Wrath's Marans

[Tstraub]

I'm still trying to convince the warden to butcher, but she's a hard sell. I've got a buyer paying 15/per bird at 19-20 weeks so I guess my question is... Is it difficult and time consuming to butcher your own, I mean there's all that involved plus getting the meat right so it's edible.
I would like to try Marans meat at least once.

I’ll add my butcher experience as well. I’m definitely no expert I have butchered exactly 9 chickens in total. I do have a whole lot of experience cleaning fish and I believe a lot of the knife skills and the feelings of taking a life for a meal do transfer well enough from fish to bird.

The last batch I did took me 4 1/2 hours to put 7 birds on ice. About 30 minutes setup 30 minutes each bird and 30 minutes cleanup. Probably at least 20 minutes of hand plucking each bird. I think next time I’m going to try skinning them out rather than plucking all the feathers. Some of the birds had significant skin damage anyway as I got my scalding temperature and time figured out so it felt like a lot of wasted time pulling the feathers then the skin was pretty unappealing to look at when I was done.

 

[2ndTink]

I’ll add my butcher experience as well. I’m definitely no expert I have butchered exactly 9 chickens in total. I do have a whole lot of experience cleaning fish and I believe a lot of the knife skills and the feelings of taking a life for a meal do transfer well enough from fish to bird.

The last batch I did took me 4 1/2 hours to put 7 birds on ice. About 30 minutes setup 30 minutes each bird and 30 minutes cleanup. Probably at least 20 minutes of hand plucking each bird. I think next time I’m going to try skinning them out rather than plucking all the feathers. Some of the birds had significant skin damage anyway as I got my scalding temperature and time figured out so it felt like a lot of wasted time pulling the feathers then the skin was pretty unappealing to look at when I was done.

Getting the head and neck off is the most challenging part for me, physically anyway.

I have to pick out which birds go (not easy on the heart here!) Catch them, deliver them to my hubby who runs the kil cones through plucking, then they are handed to me fatherless and I just pretend I don't know who it is... my mom came last time to package, so we did pretty well with a 3 person crew.

I knew I couldn't hand pluck my "pets" so I bought a mechanical plucker.

 

[Tstraub]

Getting the head and neck off is the most challenging part for me, physically anyway.

I have to pick out which birds go (not easy on the heart here!) Catch them, deliver them to my hubby who runs the kil cones through plucking, then they are handed to me fatherless and I just pretend I don't know who it is... my mom came last time to package, so we did pretty well with a 3 person crew.

I knew I couldn't hand pluck my "pets" so I bought a mechanical plucker.

Yeah removing the neck does take some physical strength. Choosing who had to go was easy for me. This batch was all Olive Eggers. If they were cockerels they had to go I don’t have the time or housing to test mate any of them just to try to figure out what they offer in egg color

Butcher day didn’t bother me as far as hand plucking I was the one that took them to the cone so I knew what was happening and I simply had a job to do. a couple days later when I made the broth and I could identify the chicken feet by color and feathering I did feel the feels. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself the boys are just for butcher don’t get attached some part of you does get attached to those crazy little guys. They had a good life and one bad day

 

[2ndTink]

Yeah removing the neck does take some physical strength. Choosing who had to go was easy for me. This batch was all Olive Eggers. If they were cockerels they had to go I don’t have the time or housing to test mate any of them just to try to figure out what they offer in egg color

Butcher day didn’t bother me as far as hand plucking I was the one that took them to the cone so I knew what was happening and I simply had a job to do. a couple days later when I made the broth and I could identify the chicken feet by color and feathering I did feel the feels. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself the boys are just for butcher don’t get attached some part of you does get attached to those crazy little guys. They had a good life and one bad day

Knowing logically who needed to go (non-keeper boys, egg eaters, feather pickers...) that was easy, but committing to actually process them was still hard. I did pretty good this last time, I was able to be more business about it, less feel-y.

They're all so easy to get attached to. I agree, good lives with one partial bad day, still WAY better than the commercially raised chicks.

I didn't save the feet, I've read about using them for broth, but do you peal them and take the nails off or anything? I've not ventured I to that area yet. I've made it to doing a neck bone broth is all.

 

[Tstraub]

I removed the nails by cutting the toe tips off at the closest knuckle. A sharp knife between the bones and they pop right off. Then I scrubbed them with a brush sort of like cleaning a potato and pulled any feathers that didn’t come off during the scrub. Then I just added them to the broth along with the bones and necks

I don’t know how much extra flavor the feet added over just using bones and necks but I was happy with the results.

 

[wrathsfarm]

You should try it, at least once!

15 / bird, yeah, can't beat that! We aren't the fastest but 3 of us did 16 birds in 5 hours. Sometimes you can find people who rent their processing equipment out by the day. I highly recommend a plucker. But, if you only do 1 just to try things out... skin it my hubby thought I was bonkers a few years back when I accidentally bought a CX, we gave her the best life she could have until one day she was just too heavy for her legs and it was time. I skinned her...

We have 21 do do this weekend.

I'm going to be down to 72 going into the winter, huge relief!

I think I got lucky with this buyer. Last year when I sold the 3 OE's I only got 5/bird. This gentleman says he's been driving close to an hour for birds and I'm 10 minutes away from him. So he was pretty happy and wanted more. He even pointed at Kong.

Ah....nope, sorry.

 

[TexasBlues]

We ate 2 of our Marans cockerels. The soup broth and meat were fantastic. I included the feet also and they just fell apart after simmerimg.
I have some fibro cockerels I’m thinking of butchering. I’ve been curious about cooking with the dark meat and skin.

 

[TexasBlues]

I also forgot to mention that I didn’t scald them or use a plucker and boy it’s not easy to pluck them dry by hand.

 

[wrathsfarm]

We ate 2 of our Marans cockerels. The soup broth and meat were fantastic. I included the feet also and they just fell apart after simmerimg.
I have some fibro cockerels I’m thinking of butchering. I’ve been curious about cooking with the dark meat and skin.

Definitely give us an update. I'm going to keep plugging away at wifey about it, but if I can keep getting 15/bird, I won't complain. I had them posted for 20 but the day I dropped to 15, I got the text and they were listed for less than a week, only on Craigslist.

 

[2ndTink]

I think I got lucky with this buyer. Last year when I sold the 3 OE's I only got 5/bird. This gentleman says he's been driving close to an hour for birds and I'm 10 minutes away from him. So he was pretty happy and wanted more. He even pointed at Kong.

Ah....nope, sorry.

Send him my way!

And yeah, no Kong!