I got four free roosters from someone (from Craigslist) yesterday.
They ALL had crop or gizzard problems! All four. And NO that wasn't revealed when I picked them up. I knew their crops were stuffed, they were huge and hard, but since the birds were so skinny I figured the owner had just thrown them a bunch of corn to raise their weight before listing them.
But no.
After butchering them one was found to have no grit in his gizzard. His intestines were empty, the food in his gizzard was still whole. Poor thing.
Two more had impacted crops. Feathers, clumps of grass, things like that preventing much food from moving into the gizzard. Looks like some was moving through, but not a lot. One had corn and seeds in his throat almost all the way to his mouth.
And the last had something like sour crop. By this point I was opening all the gizzards and crops to see what was in them, and this one's crop was full of what looked and smelled like chicken poop. Gross! Stunk up the whole room.
So I have four roosters totaling maybe 15 lbs - meat and bones combined - in my refrigerator. At least I didn't pay for them. And the feathers on one were downright gorgeous. I'll wash and package them and offer them for sale. That might make up for the work we did in prepping such poor amounts of meat.
And the person is selling out their whole flock (the person getting the hens already picked them up) or I'd report this to the authorities. The birds were literally starving to death. But they're getting out of chickens entirely. "It wasn't worth it" they said. Wonder why. Grrrr...
They ALL had crop or gizzard problems! All four. And NO that wasn't revealed when I picked them up. I knew their crops were stuffed, they were huge and hard, but since the birds were so skinny I figured the owner had just thrown them a bunch of corn to raise their weight before listing them.
But no.
After butchering them one was found to have no grit in his gizzard. His intestines were empty, the food in his gizzard was still whole. Poor thing.
Two more had impacted crops. Feathers, clumps of grass, things like that preventing much food from moving into the gizzard. Looks like some was moving through, but not a lot. One had corn and seeds in his throat almost all the way to his mouth.
And the last had something like sour crop. By this point I was opening all the gizzards and crops to see what was in them, and this one's crop was full of what looked and smelled like chicken poop. Gross! Stunk up the whole room.
So I have four roosters totaling maybe 15 lbs - meat and bones combined - in my refrigerator. At least I didn't pay for them. And the feathers on one were downright gorgeous. I'll wash and package them and offer them for sale. That might make up for the work we did in prepping such poor amounts of meat.
And the person is selling out their whole flock (the person getting the hens already picked them up) or I'd report this to the authorities. The birds were literally starving to death. But they're getting out of chickens entirely. "It wasn't worth it" they said. Wonder why. Grrrr...
