What is the Best Tasting Heritage Meat Bird?

[bigredfeather]

I'd like to suggest Buckeyes. On the dual purpose scale, they tend to be better for the meat aspect, but lay enough eggs (about 180-200 eggs/year) that you can still get plenty of offspring. I have been selecting the largest and fast growing birds for my breeding stock. I am early in the process, but have seen some positive results from the last batch I did, and I just hatched out 50 more chicks. We'll see if they do any better.

One thing I would like to add. Just remember that CX and DP's can't be equally compared on a butcher weight basis. If a CX and a DP both dress out at 5 lbs, there will be more meat on the CX due to smaller and less dense bone structure. This is something that I didn't realize until I had butchered and eaten both. Personally, I LOVE the taste and texture of a DP bird. Problem is I don't have the patience to wait the amount of time it takes to raise them up. I can do twice as many CX as DP in the same time frame. On the other hand, I like the self sustainabilty aspect of raising DP breeds. It's a double edged sword, I guess.

 

[newt13]

The problem that most people have with BO and RIR as well as other heritage breeds is that they are comparing them with the chickens we buy from the stores. Heritage breeds will have less breast meat and if they are not aged properly and cooked like a heritage bird they can be a little tough if they are older than 6 months. I find that I can go as long as 9 months with my birds and have heard that you can go as long as a year before processing as long as you age them well before eating them. If you are okay with not having huge breasts on your chickens the taste of a heritage breed bird is absolutely amazing. My son who has eaten our heritage birds for the last 3 years now says that birds from the store and the Cornish X that we raised are very bland and spongy tasting. The heritage birds which are all we eat now are much more flavorful and the meat has more substance to it. I'm not sure if I am describing this in a way that you can understand but it's the only way I can figure to put it lol.

I have eaten BO, RIR, Production Red, Delaware, Brahma, Gold Comet, Cochin, and mixes of the above so I have tried a lot and many different ages as well. It doesn't matter how old they are as long as you know how to cook them. Older birds go in the crock pot younger birds can be cooked like birds from the store you just have to age the meat to get rid of the rigor first. The birds at the store go through the same process we just don't see it since we aren't eating them right after processing. Love the taste, the texture and won't be eating anything but my home grown birdies anymore. Sorry for rambling it tends to happen when I type late at night lol.

 

[newt13]

The problem that most people have with BO and RIR, as well as other heritage breeds, is that they are comparing them with the chickens we buy from the stores. Heritage breeds will have less breast meat and if they are not aged properly and cooked like a heritage bird they can be a little tough if they are older than 6 months. I find that I can go as long as 9 months with my birds and have heard that you can go as long as a year before processing as long as you age them well before eating them. If you are okay with not having huge breasts on your chickens the taste of a heritage breed bird is absolutely amazing. My son who has eaten our heritage birds for the last 3 years now says that birds from the store and the Cornish X that we raised are very bland and spongy tasting. The heritage birds which are all we eat now are much more flavorful and the meat has more substance to it. I'm not sure if I am describing this in a way that you can understand but it's the only way I can figure to put it lol.

I have eaten BO, RIR, Production Red, Delaware, Brahma, Gold Comet, Cochin, and mixes of the above so I have tried a lot and many different ages as well. It doesn't matter how old they are as long as you know how to cook them. Older birds go in the crockpot younger birds can be cooked like birds from the store you just have to age the meat to get rid of the rigor first. The birds at the store go through the same process we just don't see it since we aren't eating them right after processing. Love the taste, the texture and won't be eating anything but my homegrown birdies anymore. Sorry for rambling it tends to happen when I type late at night lol.

how do you age them? Is it by having them in the fridge for 3 days before they go to the freezer? n

 

[newt13]

how do you age them? Is it by placing them in fridge for 3 days before freezing them?

 

[Degalisto]

I have to get in on this too!

The best tasting so far, well for me, were:

1. Dorking X Rock
2. Marraduna Basque
3. Dorking X Marans
4. Partridge Rock

The Dorking X Rock was 3.5 pounds at 12 weeks!

This is a picture of a Basque cutup:

Nothing beats a Dorking..so far in our taste tests. Rich favorful!! Too bad they are so rare.