Nothing beats a good setup!

So, I finally got a decent chicken butchering setup, yay! For years I've avoided butchering because, while I had a nice plucker I built, my only work surface was an ice chest. That's a little hard on the back, to say the least!
I snagged a countertop and the bathtub from an old singlewide that was being torn dow. The bathtub is a little overkill, but the kitchen sink was already taken. I stuck some legs on the counter and on the tub so they are of a nice height. I also screwed some empty gallon plastic containers on the back of the counter to try out as killing cones. I usually just chop off the head, but that gets messy and is a little slow. I hadn't used killing cones before, but wanted to try them. They are nice to keep the bird contained, but I'm not sure that I like cutting their throats, it seems a little slow.

Anyway, here's pictures of the setup. I'd like to do a good, step by step of the whole process, but it's hard to do when I'm the one doing it. :)

 Here's the setup as a whole. My scalder is a stock pot on a portable propane burner. Next to that is the plucker, then the countertop, the bathtub and then the coolers filled with cold water to put the finished, cleaned carcasses in.

Here's a couple of close ups of my plucker. It's modeled after the Whiz Bang plucker. I looked at pictures of several others then made my own. I did have some help from my hubby in attaching the shaft that turns the bottom plate and is attached by belts to the motor. That sort of stuff isn't really my forte.

 This a shot of the back of the counter with the killing cones. They actually worked out fairly well. The buckets underneath are to catch the blood. If I let them drip on the grass, the dogs will dig that spot up trying to get it all.

 Here's the tub. Someday I'd like a faucet attached, but for now we just turn on the hose.

 I had 11 rooster and 14 hens. Some of the boys definitely had to go! This one was the only one of the bunch who was actually aggressive to people. He was first in line.

 Here you can see the killing cones in action.

 As you can see in a couple of the pictures, the dogs were most attentive!

 A couple of the birds in the plucker. We also did a couple of turkeys. While they were too big for the cones, everything else worked good with the bigger carcasses.

 And a bird getting cleaned up in the tub.

The whole thing works soooo much better than a cooler!! Now that I'm set up better, I'll be ordering meat birds again. Nothing like good, homegrown, free ranged chicken!