Feeding butchers for the best tasting meat

[homesteaderwannabe]

I am raising butcher chickens for the first time. I am feeding them Nutrena Nature Wise commercial starter feed. This seems to be the best quality feed that I can find in my small town. Anyone have any opinion on anything that I can supplement them with to get the best tasting meat possible? Several years ago, we bought some already dressed chickens from a local colony here and they had absolutely NO taste so I am thinking it must have been feed related ????

Interested in your opinions.

Thankyou in advance for your help.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

I use a milled feed from a local feed store. I’m butchering this weekend but already culled two— they were delicious!

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Back when I was raising the Cornish Xs, I fed mine Green Mountain Farms Organic broiler crumbles. My butcher who does nothing but poultry said that mine were some of the best looking chickens (meat wise) he's seen.

Letting them out on grass helps with the taste too. Some people do chicken tractors with them. I did one year, but I couldn't keep up with the mess.

 

[FunClucks]

I just finished a batch in spring of CX where I fed them what you are feeding them. There was a slight taste associated with that feed. But they don't sell anything else in my area that is available for a backyard flock at a reasonable price that I have found. I switched from scalding and plucking to skinning, and that greatly reduced that off-flavor. Also, if I did any seasoning of the meat at all, I didn't notice the off-flavor.

A few months after doing the CX I processed a year old Production Red rooster that had been fed his whole life on 20% Purina All-flock, and he had no off-flavor/taste at all, and was delicious. I skinned him and pressure cooked him. So I do think it was feed related, possibly exacerbated by the water from scalding (dirty feathers! ugh!) getting into the meat/skin a bit. Very subtle, but I noticed a difference.

Maybe next time I'll try and finish the CX with Purina for a few weeks and see if the off-flavor goes away, but man that stuff is expensive!

 

[Penpal]

I have read that the farmers who sell Bresse in France feed their chickens free range, fermented grain, and milk. I think there is more than one way to do it, but at least some soak the grain in milk instead of water (fermenting). Others just give them milk.

 

[Birdinhand]

I’ve tried several brands of broiler pellet. What’s good to one person is not necessarily the aim for another, so you’ll have to do some experimenting. For me, I don’t like a fatty bird. I like them to be relatively lean. I can say that in that regard, the feed matters, lower fat also lowers heart risk for the birds. Conway feeds in Conway WA has been my go to. I looked up the contents for you. Maybe you can find something similar close to you.

 

[GCrumb]

What did the off-flavour taste like?

Very condensed version: People think meat with fat content that's higher in oleic acid tastes better. Acorns, other tree nuts, oysters, milk -- foods traditionally associated with improving meat flavour when fed to pigs, have a lot of the stuff.

There may be something going on where alfalfa and other forage legumes increase it as well.

I suspect that grass, fresh greens and insect forage all contribute to a chicken tasting like chicken and not just a vehicle for seasonings. I expect that the exercise of foraging does too.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

I've fed mine the same thing you're feeding for at least half of the time (4-6 weeks) on each of the two batches of CX I've done. Our meat has a lot of flavor - certainly more than chicken we've bought at the store. Maybe others know of ways to enhance the flavor further, but I assure you you'll get some tasty chickens with this feed.