Recent content by happydog

ok, y'all have had 3 years to work on this. Anybody gotten one yet?

My sister's hens squat for her every day and she spends a few minutes rubbing each one. I thought it was just a sign of submission, but she says that her rubbing them is stimulating them to lay more eggs, and double yolkers too. Is there really a correlation or is she imagining it? Now I'll...

Where are you located?

So, how was it? Did your family like it?

Sounds good!

If you have kids I'd cut the breasts off and make chicken nuggets. I don't think there's ever been a kid who didn't love chicken nuggets. Make sure you rest them at least a couple days, till the rigor mortis passes. I made that mistake on my first chicken. It was so stiff the legs scraped...

According to the shrink bag companies, a 5-8lb chicken will fit into a 10x16 size bag. I have some ziploc bags that are 10 inches across and I don't see how my fat Cornish Xs (6-7lbs) are going to fit in that. They're almost as wide as they are tall. Have you had problems with your chickens...

Probably fried chicken. Easy and everybody loves it. We also like chicken piccata. To make your chicken more tender and tasty, brine it in salt water for a few hours or overnight. I use a tablespoon of salt in a half gallon of water and put it in a ziploc bag in the fridge. Here's a...

From the second link: "Tenderness of portioned or boneless cuts of poultry is influenced by the time post-mortem of the deboning. Muscles that are deboned during early postmortem still have energy available for contraction. When these muscles are removed from the carcass, they contract and...

I've found that I rarely roast a whole chicken. I always end up cutting up the chicken into pieces before cooking. I'd like to do this prep work as part of the butchering process. Then I could freeze the chickens already cut up, instead of freezing them whole. I'd also like to bone out the...

Where is a good place to buy them?

Well that's a relief. Thanks so much! They're almost 9 weeks now and I like to process at 10 weeks. I'd hate to have to keep them penned up.

So if you have Cornish X do you need to confine them for the last couple of weeks or not? Mine are free ranging over a half acre. Am I making them tough?

They can handle the cold a lot better than the heat.

Thanks for the help. I don't have the time, skills, or tools to build one now. I'm going to have to buy one. I didn't realize they came in so many different sizes. Which size is best for Cornish Cross? On the CCONLY site they even list different sizes for regular cornish cross or jumbo...