Can you "plump" up non-meat breeds for a week or two before slaughter?

We have a variety of chickens. When you cull poor layers, aggressive birds, excess roosters, etc., and you pen them up for a few days to prepare, is there a way to add some extra weight in a week or two? Or is it more or less a fruitless endeavor?

Unless your prepared to "fatten the goose" like they did in the old days by nailing it's feet to a board and using a funnel to feed it molasses coated grain I don't see any gain to a few weeks of attempting it. The amount of confinement and portions of feed mix we're talking about to fatten in short time and enlarge the liver would be deemed inhumane by today's standards. The bird is the bird, it will taste like chicken. Older birds will never be grill or broiler worthy and a layer bird will not make for an appealing table bird at any age. There many ways to cook and eat a bird. Your only out a few options. Personally, I like gumbo for retired cocks and layers. Made pot pie a few times too and that was good, but it wasn't gumbo.

Nope, not planning on being inhumane! This is a beautiful answer to the question! Thank you! We're going to try a coq au vin this week, and i was thinking about pot pies and stew, but i had totally forgotten about gumbo and even jumbalaya!!! I have no problem at all raising happy, healthy birds, hearing a crow, and having a lean, light dressed chicken that isn't fit for roasting. Having lots of great ideas for older birds is plenty sufficient.

Thank you so much!

Don't forget enchiladas!

Yesss, is there a thread for old chicken recipes!? I'm gonna search for it ha!

Egghead_Jr said:

Unless your prepared to "fatten the goose" like they did in the old days by nailing it's feet to a board and using a funnel to feed it molasses coated grain I don't see any gain to a few weeks of attempting it.

Click to expand...

It's not necessarily 'in the old days' Foie gras is still desired today, and thus forced feeding is still done as well in many places...

I worked with a Hungarian that would argue goose rind was the best part of the bird not the liver. He had fond memories of grammy tossing fat in a grease pan for him as she finished butchering the bird in the kitchen. As for chicken, worked with a fella from Tinadad-Tobago. Every new state or large non chain supermarket we were in he'd look for whole chicken. Was telling me he couldn't find whole chicken anywhere so I took him to the meat department to point it out. "That? That's not WHOLE chicken." Told him sure it was, the neck and organs are inside. "Where's the feet?! How can you sell a WHOLE chicken without the feet?" I never knew if he was upset because he felt cheated by American whole chicken or if he really liked the feet.

@thebulg moist heat is the deal when cooking older birds. Any recipe there after is up to you. The methods of cooking are stove top in a pot- don't let the water boil or the meat will get tough. It needs to be under 200 F. It can be difficult so many use a plug in crock pot to cook them. The other method is covered pan with good depth of water in bottom in the oven- 325F maybe? 300F to be safe. Low and slow and moist. So you cook the meat, let cool and take it off the bone then can put the carcass back in and boil away for broth. Coq au vin I believe leaves the bone but that method is using the wine to break down the muscle and takes two days to prepare. I've seen recipes coq au vin in a few hours but they certainly are not using an old cock bird. The recipe by name and design is to tenderize old birds, find the two day method or it wont work.

For "old bird" recipes look into old cookbooks--books that predate the modern broiler. Check thrift stores, etc. There are a few other books that specialize in olde-time cookery if you look around. I have one called "Forgotten Skills of Cooking"--it's Irish and well done. It's a bit expensive for only the handful of chicken recipes but well worth it if you can use more of the book (I collect cookbooks like some people collect chickens). Julia Child books are of course good for the assortment of poultry cooking methods. I also like a book called "All About Braising." I would hope most of these books have samples online if they aren't available at your library or through inter-library loan.

This site has some great information....

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...cuments/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf<br><br> I

And apparently this page vanished. Too bad, it had good information.

You can search this site using "heritage cooking" and get some good ideas.

Sometimes i regret asking questions on here because i find out that i am fretting over nothing, or asked a question i could have easily googled.

I DONT REGRET THIS THREAD AT ALL!!! I would never have thought of the ohrase heritage cooking, and that sounds right up my alley. I also forgot about the library for cookbooks and will look into that. Plus i got even more ideas for uses of the roo and future ones and a good basis for experimenting after a while.

You are all my heroes right now!