What to do with 1 yr old hens?

[BlackwaterBirds]

Last spring I was talked into buying some red sex-link chicks from Tractor Supply. It actually turns out that out of the 10 I bought 5 were sex link and the other five look like white rocks. I haven't been happy with them since I got them, no particular reason just wasn't what we were really wanting. The problem is my wife purchased 12 Buff orpingtons and 6 sussex. The same day without knowing what she had bought, I also purchased 12 orpingtons. I now have 30 chicks in the brooder.

I will start eating my others as the chicks get older. Any suggestions on how to prepare these hens?

 

[donrae]

Low and slow for the most part. Crockpot or pressure cooker is the best way to go. Roasting or grilling will just dry them out. Plan on things with chicken meat as opposed to chicken parts........casseroles, enchiladas (yum!), soup, chicken salad, pot pie, things like that.

Or, if you don't want to process them, I'd think you could sell them for $15-20 each, depending on your area.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

Make sure you rest the meat for three days before cooking it. I made that mistake the first time. Oi. Terrible.

 

[AlienChick]

They make the BEST chicken stew!!!!!
Cook for a long time (the longer, the better).
I just pulled out my last chicken from the freezer last week and made stew.

 

[BettyR]

If you have some place to pen them up for a couple of months and feed them fatty foods like table scraps along with finishing feed it will give them a chance to put on some fat and soften the muscle and they will make much better birds for the pot.

That's what I do with our excess roosters and they make really nice big yummy birds.