- ✓Know the stages of slaughter and the hygiene points of each one
- ✓Understand the cold chain: temperatures, time limits, shelf lives
- ✓Know what the regulations and the buyers require: licence, inspection, labelling
Before slaughter
Fasting for 8 to 12 hours with water (level 2): crop and intestine empty, less contamination at evisceration. Healthy birds, outside the withdrawal period, transported during the cool hours, kept calm in the shade before slaughter: a stressed bird gives poorer-quality meat and bleeds badly. The carcass yield of a broiler is about 70 to 72% of the live weight (a 2 kg live chicken gives about 1.4 kg of oven-ready carcass).
The stages and their hygiene points
| Stage | What happens | Hygiene point |
|---|---|---|
| Stunning and bleeding | The bird is rendered insensible then bled | Complete bleeding (2 to 3 minutes): a poorly bled carcass is red and keeps badly |
| Scalding | Dipping in hot water (52 to 58 °C) to loosen the feathers | Water renewed; too hot, the skin cooks; too cold, the feathers stay on |
| Plucking | Machine or by hand | Rinsing; no contact with the floor |
| Evisceration | Opening and removal of the viscera | The critical point: do not pierce the intestine; area separated from the clean area; hands and tools washed |
| Washing and chilling | Rinsing with drinking water then rapid chilling | Carcass brought down to below 4 °C at the core within a few hours (tank of renewed iced water or cold room) |
| Packaging | Bag, label, storage | Date, weight, batch, origin; fresh at 0-4 °C, or freezing at −18 °C |
The slaughterhouse is laid out for forward flow: live birds come in on one side, clean carcasses go out on the other, with no crossing between the dirty area (reception, bleeding, plucking) and the clean area (fine evisceration, chilling, packaging). Drinking water everywhere, hand washing at every passage, cleaning and disinfection at the end of the day.
The cold chain
The rule: never above 4 °C for fresh, −18 °C for frozen, without interruption from the slaughterhouse to the customer. A few benchmarks: a fresh chicken at 0-4 °C keeps for 3 to 5 days; frozen at −18 °C, several months (6 to 12 depending on the packaging); a thawed product is never refrozen. Transport is by refrigerated vehicle or in insulated cool boxes with ice, and every break (breakdown, door left open, waiting in the sun) shortens the shelf life or makes the product dangerous. A thermometer in every cold room and every cool box, and a temperature record morning and evening, are part of the registers.
Licence, inspection, labelling
- Slaughter for sale takes place in a slaughterhouse licensed by the authorities (the Ministry of Animal and Fisheries Resources and its veterinary services), with a veterinary inspection of the birds before and of the carcasses after. “On-farm” slaughter for commercial sale exposes you to penalties and to health risks.
- The label of a product: product name, weight, date of slaughter or packaging, use-by date, storage temperature, batch, name and address of the slaughterhouse or the business.
- Buyers (supermarkets, restaurants, institutions) ask for the licence, the temperature records, the traceability of the batches (lesson 5) and sometimes a specification (size, cutting, packaging).
- For a poultry farmer who does not own a slaughterhouse, the solution is to work with a licensed slaughterhouse (as a service or by selling the live birds) rather than improvising.
For the entrepreneur
- ›Selling slaughtered requires a licence, a measured cold chain and registers: if you do not have them, sell live or go through a licensed slaughterhouse.
- ›Cold is measured: a thermometer and a record morning and evening in every cold room and every cool box.
- ›The yield of 70 to 72% and the weight loss during fasting go into the calculation of the slaughtered selling price.
For the technician
- ›Fasting for 8 to 12 h with water, birds outside the withdrawal period, transport during the cool hours.
- ›Forward flow respected; intestine never pierced; hands and tools washed between the areas.
- ›Carcasses below 4 °C at the core within a few hours; temperature records noted; never refreeze.
The 3 questions to ask your technician this week
- What temperature do the cold room and the cool box show this morning, and where is it noted?
- Is the batch slaughtered today outside the withdrawal period, and has it fasted for 8 to 12 hours with water?
- Where, if anywhere, do the dirty area and the clean area of our slaughtering cross?
Key points
- •Before: fasting 8 to 12 h with water, outside the withdrawal period, calm; carcass yield ≈ 70 to 72% of live weight.
- •Stages in forward flow: stunning and bleeding, scalding at 52-58 °C, plucking, evisceration (critical point), washing and chilling < 4 °C, packaging and label.
- •Cold chain without interruption: fresh 0-4 °C (3 to 5 days), frozen −18 °C (several months), never refreeze, temperatures recorded morning and evening.
- •Licensed slaughterhouse and veterinary inspection compulsory for sale; complete label; buyers demanding on licence, cold and traceability.