Meat Bird Project - Delaware, White Rock, Dark Cornish

[KoopOnTruckin]

The little cx is so ugly huh?
poor thing....

He isn't pretty, that's for sure. But he hasn't gotten his feathers in yet, just that sporadic fluff. And quite void of personality too.

 

[Fat Daddy]

I could never find any joy in raise'n Cornish X.... Not a pretty bird, not interested in much except for what's for lunch.... it does make it easier to put them on the grill thou.... ;-)

 

[lcertuche]

Free-ranging Cornish Crosses act like a chicken is suppose to and are active as most other yardbirds. Someone (I can't remember who) showed a video of theirs running around. It was really entertaining.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

Free-ranging Cornish Crosses act like a chicken is suppose to and are active as most other yardbirds. Someone (I can't remember who) showed a video of theirs running around. It was really entertaining.

I had heard that they are good on free ranging as well, but that they had to be "trained" how to do it at an early age. And also their feed had to be regimented, like only a bit in the morning and more at night before being cooped up. I don't know, still not really my thing. It's an experience raising these things, but I don't intend to do it again. I really only wanted to experience it myself one time before I made my judgment about them. I would say the same thing about Pekin ducks - I have a breeding pair, and I'm now on my 4th batch of ducklings, and I just realized I'm not a fan of raising them. Maybe a few in the spring for Turducken burgers...

AND the wifey just gave me the green light for turkeys next year, so I'll have to build another coop for them on the other side of the yard.

 

[Barbwire54]

So how do

I wanted to mention we stopped plucking birds and it avoids the hot water danger for us too. To process a bird i just get out the big cutting board and big butcher knife on the porch, plus my disposible gloves. And a smaller foldout style knife that is very sharp and we have a sharpener for. I cut the head off. I used to even put a sock over the head first to help it (and me) get less emotional (i love all my birds). I then go straight to cutting the skin off with feathers still on there. Luckily no one in our family seems to miss the skin since its a lot faster for me this way. When we first started years ago, i did try the cones where you cut the neck to kill it but i really sucked at that and it seemed to make the death take a few seconds longer, which bothered me. Ive seen videos of people that seem better at it but my knife and method just wasnt working that well so the butcher knife became our quick method with no mistakes.

So how do you proceed when you skin them? I was thinking straight down the back and around the anus, then up the abdomen?

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

So how do
So how do you proceed when you skin them? I was thinking straight down the back and around the anus, then up the abdomen?

I've done this method a few times as well. How I do it is to cut off the head first, then cut down the neck skin down the chest, around the anus, then peel the skin around to the back. That is where the skin is the toughest to peel back, so I use a smaller blade to assist here. Also around the wings is difficult. I've found this way of cleaning the bird is pretty easy if you are going to debone the meat.

 

[Barbwire54]

I've done this method a few times as well. How I do it is to cut off the head first, then cut down the neck skin down the chest, around the anus, then peel the skin around to the back. That is where the skin is the toughest to peel back, so I use a smaller blade to assist here. Also around the wings is difficult. I've found this way of cleaning the bird is pretty easy if you are going to debone the meat.

This will be my first time doing it as I have 10 cornish crosses that I will harvest in 4 to 6 weeks. I don't care for the skin anyway and knew it would be so much easier than plucking. Wish I could find a tutorial with pics. Maybe something you might think about posting on BYC sometime in the future. Meanwhile, I think I'll check out youtube and see if someone may have post there. Thanks for the info. "The first cuts the hardest"

 

[TinyBirds]

We do the same as the other person that responded. We cut off the head first, then I remove the crop (since we don't remove feed), then I open up a spot on the skin by the sternum (whatever it's called on a bird), and then pull back the skin and feathers from one breast, etc. I cut off the feet too and bend the joint backwards first to make it a clean cut with unbroken bones. The wings take practice, but you cut very close to the meat and I sometimes lose some little pieces of meat to be able to get the wing feathers off. We are doing 6 month old full size birds, so I think the younger cornish-x would be much easier (haven't tried them but I can see how little feathers they have from photos). With a younger bird you can probably also just pull hard on the skin once you get a piece to pull on, and a lot should just pull right off the bird. I cut a spot under the knee also so I can pull the lower leg skin off to the ankle before doing the upper leg and around to the back. My first time I remember worrying about the anus area and not contaminating anything, but I don't worry about it any more. If some poop comes out I just move the bird over so it doesn't rest on the poop chunk. I open up the area under the breast bone and just reach in and scoop out all the insides after the rest is skinned. Then I cut around the anus part to detach everything from the body there. The lungs are usually attached on the bones so I stick a finger up in there to pry them and any remaining bits of organs that might be stuck on the bone. Then I run it under the faucet and pull off any tiny remaining feathers while rinsing it. I only do one or two birds on any particular day though, so can't imagine doing a bunch all together. I'd probably take all day! I'm still not fast at it even after doing them for years.

 

[Barbwire54]

We do the same as the other person that responded.  We cut off the head first, then I remove the crop (since we don't remove feed), then I open up a spot on the skin by the sternum (whatever it's called on a bird), and then pull back the skin and feathers from one breast, etc. I cut off the feet too and bend the joint backwards first to make it a clean cut with unbroken bones.  The wings take practice, but you cut very close to the meat and I sometimes lose some little pieces of meat to be able to get the wing feathers off.  We are doing 6 month old full size birds, so I think the younger cornish-x would be much easier (haven't tried them but I can see how little feathers they have from photos).  With a younger bird you can probably also just pull hard on the skin once you get a piece to pull on, and a lot should just pull right off the bird.  I cut a spot under the knee also so I can pull the lower leg skin off to the ankle before doing the upper leg and around to the back.  My first time I remember worrying about the anus area and not contaminating anything, but I don't worry about it any more.  If some poop comes out I just move the bird over so it doesn't rest on the poop chunk.  I open up the area under the breast bone and just reach in and scoop out all the insides after the rest is skinned. Then I cut around the anus part to detach everything from the body there. The lungs are usually attached on the bones so I stick a finger up in there to pry them and any remaining bits of organs that might be stuck on the bone.  Then I run it under the faucet and pull off any tiny remaining feathers while rinsing it.  I only do one or two birds on any particular day though, so can't imagine doing a bunch all together.  I'd probably take all day!  I'm still not fast at it even after doing them for years.

Wow, thqnks! Knowing all that gives me more confidence! I also have been concerned about contamination, but I know I am more likely to be cautious than many. I can see how pulling everything out first would actually assist with managing the anal removal along with preventing much poop. I figure, too, that the skin should come off under the right circumstances.When skinning deer, you can get a tennis ball under the skin at the right place, tie it off and pull the skin off with your truck. I want the gizzard so how do I manage that?

 

[Barbwire54]

Well, I'm officially starting on Generation 2 of my birds. I only kept 2 roosters, one DC and one WR. They are both beautiful, but there are not enough hens to keep them both happy. So they are sharing a bachelor pad, which leaves the hens and ducks in the big coop (the drake thinks he's the favorite of all the boys, which is not true). I would keep the DC roo out with the hens as well, but he is a bit aggressive at my wife and kid when I let them free range. I think he's going through his territorial phase - he knows I'm in charge, but I'm out there a lot more than my kid is, so he goes after my boy every time he turns his back to the roo. I've been tempted to "permanently separate" him, but then I remember the end goal. And also keeping the roos separate means I'll know my hens are only mating with the particular roo I want and when I choose, this is very important at this time until I figure out what is the best recipe for me.

For my first incubation, I've got 4 White Rock/Delaware eggs and 4 Dark Cornish/Delaware eggs. They are due to hatch in another week or so. I'm hoping for an awesome WR/Del hen out of it, but the rest will likely be food or for sale. The next batch will only be for WR/Dels, I want to add the 2 largest hens to my current flock, then the rest will all be for sale. Once that is done, I will likely part with the WR rooster and integrate my DC roo with the flock. At that point, he will be properly trained that people are always in charge.

The next few batches will be Dark Cornish over the biggest WR and Del hens. I'm likely only going to do 4 of each at a time again until I figure out which is the best-producing second breed. They will be just for meat, but if I find a roo that is huge compared to the others, i may keep him for a 4-breed cross, eventually.

I'm currently boiling up 3 of the last roosters. The Dark Cornish breast meat is huge, something I'd expect to pay $5/lb at a typical grocery store. The thighs and legs of all 3 varieties are very big. They were all 25 weeks old, so a bit tougher than I would want but still very flavorful, and the soup that they make is a neighborhood favorite. After seeing these birds at 25 weeks, I again have high hopes that the hybrids will get that big within 18-20 weeks. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I found that I got a bit frustrated a few times during that first batch... I mainly got frustrated at the size of the birds. So once I separated the smaller ones from the big ones and only kept track of those "keepers", I got more encouraged. There were just so many dinky-small ones, including one of the "dark cornish" hens that I got. (I put "DC" in quotes because I don't think that is what she is, at least not fully. Maybe a bantam. She's tiny, like a bit larger than a crow. But she's sweet, so I've kept her for now.) But take her and the other female out of the mix, and the DCs are a pretty solid specimen.

The next frustration came as they got to the 18-20 week timeframe. Even knowing that they wouldn't be huge, I'd hoped they would be. That hope was dashed, and I naively took that to mean something. It didn't. They did as well as I'd hoped originally when I started this project. All of the research that I had done was pretty accurate. And hey, it was hatchery stock, so not bad when you look at all of the variables. But then when they were big enough, the meat wasn't as tender as I'd hoped, so again I got frustrated. So I learned that, next time, the "eaters" will be in the mobile tractor only, able to be out in the fresh grass daily, but no room to run or flap their wings. I'm going to stick with the plan that I had originally. That should help with their tenderness, or that is what I've read and now tend to believe.

My final frustration was the amount of work that it took to pluck them. I tried making my own feather plucker, and that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped and I'm back to the drawing board on it. I've got some time to perfect it, but until then I've also realized that plucking by hand really isn't that much more work. I need to slow down and enjoy the process a bit more. They've earned that.

I once again have high hopes. As I smell that stock cooking on the stove, I'm reminded why I'm doing this, and that the next batch won't be limited to just soup.

I'm thinking you should post your soup recipe! That would be a true start to finish picture of your Gen 1 project.