Our First Butchered Chicken- A Story and Pictures! (Graphic)

[bluey]

Thanks for the nice comments! I am lucky to have 4 wonderful teen daughters. Or I like to tell myself that everyday anyway!

Okay, now to the questions and comments:

BirdMom: I keep telling everyone including my daughters that every bird we have for dinner is one less bird grown in a cage for food. Our chickens are incredibly pampered.

Plymouth: The one thing I was surprised by was how easy it was to do. I'm a New York City boy. This is only the 2nd animal I've butchered in my life. It took about 5 minutes to take the feathers off after dipping and another 5 to butcher it.

redhen: it's so easy it's ridiculous...

halo: he sat in an iced salt water bath in the sink for a few hours, then put into the fridge in a ziploc. We cooked him the next day. The freshest chicken I ever ate. No freeze.

Brunty: I have my hands full right now! They are good kids and straight A students. It's the boy crazy thing that is a killer. My mother in NYC says not to bring her any fresh chicken, she wouldn't eat it! I'd guess that would be the rest of my family's assessment as well.

epona4: Ate him the next day after a night in the fridge. We did not do anything special to it. We contemplated sending them off to be processed. I'm glad we didn't. It was so easy! One horizontal cut in the back after cutting off the tail stump and I was able to remove all of the innards in one scoop of the hand. The processing stickies on BYC really helped.

Thanks for all your comments. We are going to butcher our other extra roo real soon. I'd be interested in hearing your stories if you guys give it a try as well. Please keep me posted!

 

[petrelline]

I cannot tell exactly from the pictures, but did you just roast that roo? Plain old dry-oven roasting with veggies in the bottom of the pan? Did you baste?

Can you estimate how much that boy weighed at 25 weeks?

Just curious, I'm working on barred rocks for meat and taking notes on other heritage breeds.

 

[bluey]

I didn't weigh him but I can tell you, he was surprisingly heavy. I will weigh the next one and report back to you here and by PM.

yes, we roasted him with veggies in a covered cooker.

 

[HEChicken]

Thanks for such a positive post! After reading so many times about difficulties plucking or rubbery meat, it was nice to hear that someone had such a good experience for their first time. It looks like I have to accept that I also have two BO roos and can't keep any in the city. They're about 14 weeks now and haven't crowed yet but will be dinner when they do. I've been reading up on processing so I'll know what to do when that time comes. Mine also free range (I don't even have a run. They have a coop that they're locked in at night but we let them out at first light and they free range all day until dusk).

 

[dbolman]

I think it is very cool that you did that on your own; however I am sick to my stomach now. I just don't know if I could process my own. We raised our own cows once; I watched them kill them (never ate one bite) My husband wasn't too happy with me!!

 

[buglit]

Beautiful Family

How did you "do the deed?"

 

[bluey]

HeChicken: After reading nothing but horror stories about the toughness of free ranged birds, we were ecstatic with the results. We were careful to get the whole tail gland off and not to rupture the gall bladder (which was hard to do since it was tucked in the middle of the viscera). The process was remarkably easy.

dbolman: hey, if it's not your thing, I wouldn't feel bad about it.

 

[bluey]

buglit: Thanks! I used a hatchet.

 

[halo]

You said....

One horizontal cut in the back after cutting off the tail stump and I was able to remove all of the innards in one scoop of the hand. The processing stickies on BYC really helped.

Can you expound on that just a little? What kind of a cut in the back, and how exactly did you scoop the innards?

A few more posts like this one, and those young marans boys out back are in trouble!

 

[fitzy]

Quote:
Man, if think that was big and tasty ya gotta try out a meat bird...get a few cornish cross and raise them. it'll only take around 6-8 weeks and they'll be even bigger than the one you just ate!

can you take a few good pics of that slice across the back you're talking about...i've been cheating and skinning my birds rather than pluck and gut but i wanna at least have some good referance material if i decide i want to process one for roasting whole.

btw...congrats!