- Oct 18, 2009
- 7
- 0
- 7
We took out and cleaned six roosters today.
My husband actually killed a few extra roosters we had years ago, but this was the first time we bought broiler chicks, raised 'em up and then processed them ourselves. I caught 'em, he killed 'em and dipped 'em in the scalding water, I plucked 'em, he cleaned 'em out and then we bagged 'em together and they're in the fridge cooling down now.
We got so much great advice, guidance and words of wisdom from this forum. It also helped me get my courage up to help. I couldn't be there for the actual moment of truth, but I did help with everything else.
We got these French broilers from J&M Hatchery and they came straight-run, but out of 25 we could only say for sure that 6 were roosters. There are a couple more that may be, but we're not entirely sure yet. They grew really fat, really fast in 8 weeks. We normally have always free-ranged our chickens, but either a fox or bobcat started picking them off until we were down to just 3 (from about 15) so we built a nice big chicken house and kept 'em in almost the whole time. They've been going out during the day now and we lock 'em in at night, so hopefully our next batch will be more naturally free-range. It will be interesting to see if there is a taste difference in the free range birds.
We will keep the hens for eggs and we plan to clean some of our dozen guineas next. They are still pretty small - didn't grow nearly as fast as the chickens. They will hopefully make some good Christmas dinner birds.
Thanks again to all the great advice on this forum. Look forward to checking back often.
We got so much great advice, guidance and words of wisdom from this forum. It also helped me get my courage up to help. I couldn't be there for the actual moment of truth, but I did help with everything else.
We got these French broilers from J&M Hatchery and they came straight-run, but out of 25 we could only say for sure that 6 were roosters. There are a couple more that may be, but we're not entirely sure yet. They grew really fat, really fast in 8 weeks. We normally have always free-ranged our chickens, but either a fox or bobcat started picking them off until we were down to just 3 (from about 15) so we built a nice big chicken house and kept 'em in almost the whole time. They've been going out during the day now and we lock 'em in at night, so hopefully our next batch will be more naturally free-range. It will be interesting to see if there is a taste difference in the free range birds.
We will keep the hens for eggs and we plan to clean some of our dozen guineas next. They are still pretty small - didn't grow nearly as fast as the chickens. They will hopefully make some good Christmas dinner birds.
Thanks again to all the great advice on this forum. Look forward to checking back often.
