Back to processing... for the last few years, I've averaged at least 100 large fowl barred rocks. I've given up on plucking, I can't justify the extra time. I second the opinions that you should age the birds in the fridge (day or two) and hold them for a week before killing in a smaller pen. When processing I cut off the feet at the hocks and the wings at the elbow. Make a small cut in the breast skin and then pull the skin off leaving it attached at the tail. I then cut off the tail and around the vent, make another cut into the abdomen and connect to the cut around the vent. Holding over a bucket I can pull all the guts out still attached to the skin. Takes less than 5 minutes. Smaller cockerels, before their testes get much bigger than a kidney bean are just fine skinned and slow baked (cover with foil or a lid half way through and they are just fine). Larger cockerels can be pretty tough. For them, I'll do the same but cut off the breast meat, which gets tenderized and cooked as cutlets. The rest of the carcass goes towards chicken soup, pot pies, or chicken salad. I enjoy eating the chicken I've raised, but haven't been impressed with any of it either. I do not like letting it go to waste. I guess I'm just minimizing my losses. Actually some of the best fleshed carcasses I've processed for their size were sumatras and leghorns (both birds flew very well and had fuller breasts). lacy blues also mentions "breasting", i've done it on pheasants and ruffed grouse, doesn't work well for me with chickens.. If I'm in a hurry, I just make a quick cut in the breast skin and tear the skin back and to the side, you can filet off the breasts real quick with the bird on its back, then pull the skin off the legs, cut out the leg quarters and toss the carcass. You get two breasts and two leg quarters without pulling feathers or having to mess with the guts. Seems wasteful, but really you aren't loosing that much if you weren't going to make stock out of the carcass anyway.
Rich L.
Rich L.
