Unpopular opinion: I quit breaking down whole birds by hand after 22 years, and a $60 saw is why

Hayden Nelson · 2026-10-16T02:15:06.737773+00:00

I have been cutting chickens and turkeys the old way since I was 19, and I always figured a saw was for lazy guys who never learned their way around a joint. Last month I had 40 birds to break down for a Friday wedding order, and my hands were shot by bird 12, so I dug out an old reciprocating saw a retired butcher in Council Bluffs sold me for $60 back in 2021. I swore I would just use it for the backbone and go back to my knife for the rest, but the whole job took me 3 hours and 15 minutes instead of the 6 hours it used to eat up. The cut through the keel bone came out cleaner than anything my cleaver ever did, and I did not lose a single breast to a torn joint. What really got me was the waste, because I weighed the trim bucket at the end and it was almost 2 pounds lighter than my usual pile. Now I am sitting here wondering how many years I spent fighting cartilage out of pure pride. For the folks who made the switch, do you still hand-break the wings and thighs or does the saw do everything for you?

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Unpopular opinion: I quit breaking down whole birds by hand after 22 years, and a $60 saw is why | Butchers - Chatter Central