I have chick and egg orders coming in like crazy!!
I sure hope I can make enough to pay for feed and bedding at least this year.
What are you doing to create traffic on your website?
About
cooking heritage chicken:
After processing, for best meat texture, chickens should be chilled and aged before cooking. Most sources
recommend chilling and aging chickens for 24 hours, and up to 3 days before freezing. I think aging at least 24hours improves the texture, and that older chickens are better with longer aging, up to perhaps 5 days in the refrigerator for fowl. The properly aged bird should retain a very fresh clean smell with no hint of taint. I've read that some recommend chickens that are to be frozen need not be aged first if they will remain at least a month in the freezer. However, that advice may have been based on industrial meat lines, butchered very young. For historic breed
chickens butchered at 12 weeks or older, freezer aging may not be enough. If a chicken was not aged in the fridge for at least 24 hours before freezing, then after thawing I usually will allow it another day or more to age in the fridge, before cooking. I do brine before cooking all of my chicken.
An important generality about the difference between cooking modern meat line chickens and cooking historic breed chickens is that for the latter there is a bigger distinction in time needed to cook the light and dark meat. Modern meat line chickens, being all butchered within a very young age range, all have leg meat nearly as tender as the breast meat, which will cook about as fast. The historic and heritage breed chicken has had more exercise over a longer time before it is butchered, which greatly increases flavor but also increases cooking time for
those muscles. This becomes noticeable in the fryer age range: the breast meat of a fryer will reach optimal doneness noticeably before the legs. The difference increases as the butchering age increases, and seems pronounced in birds over one year. The cook has to plan how to prevent the breast meat from getting overcooked, and dry, by the time the leg meat is done. Good cooks will find many ways to achieve this end, and the results are well worthwhile.
I am a chef and it can be challenging to find the right way to cook your chicken.
4-10 weeks old you can cook these anyway you want. They are called fryers because the meat is tender and juicy and close to texture you are used to. They have not reached the flavor profile that an older chicken will have.
The stock you make out of a 10-16 week old bird can't be beaten IMHO. It is so rich and tasty my mouth is watering thinking about it. These need to be cooked differently and need low moist heat with breast meat protected from drying out. The legs will be dry if it is a dry heat. I love to bake these birds in apple juice steam. I just set them in a bed of juice and slow roast them with foil over them till the last few minutes to add color.
Over 16 weeks you need gentle time..crock pots work perfect if you have a low enough setting. Coq Au Vin is perfect for an older bird.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/coq-au-vin-recipe.html
She will stop to pick up her ball before chasing a squirrel. Silly girl! She is 6 years old now and people think she is 2 years old. I can't wait to get another GSD pup from the same breeder. She will be a sable female and her call name will be Hope. Ya, I like to plan ahead. 
