homegrown vs store bough comparison

[vsmenagerie]

I was thinking you guys might appreciate this one! Not long ago, I grabbed a bag of frozen thighs from the store, they were on sale, I am down to whole chickens in the freezer, and I let convenience override my usual sensible self in not buying chicken from the store.

I thawed out a whole chicken and cut it up. Decided to thaw out the last couple thighs and grill extra for lunch the next day. Since I had both homegrown and store bought, I decided to compare.

I shouldn't have been surprised but I was. Having this comparison reminds me that I need to not give in and to also quit freezing all my big boys whole because having them cut up is a lot handier lol

 

[cavemanrich]

Obviously here we are comparing apples to oranges. You have prime chickens , most likely meat birds, and they didn't get mishandled like those from the store. Now for those from the store ;;; They were on sale. What does that mean.??? They were NOT THE SELECT GRADE. Most likely dual purpose birds that were retired from egg production. That is what turns up on sales. I can see that they have more fat to them. Classic giveaway.
I only keep chickens as pets. I don't eat them. Right now I only have 7. That is all I want at any one time. Most of them are quite old and no longer lay. Oldest now is 9. The only 2 that lay are 1 year old.
But I sure do eat chicken. From the store of course. And when I buy the lesser cuts like on sale, yes they are not as tender as the premium cuts that I also buy. We use the lesser for soup. Make just fine meals. When we fry or bake chickens, we get the 8 week old premium ones like Tyson. The meat cuts with the side of the fork easily. TENDER. The lesser cuts would require the use of a knife.
I would love to come for dinner by your house when you cook up those cuts on the left. No knife required.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

OK which one's which? My homegrown heritage thighs look like purple jerkey. And taste like it too.

 

[slingshotandLAR]

OK which one's which? My homegrown heritage thighs look like purple jerkey. And taste like it too.

That's funny, and also very true....

We've tried heritage birds as well and they just don't compare. If I was starving I would not care, but I'm not. We don't hatch chicks anyway so it's really a non issue, the last 4 I had I used to make stock.

I've decided I'm not a purest when it comes to poultry, for my business and personal needs the heritage birds just don't fit. From my experience the sexlinks out preformed the heritage birds in every way, even forging.

The Heritage turkeys were actually very tasty, however they did not justify the extra time and feed it took to get them big enough to eat.

It's sexlinks, Cornish x and BBB bronze turkeys for me!

 

[vsmenagerie]

OK which one's which? My homegrown heritage thighs look like purple jerkey. And taste like it too.

The one on the left is from one of my cornish x. I imagine the one on the right is from a cornish x as well, just raised however they raise them commercially. Mine are tractored, and I move them to fresh grass 1-2 times per day and they get all kinds of goodies from the house We try to spoil them.

We had some older roos and hens from a flock I was given that were no longer laying, and decided to process them.. they made tasty stock :/ but there was not much meat to them! I raised some Red Rangers from Dunlap one year along with some cornish and even the red rangers did not really compare to the cornish x. So I just go with the cornish x.

I think the biggest thing that surprised me when I was comparing is the color.. the one on the right is a yellowish weird color all over.

 

[vsmenagerie]

I did turkeys last year!! They were so much fun to have around. My husband was working out of town at the time, so I was only able to process when he was home, he does the dispatching for me. I ended up having 3 hens left, who started laying eggs LOL When they were finally processed, I ended up with 30 lb finished birds. Talk about a lot of turkey!

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I gotcha. The one on the right looks like it was butchered by Lizzie Bordon.

 

[vsmenagerie]

I gotcha. The one on the right looks like it was butchered by Lizzie Bordon.

I agree! I was trying to figure that out too haha

 

[CrazyTalk]

That's funny, and also very true....

We've tried heritage birds as well and they just don't compare. If I was starving I would not care, but I'm not. We don't hatch chicks anyway so it's really a non issue, the last 4 I had I used to make stock.

I've decided I'm not a purest when it comes to poultry, for my business and personal needs the heritage birds just don't fit. From my experience the sexlinks out preformed the heritage birds in every way, even forging.

Same here- small light layers for eggs and Cornies for meat. Dual Purpose birds just seem to be substandard at everything - they eat too much, they don't lay enough, and they have poor quality carcasses (compared to the cornies)

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I love my Rhode Island Reds but....
Each year I hatch about 80 chicks. I keep the pullets and eat the roosters. By the time end of summer is here and I've endured 40 hungry, crowing, marauding useless roosters that have about eaten me into the poorhouse and only yield a 3lb carcass max, and looks like a scrawny buzzard, I ask myself "Why do I do it?"

This year I told myself I'm not feeding 40 roosters all summer, so I been eating them at about 6-8 weeks when about 2 lbs live on the hoof. I just pretend like they're a giant quail.

One year I'm gonna wise up and start buying (gasp!) pullet layer chicks and meat chicks. I actually bought some (another gasp!) Cornish X chicks at TSC several weeks ago but I'm not sure how that's going to turn out yet. It's only 85-90* now but the heat is really kicking their butts.