We can no longer process chickens for others. The Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) a couple years ago made us aware that our processing was not in accordance with State and Federal regulations.
In order to process for others, we would have to obtain a Custom Processing license. In addition to the annual licensing fee, the license would require us to construct an enclosed processing facility at a substantial cost. Most importantly, having a Custom Processing license means we would have to give up our Producer/Grower exemption. What is that? Well, if you’ve ever processed one of your own chickens on your property, you were probably operating under that exemption and didn’t even know it. It’s called the Producer/Grower 1000 Limit Exemption of P.L. 90-492, the 1957 Wholesome Poultry Products Act. The act mandates federal inspection of poultry products sold across state lines or outside the USA. The act was later amended in 1968 to cover inspection within a state. However, it was not the intent of the federal government to impact private individual’s poultry that are processed for the owner’s personal use. So exemptions were established.
There are several exemptions, but under the one most commonly used by homesteaders, the Producer/Grower 1000 Limit Exemption, a poultry owner may process up to 1000 birds in a calendar year without government inspection, provided: (1) you own and raised the birds, (2) they were healthy when processed, (3) they are processed on your premises, and (4) processing was done under sanitary conditions that produce poultry products fit for humans. Further, the poultry can be sold directly to customers, provided: (1) the poultry is sold within the owner’s state or territory, (2) the poultry is properly labeled (includes safe handling instructions, states the meat is “Exempt P.L. 90-492”, and has no USDA mark), and (3) a record of sales is kept (who, when, what, how many, how delivered).
As an educational farm, processing for others is not part of our core mission, and we do not want to give up our Producer/Grower exemption.
To get your chickens processed, you have a few options:
- Contact a local USDA or ODA certified processing facility.
- We recommend King & Sons in Bradford, Ohio for larger batches of cornish cross meat chickens. King’s usually has a 2-3 month backlog, so call them as soon as you receive your meat chickens. You can find them online at http://www.kingandsonspoultry.com, or call them at 937-448-2448.
- You can also contact Johnson Farms in Wilmington, Ohio. You can find them online at https://johnsonpoultryfarm.wixsite.com/johnsonfarms, or call them at 937-685-2052. Please note that Johnson Farms only slaughters and eviscerates the bird and does not chill, package, or part it.
2. Process your own chickens with your equipment . While this can seem intimidating if you have never done this, the most difficult part is dispatching the chicken. There are many YouTube videos showing how to process a chicken, including one that we made, called How We Process Chickens. If you only have a few chickens, you don’t need a lot of special equipment like we use in the video. You can get by with a portable table, a garden hose, scalding water, some large buckets, and a sharp knife, like in this VIDEO.
3. Process your own chickens with our equipment. You can rent our plucker or use our equipment to process on our farm. Renting our plucker ($50/24 hours) will save you about 15 minutes per bird vs. hand plucking. See how effective it is by watching the short video below. Or process your own chickens at our farm using our equipment in our barn under our supervision ($75 per session, 25 chickens maximum per session). Equipment includes kill cones, scalding pot and propane, plucker, butcher table with hot & cold water, holding containers, and packaging fixture (see video below) all inside our new processing barn. Shrink bags are available for $1 each. While ODA regulations prevent us from processing chickens for you, they have approved others to process their own chickens at our farm.
Details about equipment rental can be found HERE.
4. If you just need to get rid of chickens, you can gift them to us. This option isn’t right for everyone, but people who have unwanted roosters or old hens often bring them to us. There is no charge or payment for donating unwanted chickens. You can request to drop off chickens or other livestock at HERE.
You can also watch the video below which reviews all equipment we use when we process chickens.
If you would like more information about processing exemptions, we’ve provided a link to a USDA document titled “Guidance for Determining Whether a Poultry Slaughter or Processing Operation is Exempt from Inspection Requirements of the Poultry Products Inspection Act”. You may get a security warning on your browser, but this is a “.gov” website, so it’s safe to open.