Dual Purpose Chickens. I want eggs and meat, when should I butcher?

[dancingbear]

I agree with Saddina. I cook my older birds in a crock pot until the meat falls off the bones, and it's tender and succulent. It's better to brine them a day or two before you cook them.

People who can't get an older bird tender, just don't know how to cook them. Which is weird, because all you do is brine them, put them in the crock pot, sprinkle with you choice of seasonings, put the lid on, and turn it on. Then wait. 6 hours or longer, depending on the age of the bird. It's not like it at all difficult or complicated. If you start it just before you go to bed, you'll wake up to a potful of nice, tender chicken.

Then take the meat off the bones and use in any recipe that uses cooked chicken.
Save the broth for sauces, soups, gravies, stuffing, or anything else that most people buy canned or boxed chicken broth for. I never use those nasty bouillon cubes, or canned or boxed broth anymore, I freeze my own. No MSG or hydrolyzed soy protein in mine.

There are other ways to make an older bird tender, but that's the easiest. See the thread about pressure canning cubed chicken.

 

[Pureupto99per]

You both have some great suggestions that I'll totally be using in the future!!! AWESOME!! and lol, "mean roosters make great tamales"!! thats awesome... thank you both so much!!

 

[BirchHatchery]

what would be the cut off on a dual purpose for optimal tenderness im raising white rocks but i thought raising them to 20-22 weeks?

 

[dancingbear]

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For optimal tenderness, (optimal tenderness and DP's don't really go together like the broiler breeds) most birds should be butchered by 16 weeks. But most DP's are to scrawny until at least 18 weeks, I let mine go 20-25, so they have some size. Past 16 weeks, they're gonna be chewy, and so I plan on cooking them in the crock pot anyway. That being the case, I'd rather wait until they're meatier.

The breast meat, and the thighs, to a lesser extent, will still be tender enough to fry, though the skin will likely be tough. So you can skin and de-bone the breast and thighs for frying, and put the rest in the crock pot. (tough skin will get tender in the crock pot too, I leave it in to add moisture to the meat) That way you truly can have the best of both worlds, let them get meaty, have breast and thigh meat to fry, and still have a fair amount of meat left to crock-pot, giving you cooked chicken meat for tacos or something, and that rich, dark broth (not pale like the store birds) for all the stuff I mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

If I'm going to go through all the trouble to dispatch, pluck & clean out a chicken I want him to provide the maximum amount of meat I can get from him. I've mostly done standard & mixed-breed roos, and usually wait until 20 weeks. I recently let one guy go to at least 24 weeks, maybe he was even older, he was almost 5 pounds dressed! And I haven't had any taste "bad", not even tough or stringy. I cook them slowly with moisture, roasted covered in a pan with vegetables, or in a roasting bag, or simmered slowly in herbed broth.

I have yet to cull an older laying hen for the table, still too sentimental about these old gals. But I've heard that they have a great rich flavor that many of us have never tasted, having dined on young birds for most of our lives. When they are cooked slowly, over low heat, with lots of moisture, they are absolutely delectable.

Anyway, I use the meat I process in dishes that make it stretch, in soups, stews, chilis & salads, adding lots of veggies, rice &/or pasta. I think it's healthier that way too.

 

[dancingbear]

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Me too! I let those boys get meaty!

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I haven't culled older hens either, (except for one Cornish X hen who was about to die of CHF, and she was really tasty) but a few have met with accidents when I was right there, and went ahead and dressed them out. They were delicious!

 

[al6517]

If you got your DP's from a hatchery you will get some scawney meat birds because they were bred for egg production, I have found the phrase DP really doesn't mean your going to get a meaty bird by any means. therefore you will have to wait much longer and sacrifice your meat quality.

AL

 

[dancingbear]

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I agree, hatchery stock DP's have often been crossed with production layers to increase the number of eggs produced. They are very seldom actually pure-bred, sometimes waayyy off-type. I've started thinking of them as "hatchery trash". Not saying they aren't healthy birds, they usually are, but they're not genetically what a person really wants for any serious breeding project.

I got some pure-bred Brahmas from a show breeder a few years ago, and so my mixed-breed flock has a lot of Brahma from good quality birds. So my roos, at about 20-25 weeks often dress out over 6 lbs, some over 7 lbs. Granted they aren't fryers at that age, but they are very tasty, and anything gets tender in a crock pot, if you give it time.

My biggest mixed hens will get bred by a Cornish roo this spring, as will some breeder Buckeyes I hatched. I got the eggs from Pathfinders.

I do wish I has a really good Cornish roo, though. I know I could get one in Oklahoma, but that's a very long drive for me. Also still looking for some good Salmon Faverolles, and Dorkings.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

We crock-pot our older birds. Tender & Delicious!

 

[flyingtnh]

I'm a newbie - learning lots from others - and came across this article (as well as some similar ones) on the topic of when to harvest dual-purpose heritage breeds:

http://www.betterhensandgardens.com/2011/02/27/heritage-birds-for-real-chicken-flavor/

"Traditional broilers were from 7 to 12 weeks old and weighed 1 to 2 ½ lbs.; fryers were 14 to 20 weeks old and weighed 2 ½ to 4 lbs.; roasters were 5 to 12 months old and weighed 4 to 8 lbs; and anything older than a year was a stewing fowl. Broilers and fryers were often excess egg breed cockerels (young roosters) because they wouldn’t attain the carcass size necessary for roasters, and roasters were typically excess cockerels from meat or dual purpose chicken breeds. Stewing fowl were hens or roosters being culled from flocks as older birds."

It's also got good ideas on how to age and cook heritage breeds, since most of our modern recipes are for the hybrid quik-gro breeds.