Info Overload - Question on Caponizing and Roos

[BCMaraniac]

Awesome! Thanks for the information. I'll try this with our next batch. In reading online I also noticed deer fat can be rendered as well, for soap, candles, leather treatment et cetera...among others. This will be a really good project to show the kids how to render fats and what can be done with them afterwards.

I think I'll try my first batch of schmaltz with eggs. Plus one of my iron skillets is due a re-seasoning, so I'll use this for that as well.

Don't waste that good schmaltz on seasoning your skillet.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Okay, we butchered 6 last night at 12 weeks old; I removed the skin, fat, entrails, legs and wing tips, and I cut out the back (goes to the stock-pot bags in the freezer)...and our skinless, backless semi-free-range reds dressed out between 2.25 - 2.75 pounds. I thought that was half decent. We still have 2 red broilers left, both of which I THINK are pullets. I am going to wait until they start to lay because Melinda wants a few eggs from them crossed with our RIR rooster for when we do our next hatch. That makes it hard to plan the hatch since it will be a while till they lay, if they lay...but it'll be fine since we aren't filling chick orders...just trying to keep a steady supply of replacers coming...

Are your red broilers Red Rangers? That is what I had. Four of my pullets ended up getting to the lay stage, and gave me some good sized eggs, even a couple of double-yolkers. They were big fat fatties because they were the ones with all of that pretty abdominal fat that I made schmaltz out of. I fed mine layer pellets once they started laying, but they got a good bit of scratch which helped them make all of that fat. Out of 4 pullets, I got 1 1/2 pounds of abdominal fat, and nearly 2 pints of schmaltz.

:Your two broiler pullets might be good choices to let get to 28-30 weeks before butchering to get all of that good fat. The carcasses of mine were good to roast at that age.

 

[LilRedRoo]

Hah! okay, no wasting schmaltz on the iron then...this will be fun.

I practiced rendering with some deer tallow two days ago but got it just a little too hot, or maybe let it go too long, or had troo much "meat" in it...it ended up with a "bacon" smell. That'd be fine if it were a fat I would use for cooking certain foods, but I'd rather get it to come out clean so I can use it for whatever I want without any cooked smells lingering. The tallow would have gone into a test batch of goat-milk soap; instead it got mixed with "goodies" for the chickens (I only did 4 ounces). I'll reduce the heat and time when I do the schmaltz.

The broilers are the "red broiler" from Ideal Poultry, so not 100% sure what lines they use compared to "Red Ranger" broilers. One of the pullets looks just like a RIR, only with that big head and large feet; she's already the size of my year-old layers. The other is the same size but somewhat of a golden color with a mix on the tail feathers. I almost considered that she was a cockeral, but the other boys had already started getting some very obvious saddle and hackle feathers, and the tail featherss had started to change. I had planned to let them go a few more weeks but wasn't comfortable with how fast they were maturing...already starting to fight each other et cetera. I am very impressed with how active they all were/are in the field...great foragers!

 

[kaumlauf]

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[kaumlauf]

Dear BCMaraniac-
Thank you for posting! We want to buy some male chicks and caponoze them- your "data overload" will go unused.
Regards, Kat