Butchering- Prep and how to?

[Mylied]

@Brahma Chicken5000 Egghead is of course right on the money with age. The problem for me comes with not raising specific meat birds. I just raise my extra egg layer cockerels. If I butcher a 12 week bird, there's pretty much nothing to it and it's not worth the effort. I go more for 18 weeks and just don't make fried or grilled chicken. I'm thinking of getting some Cornish crosses to raise in the spring and comparing. Anyway, wasn't sure what you were planning to raise, so thought I'd give you a heads up.

 

[Welshies]

@Brahma Chicken5000 Egghead is of course right on the money with age. The problem for me comes with not raising specific meat birds. I just raise my extra egg layer cockerels. If I butcher a 12 week bird, there's pretty much nothing to it and it's not worth the effort. I go more for 18 weeks and just don't make fried or grilled chicken. I'm thinking of getting some Cornish crosses to raise in the spring and comparing. Anyway, wasn't sure what you were planning to raise, so thought I'd give you a heads up.

Agreed. That's what I do.
I think we'll do a nice slow roast with some water underneath.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

@Brahma Chicken5000 Egghead is of course right on the money with age. The problem for me comes with not raising specific meat birds. I just raise my extra egg layer cockerels. If I butcher a 12 week bird, there's pretty much nothing to it and it's not worth the effort. I go more for 18 weeks and just don't make fried or grilled chicken. I'm thinking of getting some Cornish crosses to raise in the spring and comparing. Anyway, wasn't sure what you were planning to raise, so thought I'd give you a heads up.

When I get my own property I will raise surplus cockerels, human aggressive cockerels, and culled pullets and cocks from breeding for meat. I want to get a buff Orpington, a Rhode Island Red, a white leghorn, and a Jersey giant cockerel this summer to see how they dress out.

 

[Welshies]

When I get my own property I will raise surplus cockerels, human aggressive cockerels, and culled pullets and cocks from breeding for meat. I want to get a buff Orpington, a Rhode Island Red, a white leghorn, and a Jersey giant cockerel this summer to see how they dress out.

Jersey Giants are quite slow maturing. As adults they are huge, but they take almost a year to reach full size so I've heard.

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Jersey Giants are quite slow maturing. As adults they are huge, but they take almost a year to reach full size so I've heard.

So are brahmas. Would the meet be tender if a Jersey giant was butchered after fully maturing?

 

[AllenK RGV]

Thanks for your posts I enjoyed following. My birds at 7 months being gamefowl might make a cup o soup.

 

[Maeschak]

Following I hope to raise some cockerels for meat next summer, so I want to learn all I can about the process of butchering and cleaning the cockerels. Will a 12-16 week old cockerel’s meat turn rough if I fried it? I love breaded chicken but haven’t had any since my Cornish cross pullet passed away last May and I swore off eating chicken unless I raise it myself.

I did about a dozen 14 week old cockerels last spring and cooked them all on a broiler pan in a pretty warm oven (375-400). I thought they were excellent and a great little size but everyone else felt the leg/thigh meat was a bit too 'firm' for their liking. (They are used to store or cx chickens). So in An attempt to win them all over I'm going to confine the cockerels to their hoop coop for a week or two and give more grain before butchering... I currently do that on much older chickens but not yet tried it on young cockerels...hopefully that will do the trick for them. If not, I'll start trying to butcher at 13 weeks, but I really think at that age it's more about me restricting their movement. (All my chickens free range so they do a whole lot of running, chasing, etc). I guess I shall find out!

 

[Mylied]

When I get my own property I will raise surplus cockerels, human aggressive cockerels, and culled pullets and cocks from breeding for meat. I want to get a buff Orpington, a Rhode Island Red, a white leghorn, and a Jersey giant cockerel this summer to see how they dress out.

The two I just did were Orpingtons. They were huge compared to what I normally do. Four months old and easy to clean. They weighed 2 1/2 and almost 3 lbs fully dressed out. Plus they had more fat than I'm used to. Soooooo many feathers though. I'm cooking one tonight so I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

[Welshies]

So are brahmas. Would the meet be tender if a Jersey giant was butchered after fully maturing?

No idea.

 

[Mylied]

Anything's tender if you throw it in the crock pot all day.