I Did It! First Harvest!

[nikaku]

I butchered my first ever chicken today! An 8 week old Jumbo Cornish Cross, dressed out at 5.6lbs with all the organs removed. I'm so happy to have the first one under my belt. The butchering process was a lot easier than I expected, but the killing was still hard. I tried my best to kill and bleed the bird with one clean slice to the jugular, but that didn't happen. After a few tries, I got an artery and it started bleeding out, but the chicken was still alive and looking around. So I went into the cut to deepen it, and the chicken clucked at me!!! I felt so terrible that I didn't kill it in one slice. That was the only bad thing...the rest of the process went very well for a first-timer. I studied Herrick Kimball's blog post on how to butcher a chicken, and that was a tremendous help. All in all, I'm very pleased with how things went and I'm looking forward to doing it again next weekend.

 

[donrae]

Congratulations!
Now you'll have a better idea of where and how deep to cut and the next one will go better. That's a beautiful looking bird. How are you going to cook it?

 

[katbriar]

Way to go! You should be proud. Enjoy the harvest!

 

[nikaku]

Thank you! After letting it rest in the fridge for two days, we ate it tonight for dinner. I roasted it fake "rotisserie" style, meaning I turned it side to side and front to back every so often in the oven. It was great! A little rubbery in parts, but that's ok with me. I was just thrilled to serve a meal that I raised myself. We paired it with sautéed dandelion greens picked from our yard (with bacon and onions, yum). I'll be experimenting on the next one to get it more tender.