Fresh Butchered Roosters

[MissChessy]

Well, we done butchered 4 roosters this weekend. One thing I noticed was there was hardly any fat on them roosters, like the ones at the grocery store where you have to trim and trim the fat off!

Another thing, the meat is darker, wondering why this is?? Store bought chickens have a more lighter texture to the meat, ours was a very pretty dark reddish pink color. Anyone know why the meat is darker?

Gonna soak some drumsticks and breast in some buttermilk and have a fry tomorrow to see if it's good or not, hope it ain't gonna be tough.

 

[Ariel301]

Factors that contribute to meat being darker/dryer/tougher are age, diet, gender, and the amount of excercise the bird got. The chicken you buy at a grocery store are generally grain fed hens, cornish cross breed. They are kept confined in small cages so they don't use their muscles much--meaning a more juicy, tender bird with more white meat. They are hens because roosters tend to be a bit more tough and gamey--good soup/slow-cooking birds, but not so good for baking, frying, and grilling. Eating a free-range type diet instead of all grain/corn can make the bird leaner, and also contribute to a 'stronger' taste, just like wild game has a 'strong' taste compared to eating domestically raised meat. No excercise and lots of carbohydrates does the same to a chicken as it would to us--they get fat, which is what happens to your store-bought chickens. Store-bought chickens, being cornish cross, a fast growing breed, are also butchered very young--12 weeks or under, usually. An older bird may start to get tougher.

 

[topeka]

Quote:
I think I would be a little more aggressive with the tenderizing. My roosters have been VERY tough/stringy. Maybe a pressure cooker would work.

 

[Bossroo]

The commercial grocery store birds are NOT kept in cages instead they are raised loose in huge chicken houses... the cost of cagewire materials + labor of catching and putting the chicks into cages, feeding them then removing them from cages, crating them for shipping is way too steep for that. Instead the Game hens are the Cornish X of both sexes butchered young at 42 days of age for a 2-2 1/2 lb. carcass. The fryers are butchered at 6 - 8 weeks of age for a 4-5+ pound bird perfect for frying, bar b q, and grilling or roasting. They are fed a scientifically formulated commercial feed for optimal rate of gain of 1.95 pounds of feed for a 1 pound of live weight gain.. Any older than that and the feed coversion rate starts to go down and are not profitable to raise for a longer time or larger size . However, One can obtain a 8-12 pound bird if raised to 10-12 weeks old for roasting and still be very tender. The dual purpose bred birds are usually raised in small farm flocks and to a much older age of 16-24 weeks or older and may or may not produce a 3-5 pound carcass. They will also eat much more feed per pound of live weight as they have MUCH poorer Feed Conversion Rate. They will have a more intense flavor as that comes with age and amount of fat laid down. The older the bird gets and the more it runs around the barnyard the less tender it will be and will require a long wet cooking method like a crockpot, pressure cooker or boiling for soup.