Resting, Icing and Brine - Cornish X Processing

Thought you'd like to know that everything went really well with our chicken processing. I used a woman in a small town down the road and she charged $3.00 per bird. My friend took her 20 to Mansfiled, TX (Hayes Farm) for $1.00 per bird. We were both pleased with the results and so next time we'll probably all go to the $1 per bird place.

My birds are in the freezer and I broiled one Monday and it was delicious. This is my first taste of home-raised chicken and the taste is different and delicious. It seems smoother tasting and the meat is denser or something. I can't believe how much meat is on these birds.

Anyway, now that I've gotten past the newbie part I think we might try it again in the Fall.

We're determined to raise as much of our own food as possible.

Thanks for all the support.
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Hooray! I'm so proud of you! I have 13 that are almost 7 weeks old and I picked one up today and could not believe how much it weighed. My layers are lightweights compared to the Cornish cross - it's just about time to have the processed and I think I'm going to have 7 processed next week and the other 6 which aren't quite grown to weight yet the following week. I pay an Amish lady $2 per bird - as whole fryers.

You done good!
 
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What kind of chicken did you have? For our first batch we raised 13 white rock rooster and had them butchered today at 12 weeks old. They looked like fryers when we got them back. They are in brine ice water right now. I was expecting them to be big and plump and they were skinny looking. I love big drum sticks and these were so thin. What did we do wrong?
 
We purchased Jumbo Cornish X. I fed them 12 hours on/12 hours off. Ours had big plump breasts and huge drumsticks. We processed at 8 weeks old and our average weight after processing was 4-5 pounds. This is really pretty small, because I've seen people say 7-9 pounds.

For our batch in the Fall we are going to wait and process at 9-10 weeks. However we have to consider the cost of feed to do this. Towards the end these chickens can each eat up to 1/2 pound of feed per day. I had 42 chickens and they were drinking about 9 gallons of water per day. Little Piggies!!
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I will tell you that the 4-5 pounders have lots of meat though. It's at least 3 meals for the 2 of us.

If you search and read about the Cornish X on this site you will find out lots of good information.

Good luck.
 

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