Today was D day for my seven 16 week old mutt roosters. I had a work mate help and we pretty much cut a hole in the corner of an empty horse feed bag, poked the roo's head through (new bag for each) and I held the roo while my work mate used a sharp axe. It was a lot easier than I expected, I had been putting it off for so long and today I just thought 'Its now or never'. I am even that confident that with a nice sharp axe and a good helper I could do it myself. Little did I know that was the easy part though! Once it came time to take the meat off - that was rather tricky! But I think at the end of the day I am content that they were my responsibility and I gave them the best life possible and a quick and pain free end, and they will not be wasted. I didn't get a great deal of meat off them, but there are many litres of yummy soup to be made!
Congrats! It feels nice when it's all over. And hey, perhaps next time you can get yourself into some bigger/beefier roosters!
With any meat animal we have, I never feel "bad" abot doing the deed. I know my free ranged birds/rabbits/goats had a great time and was handled with the upmost respect. Jerry
Great for you!! And from experience I can tell you, it will be the yummiest chicken soup ever. Older birds ( even at just 4 months) have so much flavor that you don't get with store bought. You realize everything "doesn't" taste like a real chicken. My mouth is watering already. Even though there's not a lot of meat, try crock potting, or another low and slow method. Taste real chicken and you will know what I mean. Cheers!
Quote:I have a slow cooker and know of a very yummy recipe for slow cooked chicken, bacon and potato caserole, so looking forward to making that! My plans for the future was to breed chickens to sell to families in town as friendly backyard chickens, and a concern of mine was what I would do with all the left over roosters. Well my plans have changed slightly. From now on I will only breed duel purpose birds and if I have any left over roo's, they will earn their keep in a fashion also. And I'm sure if you asked a chicken it would tell you - they would much rather live at my house than be bought up with the fate of being a fast food chicken dinner! Justafewchickens - we encountered the 'home grown' meat flavour when we had our poddy calf butchered. Store bought beef tastes so bland after that! And yes - while i cant say i enjoyed the process, I'm glad it happened the way it did, and now I am not scared to do it again. I must thank all the advice that was given by this forums members also, without it who knows how old these roosters would have got (and how crabby the neighbour would have gotten with me!!!)
