This year I've decided to get most of my birds processed by an abattoir. This is all new to me as I normally do it myself. The main thing I was wanting to know is when is the best time to crate up? Can it be done the night before or is it best to do it early morning? The abattoir is only 30 minutes away and I was hoping to put the crates in the back of my Land Rover or trailer.
Many thanks
Are they on natural lighting?
If they're cropping up with food at night before darkness you may find they have a fair bit of feed still in their crops at the factory (and they won't like that, it gives them a lot of work cleaning up)
The UK welfare codes state a maximum of 12 hours feed withdrawal is permitted, water should be withdrawn only once you begin to load them up.
Those are the right answers to the questions if they ask you, otherwise they may refuse to take them, what you do is up to you
If you withdraw feed for any longer than 12 hours (we never used to go over 10) your birds will begin to lose bodyweight very quickly, a 20b turkey starved for 24 hours will easily lose over 1lb in weight as it consumes its own body resources to maintain itself.
When I did it with commercial birds our times were based on what time the birds would be processed at the factory so if they were due to start processing them at 8am we'd withdraw feed at maybe 11pm but leave the water on till catching started around 3am, a couple of hours loading, a couple of hours on the lorry and they were at the factory slightly before processing time.
But the commercial birds were on 23 hours lighting so they never filled their crops, they just nibbled away constantly.
If you ask the abattoir they'll probably be happy to give you some advice