Raising our 1st set of CX meaties

[foreverlearning]

Don't forget to cut of the oil gland above the tail nub when butchering, don't have a heart attack if the cluck with no head hmmmmm...cones with a bucket underneath for processing keep blood and mess pretty well contained

Let them rest a day or three before eating (gets more tender Mmmmm) I have a ton of things I wish I'd known and now know and can't remember lol
Quote:
Read the thread threw her first processing. There are a ton of things we forgot to tell her and she has video links for it.

 

[MamaKitty913]

We raised out first set in the basement, so we made a screen from the beginning because we knew if one of ours had gotten out, he would have been a popsicle before we found him. Now our brooders are in the barn, so we still need the screen because of critters.

I was really surprised at how well they fly while they are little.

I know this is an older post but just had to share... Baby Gates work AWESOME and you can find them next to someone's trash all the time, with the holes they still get plenty of air but stay in the brooder.

 

[Angelicisi]

Put a whole broiler in the crockpot at 10:30am on top of carrots, potatoes, celery & shallots. Stuffed with tomatoes and herbs (cilantro and oregano) from the garden. Added No liquid seasoned and covered and turned on high. At 430 it was ready. Fall from the bone goodness. It made its own juice, hubby made gravy out of it. The bones are making stock as we speak Plenty of chicken salad was made from chunks while boning. 4 people got a plate of veggies and chicken and we still have another meal from it.
Amazing. So easy and yummy.

A customer recently sent me pics of what she did with hers too! Mmmmm

 

[BCMaraniac]

Put a whole broiler in the crockpot at 10:30am on top of carrots, potatoes, celery & shallots. Stuffed with tomatoes and herbs (cilantro and oregano) from the garden. Added No liquid

seasoned and covered and turned on high. At 430 it was ready. Fall from the bone goodness. It made its own juice, hubby made gravy out of it. The bones are making stock as we speak

Plenty of chicken salad was made from chunks while boning. 4 people got a plate of veggies and chicken and we still have another meal from it.
Amazing. So easy and yummy.


A customer recently sent me pics of what she did with hers too! Mmmmm

I'm getting out my smoker with my next butchering......

 

[Angelicisi]

The weather has been nice (few storms scattered but lotsa sunshine!) Bug chasing has commenced!

 

[LindaB220]

Put a whole broiler in the crockpot at 10:30am on top of carrots, potatoes, celery & shallots. Stuffed with tomatoes and herbs (cilantro and oregano) from the garden. Added No liquid

seasoned and covered and turned on high. At 430 it was ready. Fall from the bone goodness. It made its own juice, hubby made gravy out of it. The bones are making stock as we speak

Plenty of chicken salad was made from chunks while boning. 4 people got a plate of veggies and chicken and we still have another meal from it.
Amazing. So easy and yummy.


A customer recently sent me pics of what she did with hers too! Mmmmm

Your bird looks terrific. About how much dressed out on him. Large breast.

 

[Angelicisi]

Thanks I'm soooo pleased we did this. *whoops the one I cooked was 4.5 lbs.*
the rest are still chasing ladies til this weekend when we process the rest. Live weights on this most recent dozen we butchered averaged 6 & 7lbs and they dressed out between 4 & 5.5lbs. Very good looking birds. Plucker broke one making it dinner lol but the rest packaged beautifully.

The rest are ranging right now, loving the clover field. Their live weights as of yesterday were 5-9lbs. Few pullets are huge! Roosters are trying to mate lol no crowing yet tho.

We processed 10 CX today. It went well
Only issue was the plucker broke one :/
It's for our own dinner so works out ok tho

 

[MamaKitty913]

Hi Angelicisi! Here's what I got week 7 I haven't uploaded pictures yet still working on that ability lol! Oh and the "Roo" in my notes is my DH Andrew!
3 lb 8 oz hurt 1 leg TBP 2# 6oz
4 lb 12 oz cut foot TBP 3#12 oz pic
5 lb 3 oz TBP 4# 8 oz
5 lb 1 oz TBP 3# 9oz
5 lb 2 oz TBP 2# cooked -thiefs
4 lb 12 oz TBP 9oz remained after bbq
4 lb 4 oz
4 lbs 6 oz
4 lbs 0 oz
4 lbs 7 oz



1 lb 9 oz
1 lb 7 oz
4 lb 6 oz
4 lb 8 oz
4 lb 9 oz
4 lb 4 oz
4 lbs 7 oz
Week 7 Getting ready for processing day tomorrow 6 Cornish TBP allowing more room per bird with 2 injuries, while weight obtained noted one bird had a cut on her foot think it was from metal trough feeder from TSC won't use it again! Was planning on processing day being more like the 15th of April but with the 2 injuries and need for space & Roo having the day off it's the 8th of April. Eggers looking good feathering still sparatic in hidden areas like under wings began to mix a bit of flock feeder, letting them have some scratch, and GOING OUTSIDE was a great thing the meaties became way more mobile and tried to establish a pecking order when introduced to the outdoors. The eggers have been divided WFBS together alone, today 4/7/14 separated the WW from the broilers and all BO"S also seperated for now they tended to "flock together" anyway once they were all outside and so far so good! The Cornish tried to dominate Cookoo but she got ahold of a comb or wattle and wouldn't let go I think she's part pit bull, lol! The Cochin's are really feathering in nicely little Grey and Black are gaining in size. Had a GW get stuck under the Egger Pearch, scary but Roo turned her around so far she seems okay she was very upset and seemed a bit stiff. Linebacker jumped up to my lap for a pet and then my shoulder from the ground outside scared her self so she pooped me! All wt's done in the evening after eating well all day, had to since this was their last meal! We are getting ALOT of food waste from our egger girls I'll be working on that solution after we process, and still no sucess reusing a tidy cat container (lightwt) for a water dispenser can't maintain the cap seal! BAH! Oh well it's a learning process and just requires more thought and time. Still don't have a hen house and people may have bought the house?! Need house in country by 3132 mansfield/walker road area ASAP
4/10/14 yesterday one of the buff's climbed on top of one of the WFBS! Weights for TBS Obtained today had soaked 2 birds in salt rosemary and a dash of garlic wts of these two birds 3# 9 oz, 3# 12 oz (took a picture of this bird on the scale You can see the rosemary on her, lol.) 4# 8 oz, 2# 6 oz obtained from bird with the broken leg you could see the bruising and this wt was w/o skin, feet and broken leg (she was the first, I did the deed and tried dry plucking, epic fail. but now I can skin, in fact we had trouble keeping our skin intact, and the butchering I did well let's say I'm a neebie and it shows, lol! The bird we bbq'd had a wt of leftovers 9 oz, and the bird I roasted was 2 lbs (- people not able to resist }

 

[Angelicisi]

That's awesome great job! Great weights! @ TBP #2 cooked Chicken poo presents I love spending time with the birds too I have almost zero waste since starting fermented feed. I love it. So easy, so good for them and saved at LEAST 30% in feed. If you already do FF maybe try cutting back the amount? Try cutting amount fed by 1/3 and see if it gets eaten quicker. When we did our auto waterers in 5 gallon buckets we had a few explode lol before realizing we had to drill a few teeny tiny holes in the top to let air escape when we filled it up with the hose. If you need a permanent seal this stuff called "water weld" is pretty awesome stuff that seals even in wet conditions. It's like a clay substance you can stretch and seal lotsa stuff with. If it needs to come off and on could use a bungee cord hooked at the base on each side and over the top...or hmmm

Hi Angelicisi! Here's what I got week 7 I haven't uploaded pictures yet still working on that ability lol! Oh and the "Roo" in my notes is my DH Andrew!
3 lb 8 oz hurt 1 leg TBP 2# 6oz
4 lb 12 oz cut foot [TD]TBP 3#12 oz pic[/TD]
5 lb 3 oz [TD]TBP 4# 8 oz[/TD]
5 lb 1 oz [TD]TBP 3# 9oz[/TD]
5 lb 2 oz [TD]TBP 2# cooked -thiefs[/TD]
4 lb 12 oz [TD]TBP 9oz remained after bbq[/TD]
4 lb 4 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lbs 6 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lbs 0 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lbs 7 oz [TD] [/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
[TD] [/TD]
1 lb 9 oz [TD] [/TD]
1 lb 7 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lb 6 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lb 8 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lb 9 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lb 4 oz [TD] [/TD]
4 lbs 7 oz [TD] [/TD]
Week 7 Getting ready for processing day tomorrow 6 Cornish TBP allowing more room per bird with 2 injuries, while weight obtained noted one bird had a cut on her foot think it was from metal trough feeder from TSC won't use it again! Was planning on processing day being more like the 15th of April but with the 2 injuries and need for space & Roo having the day off it's the 8th of April. Eggers looking good feathering still sparatic in hidden areas like under wings began to mix a bit of flock feeder, letting them have some scratch, and GOING OUTSIDE was a great thing the meaties became way more mobile and tried to establish a pecking order when introduced to the outdoors. The eggers have been divided WFBS together alone, today 4/7/14 separated the WW from the broilers and all BO"S also seperated for now they tended to "flock together" anyway once they were all outside and so far so good! The Cornish tried to dominate Cookoo but she got ahold of a comb or wattle and wouldn't let go I think she's part pit bull, lol! The Cochin's are really feathering in nicely little Grey and Black are gaining in size. Had a GW get stuck under the Egger Pearch, scary but Roo turned her around so far she seems okay she was very upset and seemed a bit stiff. Linebacker jumped up to my lap for a pet and then my shoulder from the ground outside scared her self so she pooped me! All wt's done in the evening after eating well all day, had to since this was their last meal! We are getting ALOT of food waste from our egger girls I'll be working on that solution after we process, and still no sucess reusing a tidy cat container (lightwt) for a water dispenser can't maintain the cap seal! BAH! Oh well it's a learning process and just requires more thought and time. Still don't have a hen house and people may have bought the house?! Need house in country by 3132 mansfield/walker road area ASAP
4/10/14 yesterday one of the buff's climbed on top of one of the WFBS! Weights for TBS Obtained today had soaked 2 birds in salt rosemary and a dash of garlic wts of these two birds 3# 9 oz, 3# 12 oz (took a picture of this bird on the scale You can see the rosemary on her, lol.) 4# 8 oz, 2# 6 oz obtained from bird with the broken leg you could see the bruising and this wt was w/o skin, feet and broken leg (she was the first, I did the deed and tried dry plucking, epic fail. but now I can skin, in fact we had trouble keeping our skin intact, and the butchering I did well let's say I'm a neebie and it shows, lol! The bird we bbq'd had a wt of leftovers 9 oz, and the bird I roasted was 2 lbs (- people not able to resist }

 

[MamaKitty913]

Hi Angel I havent' been using FF just alternating with chick starter and 24% game food, clover, treats such as meal worms and last week a few handfuls of scratch (trying to get the meaties to work a bit lol) I am a frugal person but with this our first time at chickens I haven't worried to much about how much my cost was per lb. just worried I would mess up and have no chicken to harvest, especially since I have about 30 feral cats comming to our house looking for testes and ovaries that we had "taken" from them

We also feed them and give them a safe haven from the mean streets of Bossier. We have 7 cats that live inside the rest we have outside most of the time. Makes keeping chicks/chickens safe a bit more tricky but WE DID IT! Now the kitties are scared of the meat birds, I've really got to get some video! Our mystery chick is a Brahma and he loves the cat toy called a cat dancer, he calls to his flock that there is a flying dinner, all the eggers come running and it looks like they are watching a tennis game! ROFL! I love it! They eat really well it's just they fling it everywhere! Like a 2 year old with Cheerio's!