Processing Day Done? Here’s How to Store Your Chickens

A customer recently called after having ordered meat chickens, purchased his supplies, feed, and arranged for processing. His question, “How much freezer space do I need to store meat chickens?”  I’d never been asked this question before. I thought it was a good question and was impressed he was covering all his bases from preparedness for the chicks through processing. Today, I hope to shed some light on the answer to the question and provide options for storing processed meat chickens.

The most popular methods for storing chicken are freezing, canning, and making jerky. Freezing is probably the most common because it requires the least specialized equipment, and most are very familiar with it, so I’ll start there. 

To save freezer space, plan to break the bird down into parts. A whole chicken with bones and an empty cavity will take up much more space than a parted chicken. A deboned chicken will use less space than a quartered or parted chicken. The more your birds are broken down, the less space they will take up in the freezer, so consider ground chicken, chicken sausage links, or patties. Ground meat is a great option to help conserve freezer space. If you are wondering about the bones, we’ve got uses we’ll suggest later for those, too.

Another consideration when freezing is the packaging itself. If vacuum sealing is an option, it should help you save space. Removing the extra air will also help preserve the quality of the meat during its time in the freezer. I suggest packing the chicken parts as flat as possible to allow for easy stacking. Consider the serving sizes you most often use before packing. Are you feeding a family every day or just one or two people? Planning will make meal time easier and allow you to quickly and easily remove just the right amount from the freezer. 

You can make jerky or dehydrate your chicken. You will need to cook it prior to dehydrating it, but this will eliminate the need for storing it in the freezer. You can find options online to dehydrate cooked chicken using either a food dehydrator or a low-temperature oven. Making chicken jerky will be a very similar process. There is an array of recipes to suit your taste preferences. Generally, you will marinate the chicken, cook it, cool it, and then dehydrate it.

Another option is pressure canning. While this does take shelf space, canning jars, lids, and a suitable pressure canner, you will not need to use freezer space nor the electricity to run the freezer. Directions for pressure canning chicken can be found online, but please do follow methods approved by the USDA.

I promised you some options for things to do with bones to make sure they are neither wasted nor take up freezer space. You can make a large batch of bone broth after deboning the birds and pressure-canning it to safely store it for later use. The cooked bones can also be ground down and added to compost piles. They help add phosphorus and calcium to the soil and promote root and flower growth. They also encourage the growth of beneficial microbes, which help improve soil structure.