We did our first two birds for our daughter first birthday. We butchered the day before. My husband and I watched a vid on youtube that was very well done and informative. We still must be idiots cause after we got the "stuff loose from the chest wall, no problems with that, we turned it over and for the life of us couldn't get the "stuff loose from the back. Am I missing something? My mom said that there is always some red fleshy/meaty stuff stuck to the back bone. Is that true? I could have sworn they were organs of some sort. Any way we gave up and decided to just cut the legs and breast off and just go that way for now. (We're still new at this obviously, so we are not messing with wings yet.) Also, we all got confused about something. Now this is both myself and my husband, my mother and my in-laws, all confused about this.....The breast were fine but we let the legs and thighs cook for an hour and though they were cooked they seemed to have the texture of raw meat. That's the best way to explain it. Kinda rubbery but not chewy. It just didn't have the texture of the legs and thighs you would get in the store. Is it just because they are home grown? Did we over cook them? (after 45 min at 350 degrees my mom was still worried about bacteria and said to let them go another 15 min.) Were they too young/old? They are/were about 4 months old. Also, they are not broilers or Cornish X's. One was a Wyandott the other was an RIR. Could that be the reason for the different texture? Thanks for the help.
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