Best age to process fryer leghorns - frying pan special

[Chicky-dees]

I bought the 'Frying Pan Special' with my last order of chicks from McMurray which consist of male white leghorns. Leghorns are smaller and more lean so they recommended just raising them with the pullets I bought and then process them later. Was curious to know when others processed their young leghorns for the greatest amount of weight versus no toughness? These guys are still on chick starter and will be 4 months at the end of June. They've been kept confined in a ten by ten run with food, water and fresh veggies from the garden - buffet style. I was thinking that now is probably the time?

 

[Chicky-dees]

I will answer my own post (LOL) since no one seems to have done this before with the frying pan special from McMurray Hatchery. Since a lot of folks use this website for educational purposes, maybe this will help someone else later on down the road. I processed the birds this past weekend at about 3.5 months old. They have been crowing for about a month so I knew they were maturing fairly quickly. I used the powerplucker drill attachment to help with the process and the birds dressed out nicely around 1-2 lbs a bird. Not a huge amount of meat per bird, but certainly big enough to smoke, fry, bake or do just about anything with. I could have waited a little longer for them to gain more weight or increase in size, but I worried about the meat becoming tough at this point. Cleaning the birds was a bit of a process - my hand just barely fit in the body cavity to clean it out so it took a little longer than usual. I'm looking forward to smoking some of these birds next weekend. These birds are just the right size so that each person will get their own bird to eat.

I hope this info is useful to someone!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

You did OK. Prime time for slaughter is typically in the 4-5 month range or whenever they begin to pester the girls.

A plucked White Leghorn is the original rubber chicken (in appearance) but they still taste good.

 

[cmom]

Back in the late 1960's we had about 50 leghorns. My better half and I decided to go our separate ways. Since we were both moving we had to get rid of our birds so we decided to throw a parting party and invite all of our friends for a chicken cookout. The guys butchered the birds and us gals cooked them. They did taste good but there wasn't much meat to the birds.

 

[Liberty Nursery]

a lot of work turning a live bird into a meal, is it worth it for such a small bird? I have considered doing the frying pan special due to the fact that a Corn X Rock is too much meat for someone who lives alone and doesn't have a lot of freezer space. Also Leghorns are much more fun bird to have, My leghorn hens are probably my favorite. They may not grow in size as fast as Cornish X Rocks but they develop to maturity much faster and eat far less. I wonder what their feed to meat ratio is? For all I know it could be better than the Corn X Rocks.

How was the meat quality?

 

[cmom]

Even though it has been around 45 years ago since we had the leghorns, as I remember the birds were under a year old and the meat was nice even though there wasn't much to them.

 

[what did I do]

I'm trying to decide if it is worth butchering my 2 year old Leghorn hens or not. Hummm,

 

[lizanne]

a lot of work turning a live bird into a meal, is it worth it for such a small bird? I have considered doing the frying pan special due to the fact that a Corn X Rock is too much meat for someone who lives alone and doesn't have a lot of freezer space. Also Leghorns are much more fun bird to have, My leghorn hens are probably my favorite. They may not grow in size as fast as Cornish X Rocks but they develop to maturity much faster and eat far less. I wonder what their feed to meat ratio is? For all I know it could be better than the Corn X Rocks.

How was the meat quality?

The Cornish X feed to meat ratio is around 2/1 in a comemercial setup, and probably closer to 3-4/1 in a home free-range situation. The Cornish X do mature fairly quickly. I had both a Pearl Leghorn, and Cornish X. They both started laying in the same week (about 17 weeks old). If you wanted a fast growing meat chicken you could get regular Cornish, or get the Cornish X and process them around 4 weeks. You would get a smaller, but still meaty chicken.

 

[MrsMopar]

I also got t

 

[cmom]

This is an older thread. Around 50 years ago I raised Leghorns. At the time I was living with a boyfriend and we decided to part ways. We had to get rid of the birds so we invited a bunch of our friends over and we processed them and cooked them. There was very little meat on them.