Meat Bird Project - Delaware, White Rock, Dark Cornish

I've been getting looks from my neighbors (and elbows from my wife!) about my roosters crowing at 4am, so I took care of the biggest offenders on Sunday. I wasn't as thorough as I wanted to be while culling them, didn't weigh before and after for any except one of the WR roos. He started as 3358 grams (7.4 lbs), cleaned carcass ended at 1983 grams (4.37 lbs). And one of the Dels started at 2748 grams (6.05 lbs), but no carcass weight. Apologies for the lack of weights and photos - I did them on my own while distracted watching the Lions game - DETROIT!!!!

I'm not 100% thrilled with the weights, but hey, gotta do what you gotta do to keep the wife from giving me a black eye first thing in the morning. A few more weeks should help them to fill out a bit more.

I was somewhat happy with the amount of meat that I got off each chicken, especially at 19 and 20 weeks old. I culled 2 Dels and 2 WR roos. One of the Dels had a bit meatier breast than either of the WRs, so I'm back to reconsidering my original idea of keeping them in the mix. The legs and thighs on all of them were very nice, thick. The WRs breast meat was a bit easier to remove than the Dels, as the Dels meat seemed a bit stringier and more attached. In total, got 3 bags of meat and 2 bags of bones, feet and innards for stock. I didn't keep any of the heads, still haven't figured out how to clean them enough for me to stomach putting them in the pot and watching them float, judging me with every bob...

I'm going to give the remaining roos another week or so, then start on the pullets. 21 in total left to cull, I figure 5 or so a weekend through the end of the year will clear out my stock and give me a fresh pallet to start with the crosses.

I also cancelled the McMurray order for now, I have too much on my plate for now with the keepers I have. Going to spend the next year breeding with 9 of the keepers (2 DCC, 1 DCP, 2 WRC, 3 WRP, 1 DelP), but once the roos have spread their seeds successfully, they too will become dinner. I'll likely keep the biggest (and friendliest) DC roo to continue with the crosses. He's a beautiful bird, and he's not as aggressive as the WRs are with the ladies. Though he does still have his moments.

Will keep you all posted (with better info and pics) as I continue the culling process. Looks like the keeper pullets are also getting ready to start laying soon, so I'll start the Gen 2 and crosses soon, putting them in the incubator likely as soon as January 1. I'll also do some more duck eggs at the time. See why I cancelled the McMurray order now?!?

"still haven't figured out how to clean them enough for me to stomach putting them in the pot and watching them float, judging me with every bob..."

Exactly! And me neither. Hate seeing waste but really cant stomach the image....

I'm with you on not cooking the heads, but I sometimes cut off the combs and throw those into the stock pot.

It took me far too long last weekend to cull 4 cockerels, from prep through cleanup, it took most of an NFL game. I admit I was a bit distracted, but still, much of the time went into plucking and keeping the feathers far away from my cleaning surface. So I did some research and found that a drill-extension plucker would be the way to go. At least, it's the entry level plucker. I found several versions online, and the cheapest was $35 with shipping (6 fingers) all the way up to $95 with 10-12 fingers. So I decided to make my own.

I got 50 fingers for $20 off Amazon, way more fingers than I need for this project. So this project is my quick-answer for this weekend and the near future since it was so quick, but I will have 5 months before my next batch is ready to be plucked, by then I'll have made my ultimate design - a 33-finger plucker that catches stray feathers and shoots them right into a trashcan. Or, if this drill idea works, I'll make 4 more of them.

Here's what I started with, everything except the fingers and end caps were just pieces lying in my garage and shed, just hoping for a purpose:

7.5" long piece of 2" PVC pipe, schedule 40
2x 2" PVC end caps
12" long piece of 5/16" threaded rod
2 washers, 2 split washers, 2 nuts
10 rubber fingers (Here's where I got mine: http://a.co/aKJQjz4 )
electrical tape


First, I started by drilling a 5/16" hole cut in the exact middle of the end caps. For this you will need a very specific set of both tools and skills, or you will need to be lucky like I was.

Second, drill 3/4" holes for the fingers. This is much easier to make sure it's accurate and even. Mark the holes about an inch and a half from each other, if not slightly more. I did alternating sets of 3 and 2, totaling 4 rows/10 fingers. (I'm not sure that a saw could handle more without having some sort of support on the other end of the rod as well.) Use a hole saw or paddle bit to cut out the holes, then rub any extra shavings off. Now fit the rubber fingers in through the inside - it helps to have the rod handy here to help push the ends down on the middle holes. Now begins the work...

I used a hole saw, it was short and very small. It kept catching the PVC 'rings' inside the hole, and eventually got clogged and was very difficult to pull out. I suggest a paddle bit, through I didn't have one the exact size.


It takes superior finger strength to pull the fingers through the hole that is made. A lot of pulling in each direction, inching the finger gradually through the hole. And it isn't the slightest bit comfortable on your hands. The more you do, the less strength you have, so whatever tricks you've figured out are outweighed by the rapid onset of temporary arthritis. But once it's in, boy it's in there. I positioned the fingers so the natural line of excess rubber that sticks out along the fingers 2 sides runs parallel with the pipe, not sure if it matters but I figured better safe than sorry.


These fingers are solid, like thick tire rubber. And much larger than I expected, even knowing what I was getting from the specific dimensions on the website. They're longer than my fingers, and they stick out as long as my middle finger.


Once the fingers are in, add the end caps and push until tight. Then slide the rod through the entire "pill". Now put a washer, split washer and nut on each end in that order from the end cap. I left about a half-inch of rod on the far end, that left a few inches left for the drill-side. There I put a layer of electric tape, this was to help give a bit of grip - not sure if it was necessary, but that's how I did it. Now it's done.


When hooked up to the drill, it is a pretty fierce beast. I suggest keeping children and animals away from it while it's operating.


I'll let you know how it goes. I plan to cull 3-4 birds at a time so that I can start the drill once for all of them. We'll see how that plan goes. I'll have another update later this weekend.

I'm looking forward to see this works. I bought the supplies a couple months ago to make a drill plucker but I can't loosen the drill bit with my drill chuck. If i ever get that dog gone drill bit out I will continue on or not depending on how your review goes, lol.

Okay... so, that went... well?

The drill was doing its job, I won't fault it for that at all. I snapped the necks of 3 cockerels and had them all in a row. Put them in the scalding water for a few seconds, then cold water for a second, then on a towel. One after the other. Turned on the drill, which was clamped to a table over a trashcan. The first chicken took about 80 seconds, the second one was half-stripped when the clamp let go and that drill was taken over by a poltergeist. It jumped up at me and tried to take my face, then I batted it down into the 55-gallon trashcan, where it thrust for a few seconds before I pulled the plug.

When I pulled it out of the trashcan, fishing it out of 6 inches of feathers, I noticed that the threaded rod was bent at a 90 degree angle.

Now I've replaced the rod and built a full frame to hold the drill down onto the top of the trashcan. My fingers are crossed that this one works and I don't see the angel of death this time...

So I set up the feather plucker with a whole stand, braced the drill down to a table with a couple metal bands, secured both ends of the rod, I even took a Sharpie and put some cool graphics on it, and let her rip once again. Same result, got through 1 chicken before the rod bent. I think it's the thickness of the rod that needs to be changed, it's only 5/16" threaded rod, I should go up a bit. It was spinning well at first, but the extra pressure of the chicken up against it made it start to wobble, and of course that was all it needed to go crazy on me. I will have to start from the drawing board on that project - likely will start a different thread altogether on the subject.

Now back to the "main" project - the birds. I slaughtered or sold most of my birds over the weekend. Overall, we've definitely lost some money so far, but that was to be expected since the first batch (Gen. 1) were all from a hatchery and varied in sizes. The next generation will be with the best stock that I have, so Gen. 3 should eventually produce a somewhat consistently large heritage bird. And then there are the Dark Cornish crosses - that is where I am placing 90% of my hope!

I currently have the following breeding birds left after the "weekend rapture":
2 White Rock cockerels
2 Dark Cornish cockerels
3 White Rock pullets
2 Delaware pullets
1 Dark Cornish pullet

I am only keeping the better Dark Cornish as the single roo for my flock (which also shrank considerably, I'm down to 13 total chickens now, 10 in a few weeks). The other 3 cockerels will be dispatched after they place their seeds in their corresponding hens. Unfortunately, the 6 pullets aren't laying yet, it may take another week or 3 for them to start their process.

I plan to start with the following:

WR cockerel over WR pullet
WR cockerel over WR pullet, Delaware pullet
DC cockerel over DC pullet, Delaware pullet
DC cockerel over WR pullet

That should get me Gen 2 of the 2 heritage breeds I'm keeping, as well as a few hybrids to start for Gen. 3 hybrids. I'm considering mixing the DC/WR with DC/Del to see if there is a major size/final meat weight different. I ALSO PLAN TO KEEP ALL OF THE WEIGHTS AND GROWTH RATES CHARTED WITHIN THIS SAME THREAD. It will be cool to see how the generations change over the next 2 years (or very frustrating if there's no change).

Also, a fun note - at one point during this project, I had 14 roosters. Crowing. At 4:30am. Every. Day.

Now I'm down to 4, still they like to crow. So I looked into the "No Crow Rooster Collars". There was some great info online about them, lots of success stories. Being a frugal individual, I fashioned my own collars out of 1" wide velcro. I had a few feet of velcro, sticky on the back. I just cut in 8" lengths, peeled the back off, and stuck the hook-side to the back of the loop-side. I also curved the fabric as I went to give it a natural desire to wrap around the neck. Once done, I put it on the roosters and waited. One really did not like it at all, he kept walking backwards like he's trying to get out of a snare. The others didn't seem to mind it after a minute. I had to readjust one a bit, but this morning I could barely hear the faint sounds of them trying to crow. I only heard it because I was up - my body's gotten used to waking up and fighting to get back to sleep.

Overall, I definitely recommend them. Online they sell for about $20 each, but I made 4 of them for only $5 worth of velcro that I had lying around the house. The store-bought collars are 2" wide, so if I had to buy the velcro, I'd go with the 2". Here's where I got the idea:

http://www.weedemandreap.com/how-to-stop-rooster-crowing/

My Overall Impressions - by breed

Delawares - very nice birds, friendly, beautiful and great potential to be great meat birds. What was taken as aggression when they were small turned into very curious, friendly birds. They do peck at me/us, but it's not hard, more of a 'taste'. The Del roos were the first to come up to me and peck the stickers off my pant legs, jump up to get a treat out of my hand, etc. Very pretty birds, they have that slight trim of black on their necks and the black outline of their tail feathers. A bit more difficult to pluck than the WR, more downy feathers, but just about the same percentage of meat. Good legs and thighs, a bit sparse on the breast meat. Another few weeks would have meant more meat, but tougher. At 21 weeks old, the meat was already tougher than I had hoped, but very flavorful.
My expectations were met and then some.

White Rocks - flighty, timid, and difficult to corral/grab, but large frames and easy to pluck and clean. These were the ones I had the highest hopes on when starting this project. They were easier to hold than the Dels as chicks, but now I can't get the pullets to come to me at all. The roos that I'm keeping are used to being held, pretty easy going. Not terribly bad on the hens either, and great protectors even at 5 months. Huge frames, but at 21-22 weeks they comparatively didn't have much meat on them - again, great legs and thighs, but breast and wings left something to be desired. Tough meat, but softened nicely in the crock pot, flavorful. Gorgeous feathering, the hens are so sleek looking and the roos are very regal.
My expectations were exceeded in frame growth and beauty, met in meatiness and no met with the hens' personalities.

Dark Cornish - hens are a bit timid, roos are great, very meaty overall, difficult to pluck. They were very easy to handle as chicks, but difficult to sex until they were 2 weeks old (I got 2 pullets out of the 5 cockerels that I ordered). They were significantly smaller in appearance than the Dels or WRs, but they were like hot bowling balls, very compact and heavy. Smaller frames than the others also. The roos have beautiful coloring, brown wings, green tail feathers, like regal looking pit bulls.The roos are pretty easy to handle, and the pullets seem very interested and inquisitive, but timid. Difficult to pluck due to the dark feathers, and smaller frames so more difficult to get in the carcass to clean it out. But huge breasts compared to the others, and nice legs/thighs. Very flavorful, but again tough. Likely would fill out a lot more over the next 2 months, if caponized.
My expectations were met with these, exceeded for their beauty and meatiness.

Thanks so much for the write-up, I've been following for awhile! @KoopOnTruckin