Bleeding,

[Kryshok]

If I'm culling to eat should I bleed the bird after culling? Not something I ever saw my father do but I think many so.

 

[NatJ]

If I'm culling to eat should I bleed the bird after culling? Not something I ever saw my father do but I think many so.

How do you kill the bird?

I have always killed chickens by cutting off the head. By the time the body stops flapping, it has also bled out pretty thoroughly. So I don't have to think about bleeding as a separate step.

I think it would be safe to eat even without bleeding, but having blood in the meat will change how it looks and maybe how it tastes. I have read that the meat will spoil faster if it has blood in it, so that would be another point in favor of bleeding it out when killing.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum, glad you joined.

If I'm culling to eat should I bleed the bird after culling? Not something I ever saw my father do but I think many so.

You'll find that we all do things differently. It's not that there is only one way to do things, that there are often many acceptable ways to do things. Some ways may be "better" than other ways in some circumstances but often there is little difference. It can get kind of convoluted talking about things in general. In general I look at it as that there are usually many different ways to do things. That doesn't mean that one way is always better or different is always wrong.

In general, it is considered that you get a better quality of meat if you bleed the bird. We all have different tastes and sensitivities. Many of us cannot tell the difference in whether the bird was bled or not, some can. Part of it is what you are used to. I don't know how you plan to kill your birds, some methods automatically bleed them. If it is convenient I'd suggest bleeding them, but if not don't and see how they taste. They will probably be fine.