A Homegrown Thanksgiving Bird

[SproutGirl]

This Thanksgiving, we will be having one of our own home grown birds for the first time ever. Nothing fancy--just a mutt chicken that we hatched from a farmer's market egg. But this will be a big deal for us since it will be the first time that we will be having home grown meat. I haven't the stomach to process the bird myself, though! But it will be such a privilege to have many of our Thanksgiving dishes from our own backyard, including the bird for the first time.

Is anyone else having a homegrown bird this Thanksgiving?

 

[chickenma]

I'm thinking to do this for next year turkey dinner.
I want to have my dinner from my own backyard.

 

[SussexInSeattle]

who will process the bird for you?

I'm sure many will be having home grown Thanksgivings but I will not be one of them since I have all layers rather than meat birds and in my experience, even the layer/meat mixes are tough and stringy compared to grocery store birds.

Are you sure your mutt chicken is more of a meat type body? I only ask so that you don't have a disappointing holiday dinner. If you are uncertain, you may try having another one of your birds of the same type before Thanksgiving to see, so you have a good dinner on the holiday.

 

[sandspoultry]

Quote:
We have decided to invite a Bourbon Red tom to be our guest of honor this Thanksgiving. We were going to have a Midget White but the BR is more filled out so the Midget will wait for Christmas.

Steve in NC

 

[farm_mom]

We're having one of our own Narragansett Turkeys for Thanksgiving this year. Congrats on your first homegrown meal!!

 

[mullers3acers]

We have been growing our own turkeys for about 7 yrs now.
This yr we didn't let them get as big as last yrs he was 49 lbs. and tasted great.

 

[MissPrissy]

We have turkeys we grow out for Thanksgiving.

This year we will also have quail.

I have geese for Christmas goose as well as ducks.

We process extra roosters all the time. I did 13 yesterday.

I also dressed a ram lamb for the freezer on Saturday. You can read about it on my blog if you like.

You cannot get better meat than home grown.

 

[krcote]

I wanted to do my own turkey for next year! Im thinking I will hatch a few with my late winter/early spring chicks. We will have store-bought turkey this year and some venison from this season. Next year- HOME GROWN ALL THE WAY!

 

[SproutGirl]

SussexInSeattle, we will be taking our birds to a local, reputable meat processor that a lot of local hunters frequent. We have absolutely no idea what lineage these birds have since they come from a local, 5 acre free-range organic egg farm that is home to mostly egg-production birds, but also several exotic species as well. In short, mom and pop could be anyone of the 300+ chickens on the farm! These birds don't look especialy meaty like cornish birds, but they aren't scrawny either, so we were hoping they would taste okay anyway. Hmm.

 

[al6517]

I processed this one myself last month as a practice run for Thanksgiving day, it turned out very well. Our Thanksgiving day bird will go at least 50 lbs and we will process him a few days before the big day, just hope he fits in the oven hehe.

AL

Practice run bird



This is Tom he will be Thanksgiving dinner