BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[Beer can]

Low and slow, crock pot is nice, or fast and under pressure!
20min in pressure cooker two yr old hen, fall off bone tender.

 

[alisar]

I second pressure cooking, makes the meat really tender.

I had my NN rooster running with the girls last month in my old pens but wasn't sure if he was doing the job,

Guess he's doing just fine!

 

[DesertChic]

I second pressure cooking, makes the meat really tender.

I had my NN rooster running with the girls last month in my old pens but wasn't sure if he was doing the job,

Guess he's doing just fine!

Too precious!

 

[DesertChic]

Well the chicken dinner verdict is in- all cockerels will be eaten younger than 20 weeks and the method of dispatch will be the cutting of the jugular. I was astonished at how much blood there was in a chicken, and it seemed to take a long time for the rooster to pass on when I cut the veins, so in the interest of a quick humane death the next one got the axe- but almost zero blood drained out. I think it might have ruined the meat, the dark meat was like eating gizzards. Mind you this was a hyper well exercised 24 week old rooster, always running up and down the side of the pen. Lots of testosterone, his testicles were huge. He was a bit of brute with the hens so goodbye. Brining for three days didn't remove much blood. The dark meat was pretty chewy, although the breast meat was good (and lots of it, a buckeye/cornish cross). Very little fat. I just skinned this fellow, brined, and filleted the meat off. It would probably help if I was a decent cook, but unfortunately it's not a skill that I have! Thankfully there's only one cull rooster left, the rest will be evaluated for breeding stock next spring.

It's taken me a while to perfect my technique, but I find that if you carry the birds upside down for a few minutes, making sure their head is down, then allow them to curl up briefly before again lowering them down to put in the cone, they drain much more quickly. Also, be REALLY deliberate with your cut. And hesitation only prolongs the process. If I slit the jugular on one side of the neck and the blood isn't draining fast enough for my liking, I slit the other side too. Then the blood just pours out.

Did I send you low-and-slow roasting recipes? I've only had one bird that didn't soften in a low roast with red wine, but he was over a year old.

 

[ejcrist]

It's taken me a while to perfect my technique, but I find that if you carry the birds upside down for a few minutes, making sure their head is down, then allow them to curl up briefly before again lowering them down to put in the cone, they drain much more quickly. Also, be REALLY deliberate with your cut. And hesitation only prolongs the process. If I slit the jugular on one side of the neck and the blood isn't draining fast enough for my liking, I slit the other side too. Then the blood just pours out.

Did I send you low-and-slow roasting recipes? I've only had one bird that didn't soften in a low roast with red wine, but he was over a year old.

All excellent points - you know your stuff. I always cut both jugulars rather than lopping off the head- very quick and it drains a lot of the blood. Personally we think they taste a lot better when we do it that way.

On another note my hatchery NN's, Dark Cornish's, and Cornish Crosses came in today. I don't know if it's me or not but the NN's really do seem to be the most vibrant of them all. I kept the Cornish Crosses separate from the others in the new multi-coop since Cornish X's will hog all the chow. They're hard to see in the pictures below since they're running all over the place and I tried to keep from walking in the pens because they'd be easy to step on - gotta watch where I walk for the first couple of weeks.

 

[DesertChic]

All excellent points - you know your stuff. I always cut both jugulars rather than lopping off the head- very quick and it drains a lot of the blood. Personally we think they taste a lot better when we do it that way.

On another note my hatchery NN's, Dark Cornish's, and Cornish Crosses came in today. I don't know if it's me or not but the NN's really do seem to be the most vibrant of them all. I kept the Cornish Crosses separate from the others in the new multi-coop since Cornish X's will hog all the chow. They're hard to see in the pictures below since they're running all over the place and I tried to keep from walking in the pens because they'd be easy to step on - gotta watch where I walk for the first couple of weeks.

Your setup looks great! Look at all of those happy little chicks!

I think you'll really enjoy watching the differences in developing of the chicks you have. I'm always impressed by how quickly the NNs feather out. I've had some fly out of the brooder, which for me is an over-sized tote, after just a week and a half!!! The first NN pullet to fly out of the brooder ALWAYS turns out to be my best egg layer in the group.

 

[ejcrist]

Your setup looks great! Look at all of those happy little chicks!

I think you'll really enjoy watching the differences in developing of the chicks you have. I'm always impressed by how quickly the NNs feather out. I've had some fly out of the brooder, which for me is an over-sized tote, after just a week and a half!!! The first NN pullet to fly out of the brooder ALWAYS turns out to be my best egg layer in the group.

Thanks. Yeah the NN's definitely stole the show today. I had a bunch of people that came over because they wanted to see them in-person. No one was disappointed - they all got a kick out of seeing them. I think I'll have to start charging a nickel a head if this keeps up.

I forgot to ask you but have you ever made chicken sausage with any of your birds? We make our own longanisa (Philippine style) from wild hogs I get from Texas and we're planning to make chicken longanisa in the future. I know the chicken longanisa you get at the Asian grocery is really delicious so I'm confident we can make something superior. I'm planning on using sheep casings, probably the 24mm-26mm size to make breakfast sized sausages. I'm just speculating here, but if I were a bettin' man I'd bet chicken longanisa made with NN's would be really good.

 

[DesertChic]

Thanks. Yeah the NN's definitely stole the show today. I had a bunch of people that came over because they wanted to see them in-person. No one was disappointed - they all got a kick out of seeing them. I think I'll have to start charging a nickel a head if this keeps up.

I forgot to ask you but have you ever made chicken sausage with any of your birds? We make our own longanisa (Philippine style) from wild hogs I get from Texas and we're planning to make chicken longanisa in the future. I know the chicken longanisa you get at the Asian grocery is really delicious so I'm confident we can make something superior. I'm planning on using sheep casings, probably the 24mm-26mm size to make breakfast sized sausages. I'm just speculating here, but if I were a bettin' man I'd bet chicken longanisa made with NN's would be really good.

I've only made loose chicken/apple sausage patties. I'm still working up to making my own sausage links.

Edit: I had actually purchased some sausage casings by one of my dogs found them while I was at work and turned them into a messy chew toy. So...another time.

 

[Beer can]

All excellent points - you know your stuff. I always cut both jugulars rather than lopping off the head- very quick and it drains a lot of the blood. Personally we think they taste a lot better when we do it that way.

On another note my hatchery NN's, Dark Cornish's, and Cornish Crosses came in today. I don't know if it's me or not but the NN's really do seem to be the most vibrant of them all. I kept the Cornish Crosses separate from the others in the new multi-coop since Cornish X's will hog all the chow. They're hard to see in the pictures below since they're running all over the place and I tried to keep from walking in the pens because they'd be easy to step on - gotta watch where I walk for the first couple of weeks.

I was just chopping the heads off with snips. Last couple dozen.... I tried something different with much less mess and more contained. I put a killing cone in a 55 gallon plastic barrel with double garbage bags in it. Dropped the bird into cone with legs electric taped, sliced both jugulars with razor sharp fillet knife, walked away until it was 'done'....then cut the head off after with the lopers, took bird out soaked it down with garden hose so it was sopping wet, wet birds don't repel scalding water so the scaled is much quicker. BBQ grill with side burner next to barrel with scalding water, dunk, have a cutting board I've used for yrs for venison made out of a counter we bought for a kitchen, it's the cut out section for a double sink, fit perfect on the barrel and left space to pull and put all the feathers into barrel, gut right into barrel, rinse off, next! Done, pulled the garbage bag out, all blood, feathers, and guts contained, no mess and all the work was up waist level for me, no backache.

 

[Beer can]

I make turkey sausage every yr, with pig casings. You can buy them online, our local Price Chopper grocery stores carry them also. Turkey is cheap in the fall/winter, shop around, deals, .28-49cents a lb plus we get one free usually from work. I de-bone all, grind, add chopped onions and peppers, Italian sausage seasoning, and stuff! Awesome stuff!
Have thought about grinding older chickens and doing the same instead of pressure cooking or slow cooking, or even grind for tacos and fajitas.