"Doug Warner" wrote in message
...
Come on now metalworkers.. I expected something more creative, like a
chicken-sized guillotine..

Ok, I just have to chime in here! Back in the 1970s, I was a fast food
manager, and yes, we sold hamburgers an chicken. We needed a new slide show
to train the kids who cooked the stuff. Your truly was delegated to
photograph the process from live chicken to packed frozen meat.

So here is how they did it at a local packing house:

There was an endless cable with W shaped holders that ran from the loading
area to the de-feathering machine. Several men removed the live chickens
from cages on a truck, and hung them by their feet in the Ws. When about 20
chickens were loaded, the cable started moving. Their heads were dragged
over a shocking device that stunned the birds, and then passed over a
concrete pad, where a man sitting on a chair, cut their throats. After that
a hole saw in a hand drill was used to cut a circle around each birds anus,
and the guts were suctioned out. On to a wheel knife the cut the feet off
over the de-feathering machine, which then spat them out into a vat of cold
water. two people then fed them into a machine that band sawed them into 7
pieces, and ejected them into plastic bags for freezing.

Steve R.