Meyer Fry Pan Bargain

[onaquest55]

I would like to try 100 this spring...a bit nervous!

 

[Red-tailed Hawk]

I have a question that may sound like a dumb question, but I grew up in the suburbs where all our chickens came neatly packaged and the only livestock we had were four pet ducks. How do you preserve all your chicken meat? I'd love to have my own homegrown free range flock of chicken tenders running around but I'm invisioning how much freezer space all that chicken would take up. So how do you do it? Another question I have is how to keep the flock from meandering into the neighbor's fields or yards. I'll have seven acres for them to run around on. Will they roam all of it or stick near thier night time house? oh. One more question. Will I upset my neighbors because of all the crowing if I get a bunch of fry pan bargain roosters?

 

[Beer can]

Will I upset my neighbors because of all the crowing if I get a bunch of fry pan bargain roosters?

That is why I am going to try my hand at caponizing, capons don't crow, and better yet don't fight. And it takes heritage breeds past fighting age to be big enough to butcher, one advantage of cornish x frankenbirds is they are ready before breeding fighting age, and even if they were, are too big and fat and lazy to fight anyway. I have three acres and my birds mostly stay on it, except for wandering our tree line and into a farmers field, which is no big deal. I had to butcher seven a little early between the fighting and free ranging them they mostly slept in trees and I lost quite a few at night to a predator. Now that I am down to one roo I keep them in a large coop with a outside pen. I will go back to free ranging them if they would learn to come back to the coop at night. I tried a couple times, but had a few roosted in trees and it is hard to catch them up in a tree, and I will not loose anymore. They only ate half the feed when free ranging, saved big time.

 

[LindaB220]

That is why I am going to try my hand at caponizing, capons don't crow, and better yet don't fight. And it takes heritage breeds past fighting age to be big enough to butcher, one advantage of cornish x frankenbirds is they are ready before breeding fighting age, and even if they were, are too big and fat and lazy to fight anyway. I have three acres and my birds mostly stay on it, except for wandering our tree line and into a farmers field, which is no big deal. I had to butcher seven a little early between the fighting and free ranging them they mostly slept in trees and I lost quite a few at night to a predator. Now that I am down to one roo I keep them in a large coop with a outside pen. I will go back to free ranging them if they would learn to come back to the coop at night. I tried a couple times, but had a few roosted in trees and it is hard to catch them up in a tree, and I will not loose anymore. They only ate half the feed when free ranging, saved big time.

Good luck on the caponizing. Don't leave food out during the day. Only feed at 4-5 pm and when they see the food bucket they will come running. Then put them up for the night. Learned my lesson on that one..

 

[KCMasterpiece]

I have a question that may sound like a dumb question, but I grew up in the suburbs where all our chickens came neatly packaged and the only livestock we had were four pet ducks. How do you preserve all your chicken meat? I'd love to have my own homegrown free range flock of chicken tenders running around but I'm invisioning how much freezer space all that chicken would take up. So how do you do it? Another question I have is how to keep the flock from meandering into the neighbor's fields or yards. I'll have seven acres for them to run around on. Will they roam all of it or stick near thier night time house? oh. One more question. Will I upset my neighbors because of all the crowing if I get a bunch of fry pan bargain roosters?

I store whole chickens in freezer bags in a large chest freezer. The 60 took up less than a third of it.

The Chickens will roam around a bit. If you could put them in the middle of a few acres, they should stay on your property. All of my chickens usually stay in about a 2 acre area.

Most younger birds won't go as far as the old birds. They like to stay near the food because they are pretty hungry.

The young roosters will crow, but it takes them a while to perfect their crow and develop the volume on it. It almost sounds like a loud chicken moan. They will make some noise. One problem I never have is with fighting. They do fight each other a little, but nothing life threatening. They learn who is boss amongst themselves, and if they can run around, they will be just fine. Even when I had them in about a 20x20 pen they still got along fine. Roosters are going to joust each other. It is one of the few means of interactions they have. They like it.

I have older roosters around tending to the flock, and when the young roosters are out of the pen the older roosters will run them off if they bother the hens.

 

[Beer can]

I use gallon freezer bags or my vacuum sealer for anything I know might be in the freezer for a long time. Chest freezers are a pain if your constantly digging through them. I use card board boxes and paper bags to prevent damage when digging. They also make large bags for chickens that you put under water all but end to push air out and zip tie them. My mother always caned a lot of the older ch

 

[Beer can]

Durn, I hit post. My mother canned all their older tougher chickens, great for chicken n biscuits, pot pies, soup stews etc. You can can all you have shelf space for and it last years without any refrigeration.

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

That is why I am going to try my hand at caponizing, capons don't crow, and better yet don't fight.

I just learned to caponize this weekend and made 2 of 3 into full capons! They are resting in isolation!

 

[LakeMomNY]

About how many weeks before they start to crow?

I live on a lake, and all my neighbors are seasonal. I would prefer to time things so that any noise happens AFTER the neighbors leave for the season. But, at the same time, I have to have them butchered before it gets cold as I don't have adequate winter ready housing for more than about a dozen birds. (And that space is occupied by my layers.)

 

[Beer can]

About how many weeks before they start to crow?

Hard to remember when mine started, I think eight-nine weeks? I'm pretty sure we butchered at 12 weeks and I know they were crowing for some time. Would have waited longer but they were starting to rip the pullets feathers out instead of just their own. Still averaged 3.5lbs dressed, but they free ranged and fed them lots of cottage cheese (i got it free).
The bad part of their crowing was they apparently couldn't tell time, started well before day light, like around 4-4:30am!!