butchered my first chicken today

[RawEggEater]

I have 27 RIRs and I've had them since they were chicks the beginning of May so I think they're full grown now. There's 21 roosters so I've been meaning to cull most of them. I was gone a few hours yesterday and when I came home one of them was just laying on the ground and the others were pecking at him. I picked him up and he seemed pretty weak. So I wrapped a towel around it and put it in the garage away from the others so he could recover. Sure enough, in the morning he was dead. So it was about 6 hours since I last saw him alive and I laid him outside till I could get the stuff together to process him. Since it got down to around 36 here last night and he laid outside in the cool morning air for another 3 hours I guess, I'm hoping the meat didn't spoil. Also, I saved the liver and heart, but I broke the little dark thing on the inside of the liver: the gallbladder? I washed it off real good so I hope it's ok.

 

[Isadora]

You don't know why he died? It's not usually a good idea to eat a bird without knowing the cause of death.
Yes, the gallbladder is attached to the liver. if it gets ruptured during gutting, you'll see green fluid (bile) from it. you don't want to eat anything that got the bile on it because it tastes horrid.

 

[RawEggEater]

When I found it, the comb was a dark purple when they are usually bright red, and the 2 that I caught pecking at it were pecking at the comb, so I'm assuming it fell out of favor with the gang and became a target and it lost a lot of blood. Some of the roosters can be pretty mean to the others. That's why I have to try to get some processed.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

When I found it, the comb was a dark purple when they are usually bright red, and the 2 that I caught pecking at it were pecking at the comb, so I'm assuming it fell out of favor with the gang and became a target and it lost a lot of blood. Some of the roosters can be pretty mean to the others. That's why I have to try to get some processed.

Not in my experience (which often includes up to 25 cockerels in a pen and plenty of antics).. only time a boy gets taken down like that is when there was a pre-existing condition.. ie Marek's, injury, predator attack, or other severe limiting factor..

Congrats on your first harvest! Hopefully getting it under your belt will make moving forward with culling a bit easier for you.

Also hope your flock continues to thrive!

 

[Geena]

Personally I wouldn't eat him either, not knowing for certain what killed him.
But on the bright side you still got some valuable processing experience under your belt.
Did you end up with 21 cockerels out of 27 straight run RIRs???

 

[RawEggEater]

Yes, 21 roosters, if that's what you mean. I watched a couple 'how to' YT videos. Still need practice. This one was already dead so I'll have to do the take the knife to the others.

 

[raingarden]

You have your work cut out for you. That's a lot of roosters. 21 of 27 males are almost impossible odds. They must have thrown a lot of probable-male chicks into the supposed "straight run" batch. A bit unethical if you ask me. Do you know who the hatchery was?

 

[Ozarkoak]

I know with our meat birds I watch the comb color and breathing. Darkening comb and heavy breathing are usually an indicator of some type of heart issue. I'm assuming the comb darkening is a result of blood oxygen levels dropping. Out of our 40 cornish cross run last spring we only lost one bird and it died right in front of me from either a massive stroke or heart attack. It went from eating to freaking out and flapping like it got necked.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's a lot of roosters. 21 of 27 males are almost impossible odds. They must have thrown a lot of probable-male chicks into the supposed "straight run" batch. A bit unethical if you ask me. Do you know who the hatchery was?

Somebody sounds as cynical as I am about many things. It is possible that a hatchery would do something like that. If they did that would be unethical.

21 out of 27, that is 78% males. My incubator hatches are typically in the 20 chick range. A few times I've had hatches where 75% have been either male or 75% female. It seems like half the time the split is 2/3 - 1/3 and could go either way as to sex. One time I even got 7 pullets out of 7 straight run chicks, from Cackle. Could have just as easily been seven cockerels. To me that is just the odds and somebody has to hit those odds occasionally.

 

[RawEggEater]

No, I ate the bird the other night. Yeah, I got these on May 7th and when I realized how many roosters I had, I went back to TSC and got 10 more to try and increase my odds and it looks like the 10 are 50/50. I have a Ronco Shotime rotieserie (sic) so I'm going to use that until I get ahead of myself and have to put them in the freezer. I don't think I can use the Ronco on a frozen bird.