Rigor lasting days & days...

[BantyChooks]

I processed a 10 month old Australorp last year. His legs did NOT move freely at all, actually, to get them to budge I had to dislocate them from the hip socket. He still tasted great.

 

[N Sully]

https://livestockconservancy.org/images/uploads/docs/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf

This was on another question on meat posted by @Maeschak Good reading on fixing heritage birds and talked about your subject

**whoops Maeschak posted the link

 

[Birdinhand]

I was on a trip to a remote Island in Indonesia for some scuba diving many years ago and every morning at like 3:45 a rooster would start revving up it's vocal cords outside our "window". within a few days I was kind of peeved and sleep deprived, which must have been obvious when a gentleman came to ask how our stay was going and I jokingly said, well one thing that would make it better is if you served up that rooster for dinner! low and behold I was served up rooster for dinner and no more early morning crowing . let me say that that was the stringyest bird I've ever eaten, I could have used it's leg as a catapult.

perhaps what you have there is simply, one tough bird!

 

[Birdinhand]

duplicate

 

[wild chick]

Sorry for late reply, but here's what I did: I'm thinking "relaxed" means the legs start relaxing down to look like a store-bought chicken, but they continue to stick straight up, like pointing to high noon. I put a thermometer next to him, just curious about the fridge temp - it's about 39 F. I took him out and all the muscles are soft, I took both legs and just leaned down on them and they folded neat as can be. Next time I'll try this 3 days out instead of 5! Maybe only meaties do what people expect meat chickens to look/act like? I def have very active chickens, this cockerel was just under 7 months and free ranged with his mother from day 2. Also purple thighs! Is this a free range thing too or a breed thing? Dark meat is really dark! Thanks for all your advice friends!

 

[wild chick]

It worked @Egghead_Jr Thanks!

If the thigh is soft then it's past rigor. Just us a little force to get the joint started. I bet once you loosen the tendon it moves freely.

 

[SimplyLogan]

We have had older chickens take almost 7 days to relax nicely. We keep ours in a cooler we used to rest the birds. The first 1-2 days we fill with water and add salt, and fill with ice. It does take a lot of ice for our process. We drain the salt water and refill with (no salt) water. then pack with ice. Some birds will loosen up sooner than others. We pull them out and shrink wrap them as they are finished. It has taken some 7 days. We have to pay close attention to keep the ice and not let the temp drop (do not want spoiled birds). Buying huge bags of ice is not exactly cheap. The first time we tried it we let go 3-5 days and we had tough birds. I was afraid of letting them sit would make the spoil but we decided to see how long it would take.... ended up with nice birds and compliments from others we shared with.

 

[cottontail farm]

I agree with the floppy legs being a cornish cross/meat bird thing. I think all of the backyard mutt chickens I have done here have had legs sticking up after a couple of days. The meat can be DARK too, but you're about to enjoy some awesome real chicken flavor there!

 

[Mosey2003]

In my experience, it depends on a few things. Roosters do tend to take longer than hens though. What makes a big difference that I've seen is how you kill them. They seem to be 'okay' when done by slitting the throat and bleeding out. I had one that I tried to use an axe, missed horribly, and took like three chops to get the head off, that rooster NEVER relaxed (and I felt horrible, thus I won't chop heads again). If they're all worked up just before/as you kill them, they're gonna stay stiff longer because they're full of adrenaline. That's why you don't want to really have to chase one down hard before you butcher. The last ones I did I used the broomstick method and then cut the head off and the hen was still rather loose even as I put her in the fridge, and it had been a good half hour since she was dispatched. That's the method I'm going to be sticking with from here on out.

 

[cornfedhogedito]

I hAve a book called "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausage " it talks about rigor in animals. One thing it said was f cooling a carcass too rapidly, below 50°F before onset of rigor that the meat/muscles may contract which will cause the meat to be tough when cooked. It also recommends leaving the carcass at room temperature for several hours to accelerate rigor and then aged between 30 to 41°F.

They have a chart of rigor times by animal and for chickens for onset of rigor is 1/2 to 1 hour and resolution time of rigor to be 4 to 6 hours.

The first birds I did were tough as shoe leather, processed and plunged into ice water for 12 hours. Read the book and it made sense so I tried it on 3 birds. Sealed in zip lock bags on counter for 6 hours and refrigerator for 24 hours. Taste was great and soft and these were 2 year old EE.

Now the true test will be when I run a batch of 15 meat birds!

Hope this helps and I'm not an expert but this is what worked for my old birds!