Yes, you can butcher a chicken with only a SAK

Today, I had to deal with a rooster that turned way aggressive on my kid, and as an experiment, I wondered if a fairly basic Swiss Army Knife was sufficient for a start to finish butchering job. It is - just barely. But if you keep the blade REALLY sharp and if you have the very handy scissors, it's totally do-able. The only thing I'd say was really hard was getting the darn head off after it bled out. Getting the feet off wasn't hard at all, and the rest was almost trivial. I did use the big pot 'o water to de-feather and all that, if it was a real survival situation, I'd have just skinned it and not bothered with the whole feathering, but he had enough meat to be a small meal. Anyway, it's good to use tools you think you might need one day in a way you think you might actually use them.

I can't do anything with a SAK, since I don't like them, but I am pretty sure I could whack the head off of a rooster (or hen) with the serriated blade on my Leatherman Wave...

Excellent! I never butchered one with a SAK. You did good saving the skin. For me, that's the only way to go.

What kind of rooster was it? We have Rhode Island Reds, Cochins, Orpingtons, some weird bantams, and some new ones that I think are called "Wells Summers" (never heard of them and can't find them in a search)

Imagine that. On another tab, I was looking at a new chicken website and what do you know? Welsummers chickens. There we go.

Hi Martin,

I have not cleaned a chicken since I was a kid at my Grandparents about 35 years ago, I just remember the "running with no head" part.

How much different is cleaning a chicken to cleaning a grouse? For grouse using anything but your hands is optional.

Mike

Izzy took the words right out of my mouth. Cleanup is the reason why hunters/fisherman/chicken-processors reach for fixed blades.

I grew up dealing with fryers (farm chickens raised for meat not eggs), so I have no doubt a SWAK would get it done. Though all you need is a small, sharp paring knife.

But it seems to me that unless you soak the whole SWAK in bleach, you will never look at the toothpick and tweezers the same way again.

(P.S., I've never cleaned a grouse. Please elaborate. I'm not squeamish, as long as things are done humanely.)

(P.P.S, I have a collection of made-for-purpose knives from my grandfather's shop. One was specifically designed to end the lives of turkeys, without noticeable bloodshed. If you're really squeamish, don't ask how it was done.)

I've never cleaned a grouse, but maybe it's the same as doves. You hold the bird on it's back in one palm. With the other hand, you push your index and middle finger into the birds chest, below the breast. The you lift up and out and out comes the breast in one piece.

The following grouse cleaning method is not for the sensitive/squeamish, its just the normal way it's done around here.

On a grouse almost all the useable meat is in the breast.

You lay the dead bird on it's back, step on the wings close to the body, pull on the feet hard and the bird turns inside out. The wings and breast remain on the ground and the rest pulls clear attached to the legs. Snap/twist the wings off and you have 95% of the meat. The legs have about one small bite of thigh meat each, the drumsticks are full of sharp thin bones. If I have enough grouse I keep the legs for grouse/rice soup with carrots and celery (very nice).

You need to weigh a little to use this method, my 8 year old daughter tried it and was not heavy enough to hold the grouse down. I often just seperate the grouse breast/wings from the rest of the bird without laying it on the ground (especially if the ground is muddy or sandy). Tear the shin off the grouse breast and grip the breast tightly in your hand with your index finger in/under the crop, grasp the head/neck/crop in your other hand and pull hard down and away. You will be left with the breast/wings in one hand and the rest of the bird in the other.

Grouse are usually cleaned in the field before coming home, I try to do it near water so I can clean up after. The remains are left in the bush for the critters, they have to eat too (from nature, back to nature, nothing really ever goes to waste).

I apoligize if this is a little to graffic for some; Moderator if this is "over the edge" feel free to delete.

Mike

Lets hope you dont end up with another "mike"

http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.html

Hi Chisel,

Interesting "headless chicken" story, I had never heard it before!

Mike
(with head intact)

It was an Americana, that's the bulk of the flock.

We normally butcher 8-10 at once, and I'm a "whack the head off & get 'er done quick" type, I don't normally bleed them out, even though that tends to make the meat better.

Nope - you need more mass than that. If your intention is to make a clean, fast kill, you need a machete or meat cleaver, or the "classic" hatchet. Everything else just sprays blood all over and makes a disgusting mess.

The throat cutting method is surprisingly clean, if you get it in once shot - that's what I did with the SAK's small blade. The thing that I mess up on consistently with the chicken gutting is getting the liver out cleanly when I want to have a whole bird to roast. I always seem to squish the bile duct and make a mess. If I'm parting out the bird and don't intend to roast it, I break it in half and that makes it MUCH easier to get out the organs we eat (liver & heart).

We used to do a bunch together on the farm. My uncle would hang them by their feet from a clothesline after whacking their heads off with a cleaver, sometimes just using a kitchen knife to cut them off. After 10 or so, the first one is settled down enough to take her down and start plucking. Oh, the good old days!

Doesn't anyone use the cone method? A lot easier and no headless chickens running around.

I chop & drop into upside down highway cone,

I use the cone on ducks.

I think I’ll go to Long John Silvers, it sounds like it would be a lot less messy…

"...Long John Silvers..."

Good idea, primo chicken!!!

... if you like chicken that tastes like fish...

That's nothing compared to my powers when using my faithful anvil and toothpick, young Jedi!!!!

You can skin anything up to and inclusive of Deer with a SAK.

SAK's are much underrated as a survival tool. I carry a SAK alox Farmer or a Huntsman. For shelter building (and we are not building a log cabin here) and basic fire/trapping techniques they are more than adequate.

As for dispatching something that you have just snared or trapped? Probably not. But you can use it to carve a dinkum club.

Which will do the job.

Is THAT what makes their chicken so good???

Yep, I saw an Idaho Wildlife Officer field dress and quarter an 800 cow elk in the snow using just the blade of his Leatherman. That includes opening up the breastbone, removing all four feet, and dressing out all the rib meat, as well as removing the hide.

Field dressing a full grown elk is a big chore regardless of the tool(s) you will use. Of course, the bigger job then is to pack it all down to camp 5 miles away.

Wow! That's impressive, to say the least.

I wouldn't have considered it prior to seeing it for myself. Now I know.

It doesn't compare to butchering an elk, but it is back on the chicken track: I worked briefly as a teenager at a large commercial poultry, I can't call it a farm, let's call it a production center. One of our jobs (in addition to shovelling out the droppings of around 6000 chickens each day) was to "euthanize" injured birds. We found the quickest and easiest way was to get a good, comfortable grip on the chicken's head with one hand, lift and and make like the bird is a New Year's noisemaker - give it a few quick spins. It snaps the neck quite efficiently and certainly doesn't cause any more pain or suffering than any other method. And at that point it is possible to tear the head off and let it bleed out, although that takes a lot of twisting and pulling and is definitely not for the squeamish.

I learned a few summers later that by starting at the legs where the skin is a little thin and loose, with a little finger strength you can actually skin (more like peel) a chicken without a knife. It's not as easy as with a rabbit, but you can do it. It's hard to get the wings out intact, though.

Compared to that, doing it with an SAK would be a breeze. As has been said, a sharp paring knife is better still. But it just goes to show what can be done if one must, as in a survival situation.

For some reason I have less success cleanly gutting birds than I do on big game. Must be a matter of scale that fowls me up, heh heh heh.

Yep, the old hand crank method works pretty well on a wounded duck too. Better to use both hands on a goose, or else jerk them hard like you are cracking a whip.

When I was 9 I was helping Grandad do up a dozen chickens and he let me take a swipe with the cleaver. I forgot and left my thumb sticking out and took off just the tip. Of course, he laughed like he always did when I screwed up like that.

I use a similar method to Frank,

When I get into a flock of grouse during hunting in the fall, after you shoot the first one the rest are usually spooked and scatter a little. I move up to the one on the ground, wring it's neck so it does not get away and continue to put the moves on the others.

I have shot my limit from one flock doing this, it is easier to do with a .22 using sub-sonics because it is quiet.

Mike