California - Northern

[chickee]

I don't know but am sorry for your loss. I hope someone who knows...like Kathy will be on soon to advise you

Processed 6 cockerels today. 3 Birchen Marans 2 Red Star and a NH/Dorking. definite difference in the heft of the birds. The Red Stars were quite a bit lighter. I did the dispatching on two of them. It's the first time I have done that.

I have been processing them with a colleague who has always had birds ready to go at the same time and he has always done the killing but I know I can't count on that so I decided I would do it soup to nuts today so that I would be ready to do the whole thing on my own. I am glad I did it but I am not looking forward to 5 weeks from now when I have to do it again.

On the bright side they have a laying flock with EEs and cuckoo marans and they wanted one of my birchen boys for them so he got a pardon.

How old were they? How meaty were the Marans? I am contemplating eating my extra GCM cockerels next year. I will let my brother and SIL do the processing. They raise organic, free range meat birds to sell to our local markets.

 

[One Chick Two]

We use auto pluckers with the finger nipples. They work fantastic on older chickens, but when we process BCM at 3-4 months, they are so tender the skin always tears up, and sometimes a wing or more can be torn off. The Marans meat is often as large at that point as a 1 year old PR hen. (Dresses out at about 3 3/4-5 lbs.)

 

[ronott1]

We use auto pluckers with the finger nipples. They work fantastic on older chickens, but when we process BCM at 3-4 months, they are so tender the skin always tears up, and sometimes a wing or more can be torn off. The Marans meat is often as large at that point as a 1 year old PR hen. (Dresses out at about 3 3/4-5 lbs.)

Great information!

Do yo hand pluck the Marans?

 

[One Chick Two]

Great information!

Do yo hand pluck the Marans?

No, we use a mechanical auto plucker.
After boiling, what used to take at least 10 minutes per bird now takes 10 seconds. That's a serious help when processing. Afterward, there's only a few tiny feathers to pull out. They are worth every penny. There's even Youtube videos on how to make your own.

 

[tommysgirl]

How old were they? How meaty were the Marans? I am contemplating eating my extra GCM cockerels next year. I will let my brother and SIL do the processing. They raise organic, free range meat birds to sell to our local markets.

2 of the marans hatched 6/16 2 hatched 6/23. The mixes were all hatched on 6/20. So they were like 17 and 18 weeks. I only did the preliminary cleaning. I am going to let them rest a couple more days before piecing them out. That will give me a better idea but I will let you know.

It was noticable though. When I picked up the Marans and the Dorking Cross to crate them the night before processing they just felt much denser than the Red Stars.

My colleague who I process with just offered to grow out my cockerels for me at his place

Since most of my chicks are broody raised I could get them to him when the girls had weaned them and/or they were sexable...whichever comes last, pay for my own feed and he would raise them and we would process together. That would be a huge help to me as you can imagine. I have been thinking how letting everyone who went broody hatch a clutch has sort of caused an exponential spike in flock size and how I would like to get back to have about 12-18 laying hens and 5-6 Bantams. Anyway this arrangement would allow me to do that and still hatch out boys for the table and girls to sell as layers or keep to replace my older hens,

reduce my numbers and make chicken life less complicated.

 

[BCollie]

Quote:
How did you know he went on a hunger strike? Lol I don't think I posted that here...

and if he won't eat the quail then I'll just feed them to my raw fed dog or sell them to someone else with a snake.

 

[tommysgirl]

We use auto pluckers with the finger nipples. They work fantastic on older chickens, but when we process BCM at 3-4 months, they are so tender the skin always tears up, and sometimes a wing or more can be torn off. The Marans meat is often as large at that point as a 1 year old PR hen. (Dresses out at about 3 3/4-5 lbs.)

We use a home made auto plucker too. It works like a dream even with the younger ones. Maybe because it is home made? IDK but I know it shaves a good amount of time and mess off of the process.

 

[One Chick Two]

One more thing about Marans- some strains mature really, really fast.

We can tell the males from the females at birth, and our strain gets nice breast meat from parents with a rounded breast, so if you must cull and process them early, when they are very young (like little more than chicks), they still have decent edible value and aren't wasted. You won't get much out of the rest of them, but there is a surprising amount of breast meat early on.

Marans definitely have denser meat than our PRs. We prefer the meat's flavor as well.

 

[chrissyr]

I don't know but am sorry for your loss.  I hope someone who knows...like Kathy will be on soon to advise you

Processed 6 cockerels today.  3 Birchen Marans 2 Red Star and a NH/Dorking.   definite difference in the heft of the birds.  The Red Stars were quite a bit lighter.  I did the dispatching on two of them.  It's the first time I have done that.     I have been processing them with a colleague who has always had birds ready to go at the same time  and he has always done the killing but I know I can't count on that so I decided I would do it soup to nuts today so that I would be ready to do the whole thing on my own.  I am glad I did it but I am not looking forward to 5 weeks from now when I have to do it again.

On the bright side they have  a laying flock with EEs and cuckoo marans and they wanted one of my birchen boys for them so he got a pardon.

No, we use a mechanical auto plucker.
After boiling, what used to take at least 10 minutes per bird now takes 10 seconds. That's a serious help when processing. Afterward, there's only a few tiny feathers to pull out. They are worth every penny. There's even Youtube videos on how to make your own.

You should be so proud of yourself.
I did 12 CL cockerels. I skinned them so it was quicker. My did the killing on 7-8, and I did the other 4-5.
I did not like that part, but I have to learn .there are times when no one else will do it.
I skinned all 12 by myself. It took about 2 hours to kill, skin and gut them.
I will try to take them to the processor next time. MUCH easier! I just didn't this time because they weren't huge and couldn't justify the price.
On another note: had an awkward moment while walking down the hall.
The quail are moved into the garage, but I heard a bird call in the spare bedroom. Yep, a quail escaped! Caught it easily. But not used to their call so I thought I may have been loosing it.
When it scurried I thought" I really hope that was a quail and not a big rat"
Thankfully it was a quail!

 

[SpringPeeper]

My mom asked me why I was being so grumpy and I all I could do was start crying.
I spent 12 hours on a project just to have it ruined by spray paint that was supposed to make it waterproof. Instead, it melted the foam.
My new $130 snake is refusing to eat.
I went to check on the baby chick and she had stopped breathing. It's probably my fault that she's dead.
My hatch sucks. ONE out of FIFTEEN Golden Lakenvelders has hatched. 3 out of 8 Lavendar Orps have hatched.
I got my brooder set up because I'm sure the chick that hatched yesterday at 6am is pretty hungry and thirsty by now. Plugged in the heat lamp, and guess what? It turned on, then died. The bulb went out. That's when I lost it. Seriously, it was just the icing on the cake. My poor chick is going to have to go over 48 hours without food and water because the STUPID heat lamp bulb decided to die on me after all the stores were closed for the night. If it weren't for her absorbing the yolk still she'd probably die because of lack of water. Or maybe she will die, and it will be my fault because I should have not been stupid enough to wait until this evening to turn on the heat lamp. How long can chicks go without water? At least 3 days because that's how long they stay in shipping boxes, right?
Can tonight get any worse? I feel like a miserable failure right now.

How did you know he went on a hunger strike? Lol I don't think I posted that here...

and if he won't eat the quail then I'll just feed them to my raw fed dog or sell them to someone else with a snake.

The above is how I knew. I posted offering some help since I have a lot of experience helping non-starters and hunger-strikers get going, but never got a response. Hopefully you got things sorted.