Butchered our first today.

[MichiganWoods]

Here's the (un)lucky roo.

He's really turning out to be quite mean, and has pecked at the combs on some of the other roosters pretty bad. I caught him tonight yanking feathers out of the back of the neck on one of my Rhode Island White roos, so I've decided he gets the axe. I'm not going to wait around for his spurs to grow in. He'll surely be trying to gouge me at that point. He already gives me the "evil eye" while I'm out there. None of the other guys are like that.

If all goes well with this first one, I should be processing 4-5 more. They are all now at week 13 or so. I'm going to follow the awesome guide posted here on BYC by frugal.

 

[jaku]

Quote:
Good luck! You should be fine with those instructions- that guy knows his stuff, and the details are perfect.

 

[MichiganWoods]

Aaaaand I'm done. That wasn't nearly as gross as I expected it to be. It didn't even smell bad until I cut open the cavity to remove all of the innards. I did pluck all the feathers out and got most of the pin feathers, but opted to just skin it since we don't eat the skin anyway. He's wrapped in plastic and sitting in my fridge for the night. Gonna go sift through recipes to find something yummy to make with him tomorrow.

 

[jkpnelly]

I am nervous about this year. My family is planning on raising 100 birds to butcher. I hope it ends up being painless. The link you provided is great. Thank-you

 

[MichiganWoods]

If you don't have access to a killing/restraining cone and plan on using an axe (which is what I had to do with this one), just make sure your axe is sharp and heavy, or that you swing hard enough to take the head off quickly. I snapped the roo's neck just before I did this just so that the poor guy didn't suffer if I didn't perform well with my axe. I'm confident he didn't feel anything once his neck was snapped.

 

[treehouse]

HI Michigan Woods,
I reside in Texas but am a Michigander, love the woods too!
I was wondering about your butchering you sound so sure of yourself I am very afraid of doing it but wondered if I could just skin and not have to pluck very easily. what meat birds have you had and what age have to killed what is the youngest and how much meat do you really get from a young bird compared to what you see at the store?

 

[MichiganWoods]

I don't know that I'm sure of myself, but I do know that if I don't just get out there and do it, I end up psyching myself out and never finish the task. Like the topic of this thread states, this is the first chicken I've butchered. He was an Easter Egger roo, and was between 13 and 14 weeks old. I opted to butcher him now because he was turning out rather mean. The other roos will get another week or two, or three, just so they can plump up a bit more. All in all, I thought he had a decent amount of meat on him. I didn't get a chance to weigh him as I don't have a scale, but I'd estimate he was at least 3 pounds, if not more. I don't have any true meaties. Mine are all meant to be dual purpose.

I suppose you could just skin your chickens, but I discovered that the skin around the ankles and wings is very tough to get off, even without the feathers there. I don't know if having the feathers on would make that easier or harder to remove. I also had a hard time getting the skin off of the feet... I'd wanted to save them to make soup stock with, but just couldn't clean them. Maybe the next time I process.

Here's Mr. Roo, cleaned and prepped and ready to go into my crock pot. We're doing chicken and dumplings tonight!

The bones and the wings were put into another pot with water and veggies, and I'm currently simmering it on the stove. I'm hoping to end up with a tasty stock to use for chicken soup tomorrow.

 

[SamG347]

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Looks great! Clean, fresh and healthy! Way to go!

 

[MichiganWoods]

Thanks! He was yummy!!

After dinner, my husband said we were spoiled being able to eat fresh chicken we raised ourselves. Even our 4-year-old literally licked her plate clean.