Show off your Delawares! *PIC HEAVY*

[Stevenson]

I will be butchering 3 delaware roos tomorrow. I am having a more difficult time thinking about doing this than I have with the other breeds I have. I am scared that I will butcher the wrong one I guess. I feel like I have a definite top 3 that I am keeping along with 4 others (7 total for now). I plan on giving two more roosters away to reduce down to the top 5. Two of the three roos I will be butchering, I have no problem with....but the third isn't too bad....it's tail is pinched slightly.

Tomorrow I'll be butchering 5 roos total. 3 - 21 week old Delaware, 1 - 21 week old Partridge Rock, and 1 - 18.5 week old Dominique

Wish me luck!

 

[eggdd]

Quote:
good luck. is this your first time? if so, would you mind reporting back on your experience? i'd prefer an honest, detailed account. actually, even if it isn't your first time - i'd be interested. i have never butchered and i'm not sure i'll be able to do it.

 

[Stevenson]

Quote:
good luck. is this your first time? if so, would you mind reporting back on your experience? i'd prefer an honest, detailed account. actually, even if it isn't your first time - i'd be interested. i have never butchered and i'm not sure i'll be able to do it.

It's not my first time, but I haven't butchered too many. I like to hunt, so it won't be as big of a deal for me as it is for many on here. I am more concerned that I'll be killing a roo I should have kept more than I am worried about doing the actual killing.

I will say, I butchered one a couple of weeks ago and it turned out pretty good. I didn't do the greatest with the skin (took too much off), but other than that it went pretty smoothly. I did watch several youtube videos before doing it since it had been several years since I had butchered a chicken.

 

[Stevenson]

Well, I decided to just butcher 4. The Dominique gets to live another couple days

Some interesting things I found...

One of the Delawares had a stick sticking through it's gizzard, which was black and disgusting around the hole (didn't keep the gizzard on that one!). That Roo always seemed to be less energetic than its counter parts. He always seemed tired to me....I can understand why now!

Another Delaware had a screw in it's gizzard! It had completely worn the threads off! Interestingly enough, that was my smallest roo....I wonder now if it didn't have as much room in its gizzard and so it didn't grow as fast.

It took me longer than I expected to butcher 4 chickens. I really want a chicken plucker now! Next year it will be a must since I'll hopefully be hatching 100-200 Delawares and probably 50-75 other breeds.

I think I got better as I went along. They are all soaking in salt water now and will go in the freezer tonight!

 

[math ace]

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WOW, that is really WIERD!

Can you imagine trying to eat a SCREW? ? ? What is up with these Bird Brains?

I had a bird die from an impacted crop. We did not cut her open to see what had got stuck. We just buried her and made sure we pick up every bit of trash we see laying around. I never thought I would have to worry about consumption of the building materials!

 

[catdaddyfro]

Quote:

WOW, that is really WIERD!

Can you imagine trying to eat a SCREW? ? ? What is up with these Bird Brains?

I had a bird die from an impacted crop. We did not cut her open to see what had got stuck. We just buried her and made sure we pick up every bit of trash we see laying around. I never thought I would have to worry about consumption of the building materials!

Yeah I know it, I remember once as a small child we were going to have Guinea gumbo so my uncle did the deed and butchered out some of them well during the process he cut open a gizzard to clean it out and one of the goofy things had eaten a .22 bullet shell and it had been churning and grinding around in there for so long it was worn paper thin. Crazy things. I always check out the contents of the gizzards when I butcher chickens and find some very interesting objects in there also, some of the prettiest polish jobs on rocks I've ever seen came out of chicken gizzards.

Jeff

 

[Stevenson]

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I found a before picture of this roo. Now that I know what's going on, he does look like he's hurting. I just thought he had an awful tail...turns out, he probably didn't feel like lifting it up.

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

DH and I just processed 3 Delaware boys, 3 Black Austrolorps and one Olive Egger boy today. Took 4 hours of steady work.

Oh, and I now have a young Delaware that decided to go broody just three weeks after laying her first egg.

 

[Jake Levi]

Butchering and eating your own birds is actually one of the very best ways to improve your flock ! That ensures that your breed/flock is well worth having. And that there will be steady improvement in them. Having only pets otoh quickly makes a flock to be of little value.

I am looking forward in the spring to adding some Delawares, now I have a small flock of Icelandics and they will have the same selection pressure, growth and egg production equal to appearence. I am moving cross country in two weeks else I would have some now, the other breed I am interested in is the Iowa Blue. I hope to add both in the spring.

This is a great thread, a lot of good input here.

Ref to the butchering, I have never used cones but I have seen their value here in MI at a family farm operation where they often process 400 birds a day, not many by plant standards but a lot for a family to do. So cones and a plucker are on my list of things to get next year.

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

Jake, I wish you good journey but I hate to see you go. I haven't even gotten to meet you in real life like I had hoped. I think you will be happy with the Delawares. I like them a lot. In regards to a plucker, we have one of those....ME!