistol needs to have sufficient power to pass the pellet through the skull into the brain. I doubt an air weapon will be powerful enough for a goose though. The shooting method does stun and kill simultaneously.

 

[Margaid]

Don't be too hard on yourself about whether you can eat the duck after preparing it. I know a breeder who freezes the cockerels after he's prepared them and keeps them until, as he describes it , he's forgotten the characteristics of the bird concerned.

At one time I couldn't eat an oven-ready pheasant after I'd cooked it. I used to have to casserole them and eat them the next day.