What's your favorite meat bird?

[feathersnuggles]

Quote:
Thanks for the description. It sounds medieval...I love it!

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[[......not pleased with the tenderness of it though a little tough.....]]]

9 weeks of age to butcher isn't causing any problems with tenderness. Meat has to rest before cooking and home raised chicken will always be more firm because the store bought chicken has been injected with as much as 10% water, which often contains salt or soybean.

 

[weimanator]

i had that issue with a wild turkey i shot. first one i cleaned and ate that night and it won't bad but it was a little tough. the second i shot and cleaned and packed ice in it and hung it up*bled it out* then cooked it next day after it soaked about 4 hours in cool water and salt and it was so juicy and tender.

 

[Ariel301]

If you're a white meat lover (and I am) you can't beat the Cornish cross. Yum, yum, yum. But I hate raising them. True, I got a bad batch, they were sick with something, didn't grow right, (they were 2 pounds at 9 weeks!) and I never got to eat any of my homegrown ones as they all died of whatever they were sick with. Two of 80 survived, both hens, and I kept them on as layers for a while but they died from the heat in the summer at about 9 months old. Those two did finally start growing, at time of death they were about 15 pounds each. They were lazy, disgusting, stinky, greedy, and just not right. I won't do them again, though I do like to eat them.

Of all the homegrown birds I have tried, I really like Buff Orpington. I processed some spent hens (5 years old) last year and those girls were MEATY! Not really any good for fast cooking (frying, baking, grilling) but delicious in the crock pot. So much flavor.

I had a Cornish bantam, and though I never ate her, I wanted to lol. She was only about the size of a big quail, but really muscular. When I can get chickens again, I'm going to get a bunch of them. I'm also going to experiment with crossing large fowl Cornish game and Buff Orpingtons for a slow-growing free range meat bird.

 

[geepy]

Quote:
Did you let the birds sit in the fridge for a few days before cooking them or putting them in the freezer? If not, the toughness you experienced was rigor mortis. It is caused by chemical changes in the muscle tissue which occur after death. The state of rigor usually lasts about 24 hours or until muscle decomposition takes place by acid formation. In a human it takes 48-60 to come out of rigor mortis. Two days in the fridge for a chicken and the body would have gone through the complete cycle. If you eat it (or freeze it) before that, your fighting against the body's natural rigidity. If you did freeze the birds right away, no worries. The process is just delayed. Once you thaw the bird out leave it in the fridge for a few days before eating, and it will naturally finish the process (though I hear the effect isn't as good as if you did it pre-freeze).

BTW, I learned this the hard way.

I always let my birds rest in the fridge or cooler with ice for at least 3 days (or longer) before freezing. Much tenderer and tastier.

 

[cubalaya]

we chill ours for 24 hours in the fridge and then freeze.
hey whats all this about arsenic in the chicken feed? is it in the meat?

 

[Oregon Blues]

There is no arsenic in the feed I buy. Read the label.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Maryland banned arsenic this year as a medication substitute in chicken feed. I read something this summer that 80% of grocery store chicken contained traceable arsenic. Nearly 100% of fast food chicken had traceable arsenic.

 

[cornish20]

The arsenic thing is bogus... I would post a link to another forum, where that topic was covered very extensively... but that would probably be against the rules... you know, those rules I seem to keep breaking..

 

[cubalaya]

i am looking at the ingredients on the label and i dont see any arsonic or roxarsone.