Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[aoxa]

costco also sell organic chicken. It is near $10.00 per chicken in a two pack.

Not here. But wow that's a good price. Darn Costco..

I don't buy meat there, but I do buy a lot of other stuff.
Costco is getting more and more organic goods. At good prices too.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Those are HUGE silkies!

Silkies should only be 1.5 pounds alive. Not sure how you got silkies with one pound of meat off of the bone. I'm surprised.

I couldn't eat them. Not with the price a live one goes for. That's besides the fact that the dark meat, skin and bones kind of puts me off. Does it taste any different?

Sorry for the misunderstanding--boned the TWO together had over a pound of meat somewhere just over 500 grams, so a bit more than half a pound each. They weren't big, but they were almost 6 months old. If you don't eat them and don't keep them--who needs six not very nice biting cockerels????--what do you do with Silkies since I could only buy them in straight run?

I was worried about being bothered by the look of the meat,but I buried it in a curry sauce. It wasn't as black as I had feared it might be, but that might be because these were hatchery birds and although sold as purebred, certainly some were not as correct as they should be. Cooked it looked pretty normal except where the meat lay against the bones, there was a thin jet black layer. Certainly none of the meat anywhere on the bird was as white and anemic looking as as store bought. Raw, it was greyish. If you go back in the pictures you can see the carcasses of the three I just slaughtered. I posted them a few days ago.

I made soup out of the bones. I used everything I could.

The meat was really, really good, having a rich almost buttery flavor to it.

 

[aoxa]

Sorry for the misunderstanding--boned the TWO together had over a pound of meat somewhere just over 500 grams, so a bit more than half a pound each. They weren't big, but they were almost 6 months old. If you don't eat them and don't keep them--who needs six not very nice biting cockerels????--what do you do with Silkies since I could only buy them in straight run?

I was worried about being bothered by the look of the meat,but I buried it in a curry sauce. It wasn't as black as I had feared it might be, but that might be because these were hatchery birds and although sold as purebred, certainly some were not as correct as they should be. Cooked it looked pretty normal except where the meat lay against the bones, there was a thin jet black layer. Certainly none of the meat anywhere on the bird was as white and anemic looking as as store bought. Raw, it was greyish. If you go back in the pictures you can see the carcasses of the three I just slaughtered. I posted them a few days ago.

I made soup out of the bones. I used everything I could.

The meat was really, really good, having a rich almost buttery flavor to it.

Interesting. I could eat them if it was in something and not just regular chicken off the bone. I'd probably get over it eventually. Kind of like purple ketchup. Couldn't do it either.

I've never had a mean silkie, but if I did, I'd do the same as you. If I couldn't eat it, I wouldn't waste it.

 

[dutchbunny83]

How much meat are you eating, a whole chicken a day? That seems like a lot. My two Silkies made three meals for two people. They had just over a pound of deboned meat for the two of them. One of the good things about raising and slaughtering my own chickens is that I am more respectful of my food and less wasteful. A chicken gave up its life for my dinner. I don't want to waste anything, and for me, eating more than I need is wasteful.

Yes.
My DH, his young soldier self would eat the entire chicken if I let him. I eat a breast half, my son eats a leg and a thigh, my daughter eats a leg, & my husband gets the other thigh & breast half. Not much to the wings, I usually separate them and freeze them all to make a batch of buffalo wings during football.
I agree, I waste nothing. No meat ever thrown away and my bones always make stock.

 

[wlhtx]

Warning: long post ahead.

We did it. Okay, to be honest, DH did most of it. I watched and cheered him on from the sidelines. Instead of 7, we ended up processing 6. One of my cockerels had escaped the crate overnight. I have no idea how he did it (its an old metal crate and many of the sides are zip tied together). So, I copied Bee's example and decided that he had earned himself another day. Final tally: 6 young cockerels (17-24 weeks old) and 3 older hens (2 were 2.5 yrs, 1 was 6 yrs).

We ended up not using a killing cone, but instead hung them upside down on a rope on a low hanging tree branch.

Observations:

We had a sharp knife and a razor blade. It seemed like we still needed something sharper though. Slitting the throat took longer than I would have liked on the first one, but DH got much better as he went (cutting deeper). It did not take that long and I do not feel that any suffered.

We skinned them. Tricky business, but this is something else that DH improved on as he went along. One thing I was NOT prepared for was when DH pushed down firmly on the body of one cockerel in order to get a good grip to pull some skin - the blasted thing made a live chicken noise! I get it that he was pressing air out of the lung and all that - I just wasn't prepared for that to happen. My 7 yr old thought it was hilarious.

The cockerels had nearly zero fat on them, while the hens were all covered in it. In fact, I was shocked at the amount the hens had. They eat the same amounts of FF each day and live in the same pen, so I am perplexed by the difference. I guess those cockerels ran around a whole lot more than I realized.

Cockerels all done:

Hens:

The fat shown on the hens above is what is left AFTER we cut off quite a bit of it with the skin. Even their organs were vastly different. Cockerels first, then hens:

I was sad about the hens because these (with the exception of our 9 yr old RIR who received a reprieve today) are the last of our original flock. But I do not regret the decision. The 2 younger hens have always had poor feathers. While the rest of our flock looks shiny and fluffy, these girls always looked a little ragged for some reason. One had persistent bald spots on her neck. In the necropsy I could not find anything odd looking in her insides, so I'm not sure why she never looked as sleek as the others. I did see the ovaries of the two younger hens. One did have what appeared to be a good amount of eggs, but the other had way less than I expected. The 6 yr old hen was by far the fattiest. She laid well earlier this summer, but has not laid in several months. I was pleased with my decision to go ahead and cull her. She only found 2 eggs to be. I think she had truly laid just about everything she had for us.

Start to completely finished was about 3 hours. It would have gone a little faster if I wouldn't have stopped DH so often for pictures. Glad we did it, but glad it's over...

 

[Beekissed]

Yes.
My DH, his young soldier self would eat the entire chicken if I let him. I eat a breast half, my son eats a leg and a thigh, my daughter eats a leg, & my husband gets the other thigh & breast half. Not much to the wings, I usually separate them and freeze them all to make a batch of buffalo wings during football.
I agree, I waste nothing. No meat ever thrown away and my bones always make stock.

I found I could stretch my home grown chicken by using it in dishes only, instead of roasting a chicken and using it as the main dish. So, I stopped freezing so many of them whole and started quartering them and freezing them in portions for soup or stir fry and such. Sure does stretch the meat over two or three meals. We froze a few of them whole for special occasion meals but for the most part, chicken is used to make a larger meal better instead of being the bulk of the meal.

Feeding three hulking boys is like trying to fill three shop vacs, so I had to come up with creative ways to make the meat and all foods go further...one way was hiding the food in the form of ingredients that have to be put together to make a meal. That way they couldn't clean me out of house and home when I was at work by eating all the ready to eat things.

 

[Beekissed]

Warning: long post ahead.

We did it. Okay, to be honest, DH did most of it. I watched and cheered him on from the sidelines. Instead of 7, we ended up processing 6. One of my cockerels had escaped the crate overnight. I have no idea how he did it (its an old metal crate and many of the sides are zip tied together). So, I copied Bee's example and decided that he had earned himself another day. Final tally: 6 young cockerels (17-24 weeks old) and 3 older hens (2 were 2.5 yrs, 1 was 6 yrs).

We ended up not using a killing cone, but instead hung them upside down on a rope on a low hanging tree branch.

Observations:

We had a sharp knife and a razor blade. It seemed like we still needed something sharper though. Slitting the throat took longer than I would have liked on the first one, but DH got much better as he went (cutting deeper). It did not take that long and I do not feel that any suffered.

We skinned them. Tricky business, but this is something else that DH improved on as he went along. One thing I was NOT prepared for was when DH pushed down firmly on the body of one cockerel in order to get a good grip to pull some skin - the blasted thing made a live chicken noise! I get it that he was pressing air out of the lung and all that - I just wasn't prepared for that to happen. My 7 yr old thought it was hilarious.

The cockerels had nearly zero fat on them, while the hens were all covered in it. In fact, I was shocked at the amount the hens had. They eat the same amounts of FF each day and live in the same pen, so I am perplexed by the difference. I guess those cockerels ran around a whole lot more than I realized.

Cockerels all done:



Hens:







The fat shown on the hens above is what is left AFTER we cut off quite a bit of it with the skin. Even their organs were vastly different. Cockerels first, then hens:





I was sad about the hens because these (with the exception of our 9 yr old RIR who received a reprieve today) are the last of our original flock. But I do not regret the decision. The 2 younger hens have always had poor feathers. While the rest of our flock looks shiny and fluffy, these girls always looked a little ragged for some reason. One had persistent bald spots on her neck. In the necropsy I could not find anything odd looking in her insides, so I'm not sure why she never looked as sleek as the others. I did see the ovaries of the two younger hens. One did have what appeared to be a good amount of eggs, but the other had way less than I expected. The 6 yr old hen was by far the fattiest. She laid well earlier this summer, but has not laid in several months. I was pleased with my decision to go ahead and cull her. She only found 2 eggs to be. I think she had truly laid just about everything she had for us.

Start to completely finished was about 3 hours. It would have gone a little faster if I wouldn't have stopped DH so often for pictures. Glad we did it, but glad it's over...

Excellent pics and feedback on the processing! Hens naturally store more fat, much like us ladies have fat deposits in areas that guys just do not. That has more to do with hormones than anything else. I love seeing all that fresh meat, grown at home and processed at home! Does a heart good.

 

[fisherlady]

Thank you.

I buy only organic for my kids and boycott all the major Monsanto supporting companies, even if one of their products is GMO free.
Which is why I started raising meat.
I know it won't be cheaper than the store, but even if it's for all the right reasons, we can't afford $20 per bird to feed our family of 4. That'd be $600 a month just on chicken dinners!
Hopefully I can find a way to make it more affordable.

With shipping, the freedom rangers break down to $2.70 a piece as chicks.
You can get the cornish cheaper, and they don't hang around as long before processing, but my experience with them wasn't a positive one.

Dutchbunny.... below I have quoted myself from a few months back in regards to our Cornish Cross and I believe if you go to the links/page I mentioned it includes a breakdown of our costs also. As far as costs per chick, you may be able to find them through tractor supply or your local feed mill at a more reasonable cost, especially if they follow you home on a routine shopping trip!!! Also, you may want to find another person or two in your area who wants meat birds and take advantage of the cheaper prices available if you buy in larger numbers. Just split the birds and costs after they arrive.

Here is a page where I covered a lot of my raising/feeding stuff...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...roup-help-us-through-the-emotions-please/1040

I actually was answering questions for another poster, it is at the bottom of the page, I believe. My answers are within the quote in a different color.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...through-the-emotions-please/840#post_11102055

Top of page 85 I also described the brooder set up we used to get our meaties started... we encouraged scratching and activity and I believe it has helped. Although our birds are nuts about food they also spend a lot of time moving around inside and outside and I think it helps them.

A couple of other things I have done which may or may not have had an effect on their great sizes...
.... always provided water with Apple Cider Vinegar in it.... inside and outside of their coop
.... put them into a 'play pen' in the yard for 6 hrs or so a day, from 3 wks till nearly 6 wks old, 4 or 5 days a week. playpen was a simple chicken wire round pen about 20 ft across, partial shade with food on one end and water in the other. Tossed in scratch in the middle to give them something to do.
... I gave them yogurt with crushed sunflower seeds (no hulls) in it or scrambled eggs once a day while they were in the brooder. Maybe 1/2 cup to 3/4 cut total each day. Just enough that each got a little bit of the yogurt to keep their gut happy.

So far our largest bird was 10lb 15 oz live weight, at one day shy of 9 wks when butchered.... so we've been incredibly lucky with some great birds!

Edited to correct a weight... DH has a better memory than I do! LOL

 

[DaveMorey]

I found I could stretch my home grown chicken by using it in dishes only, instead of roasting a chicken and using it as the main dish.  So, I stopped freezing so many of them whole and started quartering them and freezing them in portions for soup or stir fry and such.  Sure does stretch the meat over two or three meals.  We froze a few of them whole for special occasion meals but for the most part, chicken is used to make a larger meal better instead of being the bulk of the meal. 

Feeding three hulking boys is like trying to fill three shop vacs, so I had to come up with creative ways to make the meat and all foods go further...one way was hiding the food in the form of ingredients that have to be put together to make a meal.  That way they couldn't clean me out of house and home when I was at work by eating all the ready to eat things.   

One of my sons loves to cook whole turkeys and chickens. We have used them as a meal but there is always leftovers. When we pick the carcass clean after dinner I cut any leftover meat into small pieces. Then I drain off all the juice from the pan into small containers and freeze it overnight. Once frozen I combine one block of the bird drippings and a portion of meat into a vacuum bag and seal it. I freeze these until I want to make chicken and rice soup or some variation of it. Then I just open the bag and put it in a pot of water with boulion and whatever veggies. Presto you have soup. Add some dumplings and life is spectacular. Just my 2 cents

 

[wlhtx]

Okay - I've been second guessing something all night. By 6 birds are currently resting in our shop refrigerator. My plan was to leave them in the fridge for about 3 days before putting them in the freezer. Each of them are inside a gallon size freezer bag (I never got around to ordering some of those neat shrink bags that someone showed early on in this forum). Is this right? Are they supposed to be inside the freezer bags right now? Or are they supposed to be able to "breath" or something? Since we skinned them, I didn't want the meat to get all icky looking, but now I'm worried they may have still been a little too wet from rinsing when we put them in there.