Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Beekissed]

Hi to all - i'm from australia& joined this site for good info as most sites in aust r rather short on real info,its like its all a big secret that can't be passed on to anyone .i have read all 537 pages of this thread & have found heaps of good things to know .i for one really appreciate the effort the OT's put into passing on the knowledge of their experience cheers pete

Thanks, Pete! Welcome to the forum and to this thread...hope you settle in and stay awhile. No secrets here...actually, probably too much info divulged at times!

 

[Beekissed]

Yes Walt thanks for the laugh, I did read it and I may have thrown up in my mouth just a little, but I am over it now that I spoke with my therapist LOL.

I love you, Al!

Oh, how dry this thread would have been without ol' curmudgeons like Al, Walt, Fred, etc.

 

[Seslar]

Al, you mentioned other forums with "real" chicken people on them. Which forums are those? I'm not planning to stop lurking on this thread, but I would appreciate checking out some other sites with reliable info too. Would you please share?
Shelley
P.s. Sorry, I can't quote previous post on the iPad. Why? Sigh, just one more thing the iPad won't do.

Hmm I'm on a iPad and can quote previous post I have done older post also, just click quote then type.

OK, I'll try it but it looks funny. And there's an error message that says my browser's not compatible or some such. Thanks for the tip and I'll see here if it works.

Update: Looks okay. Thanks!

 

[Parrmom]

Butcher them whenever you feel they are ready, there is no magic number that is considered gospel, just do it when you feel like it, it's not rocket science.

Yes of course people leave eggs out on the counter they want to hatch and at room temps, more folks do this than whatever it is you have been told. I hatch hundreds & hundreds of eggs a year and they sit right on the table till ready to incubate, never longer than 10 days BTW. Hatch rates are never effected, and I know this will shock you but a person can eat an egg that's sit's out on the counter for some time and they won't die. What do you think folks did 100 or 500 years ago when they needed to eat an egg, they took it out of the basket in a none A/C room sometimes for day's on end.

NPIP should not be abused or even used by folks who do not have a vested intrest in their flocks, People with a few yard ornaments or so called named pet's should not consider it, you don't need NPIP to sell eggs or birds to the average Joe stumpknocker. If your chicken deal is an actual operation where selling good stock and reputation is important, get them certified by all means if not save your money. NPIP Cert's are required to show birds or to transport them across some state lines. In my state NPIP is free the first year with no minimum or maximum and then a very small nominal fee every year after your intial yr.

Thank you very much for the advice.

I was just curious if there was a rough age that they started getting tough!

The whole egg on the counter was just more of a curiousity question. It does not shock me that you can eat an egg that has been on the counter. I am the a farm raised girl, but not an experienced poultry one. We raised cattle, hogs and sheep. I was curious because you see all of these articles on the incubator temps and such that have to be perfect and the eggs have to go into the incubator right away and on and on. But I am pretty sure that a broody hen does not have a heat and humidity gauge attached to her butt and they hatch fine. Again just a curiousity thing.

When we decided to get chickens, I was one of the ones that got lured into thinking that hatchery stock was good stock. By this thread and others, I have learned that I was mistaken. We are now saving up to buy good stock from a reputable breeder. Nothing here is a pet well except the boys' hermit crabs. It would take alot of them to make a decent meal. Then we will be doing the NPIP cert. depending on the number of birds that we decide to raise. I want to create a good foundation for sons' when it becomes time for them to take over our mini farm. We include our 7 year old on the decisions we make now from feeding to culling. Nothing here crosses the rainbow bridge, it is all either eaten, buried or burned depending on the reason for death.

Again thank you for the reply.

 

[Beekissed]

The toughness of the bird can vary, depending on how the bird is being raised. If in a pen/run where there is very little activity going on, you can fatten them a little longer than I can on free range. On free range the bird is very active, thus developing stringy, tough muscles...I usually butcher mine by 6 mo. or shortly thereafter.

One OT suggests that you can even take an older range bird and pen it for a few weeks, allowing the muscles to lose tonicity due to lack of exercise, and turn out a fairly tender bird~no matter the age. This is something I will try the next time I plan to cull older birds, if I have the space for containment.

Back in the day, any game fowl taken would hang for a time before being consumed...presumably to let the meat fibers start to decompose so they were easier to cook and eat. I wouldn't want to attempt this but holding the live birds in a pen until their muscles get a little flabby isn't a bad idea.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

The toughness of the bird can vary, depending on how the bird is being raised. If in a pen/run where there is very little activity going on, you can fatten them a little longer than I can on free range. On free range the bird is very active, thus developing stringy, tough muscles...I usually butcher mine by 6 mo. or shortly thereafter.

One OT suggests that you can even take an older range bird and pen it for a few weeks, allowing the muscles to lose tonicity due to lack of exercise, and turn out a fairly tender bird~no matter the age. This is something I will try the next time I plan to cull older birds, if I have the space for containment.

Back in the day, any game fowl taken would hang for a time before being consumed...presumably to let the meat fibers start to decompose so they were easier to cook and eat. I wouldn't want to attempt this but holding the live birds in a pen until their muscles get a little flabby isn't a bad idea.

Yeah, I had a friend from Scotland years ago. He would hang pheasant up for a few days by the feet, wasn't even dressed. Called it "high pheasant". Not my thing. But then again he turned green when I talked about eating squirrel, said that was just a bushy-tailed tree rat. lol

I know when you are butchering, there is a "sweet spot age" where they have no pin feathers and they seem to pluck easier. To be honest, I've never gone through the trouble of finding out what that age is though. We butcher when a) We want chicken for supper and there is none in the freezer b) I see one needing culled and see no point on wasting feed on a bird I know I'm not going to keep, or c) When I do my major culling in the spring and fall. I don't pay much attention to the age of the bird. I've dressed them from about 5 or 6 weeks old all the way up to 7 or 8 years old. We just cook them differently depending on the age and condition of the bird. I've had lots of people laugh at me for dressing cull birds right out of the brooder at 5 weeks old, but you just cook more of them. Jeez, they are bigger than quail at that age and the same people eat quail.

I have noticed that an older bird is a bit more tender if you let it rest in the 'fridge for a couple of days after butchering but before cooking, but again, I'll admit it seldom happens around here.

I do put all our free range cull birds in the cull coop every spring and fall when I do my major culling and can't say I've ever really noticed a difference in the meat though. Maybe it's not small enough, they can still walk around a good bit. I might but 50 birds in there, but it's a coop with around a 20' X 20' pen off the side, then I just butcher from 3 to 10 birds at a time until the coop is empty again. My hands hurt too bad to do more than a few at a time unless I have help.

 

[fowlman01]

The toughness of the bird can vary, depending on how the bird is being raised. If in a pen/run where there is very little activity going on, you can fatten them a little longer than I can on free range. On free range the bird is very active, thus developing stringy, tough muscles...I usually butcher mine by 6 mo. or shortly thereafter.

One OT suggests that you can even take an older range bird and pen it for a few weeks, allowing the muscles to lose tonicity due to lack of exercise, and turn out a fairly tender bird~no matter the age. This is something I will try the next time I plan to cull older birds, if I have the space for containment.

Back in the day, any game fowl taken would hang for a time before being consumed...presumably to let the meat fibers start to decompose so they were easier to cook and eat. I wouldn't want to attempt this but holding the live birds in a pen until their muscles get a little flabby isn't a bad idea.

Some of the birds they aged back in the day became pretty nasty.

Walt

 

[galanie]

Walt, you sound like my mom. She would have been almost 100 if she were still around but some of the stories. Whew they ate a lot of spoiled things.

 

[Beekissed]

Yes...and they lived to a ripe old age. Go figure. And we think we are sooooo enlightened nowadays about proper food handling, what to feed to dogs (many on here wouldn't dream of feeding their dog spoiled meat from the fridge but go completely unaware that canines will bury fresh meat for days until it is gamey and rotten enough to consume and digest properly), what is "safe" for chickens to eat, etc.

I've read posts where they insist that feeding chickens their own eggs back to them without cooking them first can give the chickens diseases such as salmonella. Really? Can you re-infect a chicken with salmonella that is presumably a carrier of the disease to the degree that it shows up in her eggs?

Get real, folks.

 

[loanwizard]

Yes...and they lived to a ripe old age. Go figure. And we think we are sooooo enlightened nowadays about proper food handling, what to feed to dogs (many on here wouldn't dream of feeding their dog spoiled meat from the fridge but go completely unaware that canines will bury fresh meat for days until it is gamey and rotten enough to consume and digest properly), what is "safe" for chickens to eat, etc.

I've read posts where they insist that feeding chickens their own eggs back to them without cooking them first can give the chickens diseases such as salmonella. Really? Can you re-infect a chicken with salmonella that is presumably a carrier of the disease to the degree that it shows up in her eggs?

Get real, folks.

I have been blasted on here for moldy food, rotten meat, and eggs..... If I crack an egg collecting them, it gets thrown on the ground and they clean up the mess. Any fish I clean, they get. They leave it there, peck at it, in a couple days clean up the maggots, in a few days it's bones.

Way I figure it, if it is too bad for them, they know it.

I won't tell anyone how I dispose of eggs that didn't hatch......