I butchered my first bird today. A 15 week old BR rooster.
We can't have roosters but we finally gave up last week and decided start prepping him for slaughter. We switched him to the game bird grower that we have and started sharpening the knife.
He threw a wrench in that plan by crowing this morning. Loudly. Non stop. He was real real proud of his new found talent.
So moved the butcher date up to just now.
It didn't go as smoothly as I'd liked. I've read so many things that say "avoid the trachea. it's easier on the birds if they can calmly breathe as they slip away," that I was a bit timid with my first few cuts. That's right. Few. He flapped a lot. I ended up with a slice of my own. It wasn't the most humane, but I'm sure it wasn't the worst butcher attempt either.
Next time I will be less concerned about cutting the trachea and go in with confidence and force. I'd rather over-correct, than under as I did today.
My stove is having some issues, and I don't have a fish cooker to heat up water outside. Because of this, I skinned the bird rather than de-feather.
I was really proud of myself that I didn't slice anything open that I shouldn't have when gutting him. It all went fairly smoothly.
His size was disappointing to me though. He was 2 lbs 11 oz skinned and dressed. Now I understand that he was still young, and hadn''t been on the grower feed very long, but this seemed really small to me. He was the biggest bird I had. Larger than my 1.5 year old wyandotte.
The next time I have a rooster, rather than hold out hope on the idea of re-homing it to do what roosters do...we'll prepare it for freezer camp.
We're gonna let the meat settle overnight, and I'll let you know how my dinner is tomorrow night!
I'm curious what other BR's have dressed out to. Were my expectations just too high from a lifetime of store bought chicken?
We can't have roosters but we finally gave up last week and decided start prepping him for slaughter. We switched him to the game bird grower that we have and started sharpening the knife.
He threw a wrench in that plan by crowing this morning. Loudly. Non stop. He was real real proud of his new found talent.
So moved the butcher date up to just now.
It didn't go as smoothly as I'd liked. I've read so many things that say "avoid the trachea. it's easier on the birds if they can calmly breathe as they slip away," that I was a bit timid with my first few cuts. That's right. Few. He flapped a lot. I ended up with a slice of my own. It wasn't the most humane, but I'm sure it wasn't the worst butcher attempt either.
Next time I will be less concerned about cutting the trachea and go in with confidence and force. I'd rather over-correct, than under as I did today.
My stove is having some issues, and I don't have a fish cooker to heat up water outside. Because of this, I skinned the bird rather than de-feather.
I was really proud of myself that I didn't slice anything open that I shouldn't have when gutting him. It all went fairly smoothly.
His size was disappointing to me though. He was 2 lbs 11 oz skinned and dressed. Now I understand that he was still young, and hadn''t been on the grower feed very long, but this seemed really small to me. He was the biggest bird I had. Larger than my 1.5 year old wyandotte.
The next time I have a rooster, rather than hold out hope on the idea of re-homing it to do what roosters do...we'll prepare it for freezer camp.
We're gonna let the meat settle overnight, and I'll let you know how my dinner is tomorrow night!
I'm curious what other BR's have dressed out to. Were my expectations just too high from a lifetime of store bought chicken?
