Araucana thread anyone?

[josh44]

Quote:
I would breed them to your black nd see what you come up with.
And go from there.

 

[hinkjc]

Stacykins, if you cross them to your black, I would select the best offspring and breed the splits on the next gen. This will give you about 25% lavender and since you're bringing in new blood, you don't have to worry about inbreeding for quite a while. I did several hatches and got lucky with only 1 tail in each hatch and quite a few tufted/rumpless this round. It looks like I'll have a bunch of cockerels to find homes for later if anyone needs as well.

 

[sega]

Lanae, what's the oldest bird you have processed?





Quote:

 

[cashdl]

Hi Sega,

I have not processed any Araucana yet. This will be my first year. Last year I did RIRs and Polish. They were 7 months old. The age doesn't matter, but the older the bird the tougher the harder the meat is to prepare. Usually older birds are used for soups and stews. We eat alot of chicken tacos, chicken soup, and I make an awesome coq a vin. Chicken enchiladas or chicken and pasta.


My araucana this year will all be about 10 months to a year, one or two will be older. I will happily let you all know how it went.


The RIRs had decent meat but the polish were a waste of time. Plus they were just gross to clean. There was black gunk in all their feather folicles. Totally gross.


Lanae

 

[Ray_n_Debi]

It took me 13 years to be able to process my chickens. I just started this year. It just made no sense for me to give the roosters away for someone else to eat. I was raising them to be healthy, then someone else was benefiting and I was buying store bought chicken.
I find that the araucanas dark meat is very dark red almost looks like beef. I have brined them and then cook them in the rotisserie them, but to me they come out the best in the slow cooker.

 

[Ray_n_Debi]

I just listed an auction for my eggs. I worked hard to get to this point. Somebody cross their fingers for me.

 

[cackleberrycoop]

good luck.


How do you brine meat?

 

[Ray_n_Debi]

Thank you for wishing me good luck!
I did not do the 'classic' brine. After I processed and cleaned the chickens, I soaked them in a bag with a gallon of water and a 1/4 cup of kosher salt. It is not quite as much salt as a true brine but I was planning on soaking them longer (til the meat relaxed) so it wound up being almost 24 hours. I was afraid that long in a full strength brine would make them mushy. They were good and tender and not too salty.

 

[suzannaski]

Ray-n-Debi
Where are your eggs in the color chart?
It's probably a bad time of year for me to be hatching eggs, because they will be in my breezeway all winter, but....
I wish I had heard back from my job interview by now, then I wouldn't be so hesitant to spend money.

I found my missing Ameraucana Wheaten cockerel. Well, what was left. It was so sad, he was in the ditch right next to the run. Poor guy!!

 

[Ray_n_Debi]

My eggs run in the C and D range.