As of August 8th, when the chicks arriving now reach slaughter weight, there will be a surcharge of $2 if they weigh over 3 kg processed.
Salt Spring chickens sometimes grow as large as 4kg, or occasionally even more. This is causing a number of problems during processing because the equipment is not designed to handle such large birds.
The very large birds are usually older, so they are harder to kill and take longer to scald. Fewer can be scalded at one time because only 2 or 3 instead of 4 or 5 fit on the dunker. The plucker likewise cannot hold 5 large birds, and having fewer moving objects in it affects its efficiency, because plucking works better when the birds are tossed around and bump against the rubber fingers and each other. With only 2 birds they don’t make good all round contact with the plucking surfaces.
Big chubby birds also take up more rack space, further limiting what we can do in a day. With 5 or 6 pound birds (very roughly 2.5-3 kg) we can process 150 in a day. With giants it would be 100 or less, and would take double the time.