Meat duck slaughter and processing technology

With the improvement of the people’s living standards and the growing awareness of self-care, people are paying more and more attention to the relationship between food and health. The consumer demand for agricultural products is developing in the direction of quality, nutrition, and safety. For poultry products, duck meat is characterized by high protein and low fat, and is deeply loved by consumers. This article will discuss the slaughter processing technology and equipment of ducks in order to achieve product processing standards and put all aspects of good duck foods.

According to the slaughter and processing of meat ducks, it can be divided into the following two stages: pre-slaughter management and slaughtering.

I. Pre-slaughter management

The management of ducks prior to slaughter is very important because it directly affects the quality of the duck after slaughter. So-called ducks are ducks that have not yet been slaughtered. The pre-slaughter management includes three aspects: rest before slaughter, fasting before slaughter, and shower before slaughter. Hairy ducks should be fully rested before slaughter to reduce the duck's stress response, which is conducive to bloodletting. Usually need to rest 12h ~ 24h, when the weather is hot, it can be extended to 36h. Before slaughter, it is generally necessary to fast for 8 hours, but during fasting, care should be taken to provide clean, adequate drinking water. In this way, it is not only conducive to complete bloodletting, improving the quality of duck meat, the most important thing is to allow ducks to drink more water to wash away the food in the stomach, thereby improving the quality of duck soup. The ducks should be loaded with special duck cages. When it is loaded, it is best to put the duck head down. At the same time, it should be noted that the number of ducks in cages should not be too large, so as to avoid the situation of hairy ducks and wounds. Ducks are afraid of heat, and they cannot be short of water. If it is summer, in order to increase the survival rate of ducks, they must shower ducks. Before entering the market, hairy ducks must carry out two document inspections, namely, "certificate of animal quarantine" and "certificate of disinfecting animal and animal product delivery vehicles."

After passing the inspection of the documents, it is necessary to perform a sensory inspection on the ducks. Observe whether or not there is any trauma on the body surface of the duck. If there is a trauma, the chance of infecting the pathogen will increase exponentially and cannot be accepted. Then, to see if the duck's eyes are bright, and if there are too many mucous secretions in the eyes, if it is too much, it means that the duck is in poor health and is not a qualified duck and should be rejected. Finally, check the head, limbs, and body of the duck for lesions. The qualified ducks were allowed to slaughter and the “Guidance for slaughtering/waiting for slaughter” was issued. Then you can enter the slaughter stage.

Second, slaughter processing

From the process flow points, the duck slaughtering process includes: hanging, causing stunning, bleeding, scalding, hair-sucking, three dipping wax, pulling duck tongue, pulling hair, hair testing, picking, cutting claws, cleaning inside and outside, Pre-cooling and other steps.
(1) Hang the duck first from the carrier, then gently lift the duck from the cage and hold the duck's ankle upside down on the duck.

(B) caused by fainting

Dizziness means that the duck to be slaughtered can be put to coma through various methods, which is conducive to the next slaughtering work. At present, the most used method of stunning is electric anesthesia. The so-called electrocautery method uses electric current stimulation to make the duck unconscious. The use voltage is usually 36 to 110 volts. We can set up an electric stunning pool with electric current through the bottom and filled with water. When hairy ducks pass through here, an electric shock will naturally faint.

(c) Bloodletting

The most common method for bleeding ducks is oral bleeding. An elongated slaughter knife is generally used. The slaughter knife can only be used after being sterilized with chlorine. The specific method is: The knife into the duck's mouth, cut off the venous blood vessels in the duck's upper jaw, head down to drain the net blood, the entire torrent of time is 5min.

(d) Scalding

After the blood has been given to the hairy duck, it will be scalded. The first thing to do is to pass the pre-heating bath first. The temperature of the pre-heating pool is between 50°C and 60°C, and it enters the scalding tank after strong spraying. The control of the water temperature in the scalding pool is critical, which directly affects the hair removal effect of the duck. Generally, the temperature can be adjusted to about 62°C, and the entire scalding process needs 2 minutes to 5 minutes.

(e) Defeathering

At present, slaughterhouses in large-scale slaughterhouses are all mechanically debrided, also known as fluffing. The general dehairing rate can reach 80% to 85%.

(VI) Three times of dipping wax

Most of the hair on the body of the duck has fallen off after being beaten. However, there is still a small amount of hair remaining on the body of the duck. In order to make the hair on the surface of the duck body more cleanly, we can use the edible wax on the duck body. More thorough hair removal. Before this, first use a small wooden stick to plug the duck's nostrils to avoid waxing.

Usually, we adjust the temperature of the dipping tank to about 75°C. When the duck passes through the wax bath, the whole body will be covered with wax liquid. After quickly passing through the wax bath, it will be cooled in time through the cooling tank. The cooling water temperature is below 25°C so that it can form a complete body on the duck body. The wax shell, and then artificial stripping wax, eventually reduced the hair on the duck body surface. Each duck must go through three dipping waxes, three coolings and three stripping waxes to achieve the final hair removal effect.

In this process, it is necessary to ensure that the temperature of the dipping bath is stable and to avoid excessively high or low temperatures. If the temperature is too high, the wax shell of the duck body surface will be too thin, resulting in a poor hair removal effect. In severe cases, it will lead to ducks. The body is scalded; and if the temperature is too low, the wax shell is too thick and the hair removal effect will be poor. In addition, in order not to waste raw materials, the peeled wax shell can also be put into use in the next melting wax tank to continue its use. After the last cooling down, the sticks on the nostrils of the ducks should be taken off in time and then go to the next process.

(7) Pulling out the tongue

After the waxing process is completed, pull out the tongue. Here we use needle-nose pliers. Needle-nose pliers must be disinfected before use. Just hold the duck tongue with a needle-nose pliers and pull it out. The duck tongue must be stored in a special container.

(h) Pulling hair

After hair-trimming and three dipping waxes, the hair on the surface of the duck seems to have completely fallen off, but some small hairs in the depths of the body surface are still not taken off. At this time, artificial hair removal is necessary. The tools used to pull hairs are mainly lice. This operation is usually performed in a sink. Because only in the water, the hair on the duck body will stand up and see more clearly.

First, use a knife to scrape the skin off the duckbill. Carefully remove the remaining hair from the duck body with tweezers in order from beginning to end. This process may seem simple, but it requires sufficient care and patience. When plucking, care must be taken not to damage the body of the duck, otherwise it is easy to infect bacteria. In case of a broken duck body, place it aside and treat it alone.

(IX) Hair Testing

After pulling the hairy ducks, they should be sent to a full-time mammonian for inspection. If it is found that a small amount of hair has not yet been removed, the inspector will have to rework it again until the hair on the duck body has been completely removed.
After passing the test, the ducks should be put on the chain in time for the next step.

(x) 掏膛

After the ducks are in place, the staff members will use the disinfected knife to cut the duck gizzards along the midline of the duck's lower abdomen, and then cut down the guts, duck gizzards, esophagus, duck liver, suet, lungs, trachea and other internal organs. The viscera that have been picked up are stored separately in containers. The used tool should be disinfected every 30 minutes.

(11) Cutting claws

After the completion of the operation, the claw operation is performed. The knife used for cutting claws must be sterilized before use. Use a knife to cut along the ankle joint of the duck leg and place the cut claws in a special container.

(12) Internal and external cleaning work

Since there has been some blood contamination on the body's surface as well as in the abdomen since it was completed, the duck must be cleaned inside and outside. Clean it inside and outside with water, and finally make no visible dirt on the surface of the carcass. After the washing, the chain enters the pre-cooling disinfection tank.

(xiii) Precooling

Pre-cooling is the last step in the slaughtering process. The temperature of the water in the pre-cooling tank must not exceed 4°C. Normally it can be around 2°C. In the pre-cooling process, sodium hypochlorite is added to the tank from time to time, and the effective sodium hypochlorite concentration in the pre-cooling tank is always maintained at 200 ppm to 300 ppm. Through this step, the bacterial infection rate can be reduced to a minimum during the sputum for disinfection purposes. After cooling, the body temperature of the meat duck was kept below 10°C, and the entire pre-cooling time was 40 minutes. After pre-cooling, enter the drain to enter the carcass segmentation stage.

(14) Segmentation

After the slaughter of ducks, the split includes two parts, the carcass split and the by-product processing. The duck carcass segmentation is mainly based on the division of the processing sequence of the meat duck carcass segmentation and bone removal, usually divided into duck head, duck neck, duck wings, duck claws, etc.; by-product processing is mainly to the heart, liver, liver The guts, guts, and other by-products, such as claws and tongues, are processed separately according to the processing requirements.

After the carcass has been divided, it must be weighed and packaged. Bags are to be tested and qualified and aseptic can be used. Packaged products should be promptly frozen at -35°C, and chilled products should be placed at -8°C.

(15) Packaging and Refrigeration

After the product has been weighed, packaged, sorted, refrigerated, and kept fresh, it can be shipped from the factory. The safety of duck meat is a systematic project, with many links and complex control processes. This requires the staff to have a serious and responsible attitude and master the basic operating skills in order to produce safe and green duck meat.