Chronicles of Raising Meat Birds - Modern Broilers, Heritage and Hybrids

[RUNuts]

Does anyone on this thread have experience cooking older birds?

Not yet, but we can learn together.

Planning on butchering 5 - 2 year old leghorns this fall. Have a dozen pullets running around the yard for replacements. I am attached. Not looking forward to it.

Always wondered why the stores' canned chicken soups had tough chicken pieces. I may know why now.

 

[RUNuts]

https://www.thegoodshepherdinstitute.org/

The Good Shepherd Institute is an educational hub for breeding poultry, training farmers, chefs, and students, partnering with institutions, and engaging the public. It serves as a model for system-wide agricultural and ecological innovation, and is dedicated to ensuring the long-term viability of the poultry industry.

In case anyone is wondering.

 

[Newyorkrita]

@Compost King and new York Rita I’ll just keep you updated with “juicy” tidbits. I’m going to get some Delawares from one of these breeders and I’ll highlight what I find out of importance to us all looking into these goals.

I’ve been wishing I didn’t have some business reasons to be on Facebook and am looking for ways to diversify other opportunities so I don’t have to be. Kudos to you both!

I am sure that will be very interesting. We always need more knowledge.

I see Delawares for sale at Freedom Ranger Hatchery. Something about raised with no GMO food. But I always wonder how different or even if they are different from Hatchery Birds. Like if they select when breeding for more meat type birds.

 

[Newyorkrita]

As promised, info from Moyers on these hybrid broilers.

ALL the hybrid pasture or ranging broilers (red broilers, red rangers, freedom rangers, Dixie rainbows, kosher king, Robust white, etc etc) are Hubbard genetics. All of them. Hubbard has developed many, many lines for grandparent and parent birds and a hatchery or producer gets with Hubbard to discuss what kind of end result they are looking for, and how it can be made. Moyer went to Hubbard with a desire to create a modern broiler that could truly thrive in a pasture environment based directly off the conventional Cornish cross. To accomplish this, out of all the various strains of broiler, Robust white has the most conventional broiler in its blood. As far as John knows, Moyers is the only one doing this and trying to retain some conventional broiler genetics into the pasture bird. The other specialty broilers fall in line with other strains of broilers from other producers.

If you imagine meat chickens on a continuum with Cornish cross at one end and heritage chicken at the other, from the various breeds we have been discussing, this is where things fall. It’s hard to compare specifically the strains owned by various hatcheries, because only they and Hubbard know the genetics used to create, but this is pretty close.

Cornish cross
Slow Broilers

Robust White

Royal red
freedom ranger color yield

Freedom ranger

Dixie rainbow
Kosher king
Moyer Imperial

Heritage breed broiler

I also spent some time asking a few other questions. @Compost King remember I mentioned I had heard of dwarf genes in terminal hybrids for broilers? John says it’s not particularly dwarf genes as size and bone genes. For example, and I may have this a little wrong, but a small bone genetic trait is used to create the meat/breast constitution of the Royal Red. Because of the hybrid nature you won’t be able to isolate that and how it reacts with other genes, so for example you could end up with smaller birds than BROILERS, but there’s not rampant dwarf genetics going on in these breeder flocks. May be interesting to get ahold of some reds since they have more conventional Cornish cross blood in them than the freedom ranger

In addition, we discussed a bit how hatcheries work. There are hatcheries that do their own hatching, and hatcheries that resource out and have drop shipped items. Those that do their own are specialized in heritage and laying chickens, OR broilers. Meat birds take an entirely different protocol for hatching and handling.

Some of the hatcheries that hatch their own broilers are typically where the less healthy broilers come from. The healthiest meat birds will come from the broiler hatcheries (Moyer, freedom ranger hatchery, etc). In addition, the hatcheries that sell the broilers (25 minimum no mixes) to be drop shipped are great because those birds are coming from the broiler hatcheries.

Interesting, and something I hadn’t thought of.

So I have been thinking about this post and mulling over the information for these past few days. I get e-mail notices from BackYard Chickens on my Watched Threads. Usually I just delete the notice once I have read it in site here but this one I have saved. Reference material!!

I for sure never knew anything about the genetics and where or how the various broiler crosses are created. And I love that list of breeds that take us from Cornish X 's to Heritage Breeds.

Don't know if anyone is keeping Kosher Kings or Moyer Imperial Broilers as egg layers but I do know there are at least two threads on Dixie Rainbows and lots of people are keeping those as egg layers. And I see why that might work well as you have thee types --
Dixie rainbow
Kosher king
Moyer Imperial Broilers
clustered together and at the very near heritage breeds end section.

I wonder were the Freedom Ranger Black Broiler and the Ideal Black Broilers fit? I am thinking they also would be in this last grouping very near Heritage Breeds. They are claiming great heritage tasting meat.

 

[Molpet]

Yes, I’ll gather. Frank reese’s Institute or conservancy or whatever it is exactly I believe is working on a much larger research study and he works closely with the APA.

Over and over again in all the questions I ask in various breeders of various breeds I hear that all you need to do is select towards the breed standards and they’re there for a reason. True DP breeds will reach a fine table size in the right timeline and we have systematically gotten away from this for convenience.

Does anyone on this thread have experience cooking older birds?

I have pressure cooked a two year roo.
Was very good.

 

[Parront]

I have pressure cooked a two year roo.
Was very good.

I will second that. I like to use a pressure cooker, and the older birds taste great.

 

[aart]

I will second that. I like to use a pressure cooker, and the older birds taste great.

I'll third it....but the best way to handle an older bird is to rest the carcass for 3-4 days before cooking or freezing.

 

[Parront]

I'll third it....but the best way to handle an older bird is to rest the carcass for 3-4 days before cooking or freezing.

And THEN pressure cook it

 

[aart]

And THEN pressure cook it

Yes.
Last time I did older hens I rested longer and the meat came out of the PC tender enough for sammishes!

 

[LilyD]

Yes, I’ll gather. Frank reese’s Institute or conservancy or whatever it is exactly I believe is working on a much larger research study and he works closely with the APA.

Over and over again in all the questions I ask in various breeders of various breeds I hear that all you need to do is select towards the breed standards and they’re there for a reason. True DP breeds will reach a fine table size in the right timeline and we have systematically gotten away from this for convenience.

Does anyone on this thread have experience cooking older birds?

Yes cook older birds a lot. You just change cooking methods and use more moisture and lower temp and longer cooking time.