The "have you ever actually eaten a fresh chicken?" question.

[Chickens in Elmwood]

We started with layers this year because our kids are 4 and 5, and we weren't sure how they would react to the chicken being in the pen on day, and the fridge the next.

Next year, I think we are going to raise a meat flock (although we don't know what breed yet) because my DH and I are starting to become more conscious of the chemicals and preservatives in store bought foods.

Anyway, whenever the conversation turns around to our chickening plans for next year, without fail, people say "Have you ever actually eaten fresh chicken?" There assessments of fresh chicken are not positive. They are tough, stringy, the meat is smelly, the meat is too dry, the breasts are too small...

How do you react to this? I find it to be incredibly annoying. Annoying in the way that my nephew will only eat macaroni and cheese if it comes out of a cardboard box and has cheese powder.

 

[FrenchHen]

Blah. Eat your good food and let them have factory food.

It tastes like chicken. Texture is a cooking issue (mostly).

 

[TimG]

Tell them you have eaten a fresh chicken and it was delicious.

I happen to have had 12 Cornish Crosses butchered Monday. We had roast chicken for supper on Tuesday. The meat was not tough, stringy, smelly or dry. The breasts were not small.

Your friends who have had bad luck with their fresh chicken probably had an older bird that wasn't cooked properly for the bird's age.

My advice for the young kids is for the parents to act like it's perfectly natural to raise livestock for the dinner table (it is, after all). I believe that very often a parent's nervousness or apprehension is also experienced by their children; likewise a parent's calm or confidence.

 

[sis]

I had 3 Cornish Cross butchered on Tuesday last week.
we call it processing. I wasn't sure about having "meat chickens" so I only got 3 chicks.
We have 30 some hens, a few have names, most we hatched from eggs from byc, when we got the 3 Cornish Cross, from the feed store,
no names, I did not pick them up, they were meat chickens, we called them "the meat chickens". They were well treated, but different as I knew they were not staying long....
I roasted one on Thursday, the best I ever ate. my fussy teen said can we get more?
Tell folks who comment, our meat chickens worked out very well for us.
Its the best.
We are getting 15 more on July 17th.

 

[Judy]

My son and his family, including 6 his-and-her kids, have been eating our extra dual purpose roos for several weeks. They are definitely fans of M&C from a box, though there is no "I will only eat" in their house; they eat what they are served, or wait til the next meal. Even the kids who did not want to be present for the processing have commented on how good they taste. And dual purpose are a lot more "chicken-y" than Cornish X. They do have less breast meat than Cornish X, it is true, but we happen to be a bunch of dark meat eaters.

We mostly processed extra dual purpose roos around 14-16 weeks. They are not tough at that age, and are great fried or roasted or on the BBQ, if they were brined a few hours and rested. Trouble is, they are rather small, 2 to 2.5 lbs, and they are not old enough for you to select which roos to eliminate because they are going to be aggressive or mean.

Coq au vin, a classic French dish, calls for a 2 year old roo, or so.

Chickens certainly do get tougher as they age. A hen past its laying prime, around 2-3 years, will have to be stewed or crock potted to be even close to tender, and then only if you debone and cut the meat across the grain. But the broth is incredible, and gives chicken noodle soup or chicken and dumplings a whole new status. Also fine in chicken casseroles, chicken tacos, etc.

Most people are accustomed to grocery store chicken. Those who were, but now enjoy home grown, feel the store bought variety is definitely on the tasteless and mushy side.

You might also research caponizing -- if it is legal in your state.

A great compromise between Cornish X and dual purpose is the Colored Rangers from JM hatchery. They are hybrids so will not breed true, but people have had success breeding them, or cross breeding them with another dual purpose breed. They take a bit longer to raise to meat size, but do not tend to drop dead of heart failure or get crippling leg ailments as Cornish X do.

 

[cassie]

Just don't cook the chicken the day you process it. Let it age in the refrigerator a day or two.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

We were going thru the freezer awhile back and found a package of store bought chicken breasts from the store that a friend had brought over for a cookout. My first thought was to throw them away but I hate to waste so we cooked them out on the grill. It was tasteless, nothing like the homegrown we usually eat.

With any home proccesed food it's all in how you prepare it. The biggest problem I have seen is over cooking.

When people stick their nose up at homegrown I invite them for a taste test. works every time.

Steve in NC

 

[kinnip]

The EE roos we processed last year had some very tasty, tender breasts of reasonable size. The back end was extremely tough, but they were at least six months old. We don't have the room for a meat flock, but I look forward to having some more tasty roosters, mostly Marans.

 

[cap1717]

When I was a kid, summer vacation was spent on the "family farm" in Nebraska. This was the "picture perfect" storybook farm, with orchards, truck garden, grain crops, milking cows (milked by hand) a couple of steers, usually 1 bull, 2 draft horses (my uncle plowed with horses until I was 10 - 11 years old), 5 or 6 hogs, plus offspring, and Aunt Ruth's 70 - 80 chickens, straight run. The roos were "sunday dinner", the hens provided hours of fun. . . as well as the daily "egg collection duties" (including cleaning, packing, and storage in the root cellar until "market") and searching the orchard and fields for "non-compliant" hens that were determined to "raise a clutch". . . we did find a few, as I recall, but at 1/2 cent per egg, this activity was not a monetary success! Every sunday we were encouraged to "watch" as Uncle Dale decapitated one of the roos for dinner. We learned what the term "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" really means, were too young to learn to properly prepare a fresh bird for cooking, but did participate in "plucking", at least ocassionally, I cannot remember that this was ever a traumatic experience, it was just a "part of life as usual". I'm certain that I would not prefer to watch the slaughter, these days, but I have had never had better fried chicken!

 

[Rolsjo]

If you are getting cornish x, then they are just as tender as storebought. We processed half of ours last week and brined the meat overnight in the fridge. I floured the boneless, skinless breasts and sauted them in butter and lemon. They were fork tender and delicious!