My dad and husband slaughtered three of our 15-week-old roosters two days ago as I stood and cringed. But I was able to nicely pluck and clean them with my dad yesterday. What I wasn't prepared for was the smell. Wet feathers, food in the crop and waste in the bowels. We cooked the inards (excluding bowels, stomach and crop) for the dog and the smell permeated the air. So question # 1 ... will this same smell and similar taste be in the chicken when I cook it? I'm not sure I could stomach that. Especially since the same smell is in the air around the chicken run! Question #2 ... the roosters had barely been off of medicated grower crumbles when we processed them. I hadn't thought of it then, but will this affect the meat or safety of eating it? Thanks!!
Not sure on question number 2. But for question number 1 you shouldnt feed an animal 24-48 hours before slaughtering it, depending on its size, for a chicken, their last meal should come the morning before, that way even if you do manage to knick the anus when your butchering, there is not anything there, and the smell isnt as bad. I'm not sure how others do it, but my process with chickens is to slaughter the animal (either way), then immediately remove the head and dip in boiling water, then pluck right away. Then before you empty the bird of innards, throw it in a batch of cool water, garden hose and ice chest works just fine for mine. The innards are easier to handle when they are cold and last time I didnt even notice a smell. Hope this helps Jacob
We have just started to butcher some of our young bantam roosters, as shown to us by a friend who has grown up with the process. What he showed us was very peaceful and benign, and didn't smell really at all. Here's what he showed us. He picked up his bantam rooster calmly and stroked it gently then showed us how to rearrange the hold on the rooster so that the wings were tucked back gently with the feet, and then rested the rooster on a stump with its head between two nails and, while holding the rooster with the one hand (the rooster was quiet and still), he used the other hand to chop off the head with an axe. Somehow it was very quick and quite peaceful. He continued to hold the chicken until it was still, and held the body upside down to allow any blood to drain, then dipped the body into water that had recently boiled for a short minute, and then easily and quickly pulled the feathers off. He showed us how to prep the bird for the oven by cutting carefully around the belly region and anus to be able to remove the whole gut section without cutting into it, and also how to cut out the crop. This whole process really didn't smell much at all, so I am wondering what was different about your situation. Perhaps you cut into the intestines and guts, and opened them up? And you mentioned the smell around your coop, is it always there and therefore perhaps unclean coop or poor food which is effecting your birds? Our coop doesn't smell, and we feed the birds quality food, so maybe this makes a difference. We took the heart, liver and cleaned out gizzard to feed to the dog and they didn't smell unpleasant either (I fried them up). When we cooked the bird to eat, it basically tasted like normal good chicken. Hope this helps.
As long as you clean up the meat real well, it should be just like chicken with a real chicken flavor. Do age for at least a day though, and know these won't be as "soft" as the chicken in the store. In the future, withhold feed for 12-24 hours. I withhold feed for 12 and their bowels are empty by processing time. They have a very fast metabolism unlike larger ruminants like cows which keep on digesting after they have eaten. When you gut, cut around the vent and don't pierece any innards, they should come out in one piece and you can save the gizzards, livers, and hearts for soup. Shouldn't be nearly as smelly. As for medicated grower, if it's just amprolium, there is no withdrawl time so not a problem. It's a thiamine blocker. If it contains sulfa based medication, then I think withdrawl is like a week and is a concern for people allergic to sulfa based drugs.
