Butchering your roosters!

[Leighe]

Yes, I have been. DesertChick is raising some Naked Necks that look very interesting. I think she also has Dorkings.

That's awesome. Sounds like you are makin great preparations. Will be thinkin of ya'll and prayin ya'll find a home soon......

 

[BYCforlife]

I have a Black Australorp X Easter Egger, he is huge! I would guess he weighs 10 or 12 pounds. I lifted him when I bought him at 1 year old, he was really heavy.

 

[Glenda Heywoodo]

to answer to the person who wrote CRUEL
it is not cruel as if you are good at it, it takes about a few minutes to cut the head off the chicken
I butchered thousands of chickens of all kinds, over 60 yrs old.
My mother lent me out to the neighbor farm ladies to do the butchering stating when I was 10 yrs old.
It takes a strong hand and a even step and off with the head.
It is better than letting a wild animal kill them

 

[Glenda Heywoodo]

to answer Parront about Arizona heat.
You will need a place that has a roof on it and possibly fencing.
As the chickens will endure the heat if it is securely under a good roof. Then the metal fencing will keep predators out.
Could be very expensive as you will need some one to install this set up/
hopefully it works for you

 

[Lazy Farmer]

We have always removed the heads. I saw the plucker video on u-tube and saw the heads on chickens as they ran through the plucker. did't know they did it that way. Grandma always removed the heads, then let the chickens on the ground and headless chickens would run in circles ,Jump up and down and chase us or so we thought. If we had just quit running in circles and took off straight, we wouldn't have been chased so badly...silly kids, running and screaming. My dad would "ring their Necks" He would give them a twirl over his head and a snap, and off would go their head, again chickens running around the yard. I screamed a lot back then, I am not that way now. and it didn't scar me for life, although for awhile there I dreamed about these chickens chasing me..

View attachment 1128466
My husband removes the head by the neck in a cone. the chicken is wedged and can't reflex. It stays in the cone until drained then processed. Usually at night when the flys are sleeping. Turkeys are done the same way, in the cone. Kind of cruel and unusual to let them run around without a head. Nothing I would like to witness anyway.
This it what I like to witness.. pecan smoked turkey..

 

[FrankHomestead]

I just sat and read this entire thread, each and every one of you members speak of processing your birds in a way that is matter-of-fact type of self-suffiently survival and feeding your families.
Not one person stated how much they enjoy killing chickens, nor talked about torturing them or killing them in any way that was slow nor provided unnecessary excess pain and suffering.
Someone who joins in on a knowledgeable, straight forward thread like this one and says "CRUEL" is non other than a troll.
In case someone doesn't know what a troll is: it is a person who has nothing better to do than lurk online threads on social medias and say any mindless statement they think will offend you, then sit back and watch the defense unfold in all their glory, often times never commenting again, but they are still watching, seeing how long they can stay in someone's mind from that one comment.
Sounds stupid, I know. Trolls are pitiful.
But anyways, I plan on expanding my flock very soon for my own family's CRUEL survivability and I very much enjoyed reading all your guys' knowledge and experience and hearing about the different breeds.

 

[Parront]

I have a Black Australorp X Easter Egger, he is huge! I would guess he weighs 10 or 12 pounds. I lifted him when I bought him at 1 year old, he was really heavy.

Lots of time the cross is bigger than either parent for the first generation!

 

[BYCforlife]

Lots of time the cross is bigger than either parent for the first generation!

Cool! I'll be sure to weigh him when I do.

 

[Bonniebooboo]

This thread is encouraging. I really want to butcher my own chicken ( better taste, better treatment, knowing your food source, etc) but my husband is super squeamish, and I have trouble killing anything, even bugs. But I think I have found a solution - I have a neighbor who will do the killing part, I'll do the raising and dressing out. Once it's dead I'm good to go Then we'll split the proceeds. I want to raise olive eggers so it's inevitable I will have cockerels to spare...

Yes you will have cockerels to spare! goes with the territory of raising chicks. so far this summer out of 30 chicks hatched/raised -14 are/were roosters. Just finished the last 4-4 months old yesterday. Last hen hatched 5 on 8/2. 2 for sure are Roos. so they won't go to freezer for awhile yet. 3 of those 4 Mo. olds were crowing and chasing the 4 Mo old pullets and 1 of those got one of the pullets bred, so I processed the next day. I kept the 2 EE cockerels, we'll see how that works out. Just couldn't bare to do all of them yesterday. sure didn't need 14 roosters though. We had baked chicken for supper last night, and corn on the cobb from our garden and a nice salad, with tomatoes from the garden. So that was nice.

 

[MillersFarm]

I keep telling myself that i could never butcher any of my birds i raised, Well just a few days ago some man said that they'd take all of our roosters we didn't want (Since they've recently been roughing up the hens) So we said yes. The man said that he was going to butcher them which kind of made me uneasy but my parents agreed to it. The man came and we talked for a little while and he then began to talk about his wife and how she butchers chicks and uses almost every single part of the bird. I thought this was cool and my Father had suggested that he and me should come over and watch how his wife processes chicks and of course he said yes to that. They saved two roosters of ours to show us what they do. The wife took one of the roosters out of the cage, held it upside down while someone held the feet and with one cute to the throat it was dead just like that! The nerves went of for a minute after it died but that was it. I was so impressed by how clean and quick it was i was considering doing it myself when she offered if i wanted to do it but of course i declined. It was all a very cool thing to watch and it definitely put me at ease to see how fast the butchering was. I think the only thing that grossed me out was how the kept the blood to make 'pudding' out of it which is apparently normal for her since she is Chinese. They invited us to come by again and we agreed. I thought that all of it was very interesting and that i'd definitely would have to try it sometime.