jumbo cornish XX D Day

[bluebirdfarm]

hi everyone,
we butchered our jumbo cornish XX meat birds yesterday .
they were 7 week old pullets
we had 104 and ended up with 91
we had only 3-4 that were not a good size
We were going to do the deed next week , but due to weather and help issues we did it a week early.
I am very pleased with the sizes of the birds at that age.
Questions,
i now have a cooler full of birds ! We have skinned them and they are ready to be frozen , do you recc freezing whole or cutting up ? ( we have them in a milk cooler and they are in ind baggies cooling off and waiting to be frozen)
i am leaning towards cutting them up.
I don't see how you could pluck one without tearing it up, they were REALLY tender when we were working on them.
thanx.

 

[brooster]

we like freezing whole, then you dont have to cut them up all in one day, you can cut it up when you get it out. Also, let the meat age 24 hours before freezing, or the meat will not be as tender as i could be.

 

[bluebirdfarm]

thanx,
we did the deed yesterday , began at 9 am and finshed at about 4 pm, not bad for three people ! They have been sitting in the cooler since yesterday , so i will start freezing tonight .
And eating tonight also !!!!

 

[bheila]

We usually just freeze ours whole. But if you don't have an gigantic freezer you might have to cut some up. Were raising our own beef and I can't imagine freezing 1000lbs besides all of our meat chickens and pork were raising. I wish walk in freezers were a little more affordable.

 

[bluebirdfarm]

can build a freezer , u would have to buy the reefer unit , we used to own a restaurant and we built one in our basement , we bought a door from a resturant supply store and a reefer unit used from the local classified ads.
it was a fair size walk in refrigerator, but u could build a freezer too. We built it in a corner so we had 2 sides already built ( cinderblock ) and the existing floor was concrete , so we built two walls and walla , we had a walk-in cooler .
it has to be well insulate d.
also if u look around sometimes u can buy one from a restaurant going out of bizzzzz.they come apart in panels and u re-construct .