One of the chanteclers, 15 wks old. It wasn't as hard as I expected. I mean, I felt bad for the chicken (caught myself finding little reasons to postpone it, and then ended up patting the decapitated head and apologizing and telling him that he was a good chicken and thank you). But the actual processing went pretty smoothly considering how disorganized I was
Used a hatchet and a stump with two nails. Chopped the head off with one whack the moment I got him up there, so I don't think he had a chance to really anticipate anything, other than 'gee why has she tied my feet and carried me across the yard'. I have to confess, I closed my eyes at the moment the hatchet actually hit. Sorry bout that, chicken. Beats being eaten by a raccoon, at least.
I had intended all along to skin him, but out of curiosity took a handful of feathers and tugged (dry, no scalding or anything) and they came right off, sort of like shucking corn. So I basically dry-plucked him about 85% of the way, to see how it would work. Are you *supposed* to be able to do that? If I'd been set up for it, and had somewhere to hang him and something to sit on (instead of having to hold the carcass up with one hand and sit on the deck steps plucking with the other) I am pretty certain I could have gotten the whole thing done quite easily. As it was, after about 10 minutes the feathers seemed to tighten up and get hard to pull, so I quit and skinned him after all, which was probably sensible under the circumstances. Ended up cutting off and discarding end segment of one wing, too, b/c it was getting too hard to skin. Note to self: next time have somewhere to hang chicken, and a chair, and pliers for wing feathers, and a BIG cuttingboard to work on.
Was I just lucky that the feathers came out so easily un-scalded? Or what? I really wasn't expecting that.
I did this in the late afternoon without having withheld feed, so his innards were quite full, but it didn't pose any sort of problem other than a minor poo escape while I was plucking. I was surprised how little trouble it was to clean the carcass. Only thing is, I couldn't actually find the gallbladder (did not totally knock myself out looking), so while I do not *think* I popped it, I guess I will not know for certain til we eat him tomorrow. He's in the fridge now, and tomorrow morning I will marinate him in buttermilk and then probably slow oven-cook him in a covered pan with some potatoes and onions, as was suggested to me in another thread (thanks).
Oh, one last question, his gizzard was HUGE (it seemed to me) and totally stuffed with grit, does that mean I should be offering them less grit? Or is that normal?
So, RIP "Big", buff chantecler cockerel, basically a perfectly good chicken but one too many and unfortunately for him he was smaller and narrower than his brother. Thanks in advance to him for tomorrow's dinner, for which one less chicken will have to go thru a commercial broiler farm. (Well ok, one half less chicken - he wasn't really all *that* big. But, you know what I mean.)
Pat
Used a hatchet and a stump with two nails. Chopped the head off with one whack the moment I got him up there, so I don't think he had a chance to really anticipate anything, other than 'gee why has she tied my feet and carried me across the yard'. I have to confess, I closed my eyes at the moment the hatchet actually hit. Sorry bout that, chicken. Beats being eaten by a raccoon, at least.
I had intended all along to skin him, but out of curiosity took a handful of feathers and tugged (dry, no scalding or anything) and they came right off, sort of like shucking corn. So I basically dry-plucked him about 85% of the way, to see how it would work. Are you *supposed* to be able to do that? If I'd been set up for it, and had somewhere to hang him and something to sit on (instead of having to hold the carcass up with one hand and sit on the deck steps plucking with the other) I am pretty certain I could have gotten the whole thing done quite easily. As it was, after about 10 minutes the feathers seemed to tighten up and get hard to pull, so I quit and skinned him after all, which was probably sensible under the circumstances. Ended up cutting off and discarding end segment of one wing, too, b/c it was getting too hard to skin. Note to self: next time have somewhere to hang chicken, and a chair, and pliers for wing feathers, and a BIG cuttingboard to work on.
Was I just lucky that the feathers came out so easily un-scalded? Or what? I really wasn't expecting that.
I did this in the late afternoon without having withheld feed, so his innards were quite full, but it didn't pose any sort of problem other than a minor poo escape while I was plucking. I was surprised how little trouble it was to clean the carcass. Only thing is, I couldn't actually find the gallbladder (did not totally knock myself out looking), so while I do not *think* I popped it, I guess I will not know for certain til we eat him tomorrow. He's in the fridge now, and tomorrow morning I will marinate him in buttermilk and then probably slow oven-cook him in a covered pan with some potatoes and onions, as was suggested to me in another thread (thanks).
Oh, one last question, his gizzard was HUGE (it seemed to me) and totally stuffed with grit, does that mean I should be offering them less grit? Or is that normal?
So, RIP "Big", buff chantecler cockerel, basically a perfectly good chicken but one too many and unfortunately for him he was smaller and narrower than his brother. Thanks in advance to him for tomorrow's dinner, for which one less chicken will have to go thru a commercial broiler farm. (Well ok, one half less chicken - he wasn't really all *that* big. But, you know what I mean.)
Pat
