Redwing Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 Well D day has arrived for my big brown chicken, we have been 'growing' her since April and she will be this years Christmas dinner We have had 10 home grown chickens this year and have another 4 growing on Our breeding group (Stan and his ladies) are ready to supply our future meat chickens and the eggs are fertile! We will buy another batch of quicker growing chicks to fill the gap between now and next summer as we wont be hatching our first home bred chicks till Feb It seems a long time since the Sheffield course How has everyone else done? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules. Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 Just the 3 light sussex boys for us. I don't think I'll be hatching in future, plus I don't have an eglu anymore so I have nowhere to put the babies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 We raised chicks we bought in and they were all dispatched by the end of November. I think we'd like to choose a pure breed - utility - and raise our own......just need to decide what to go for. We'd like to go for Light Sussex but they are so pretty.....we're so useless .....we're OK if they're just brown or white Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laurmurf Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 what a timely question, Tasha! Today was d-day for the ponyos - i was going to do it this morning but found lots of reasons why I was too busy. We'd hatched these ourselves (on the Lurkers birthday no less) and decided they would be christmas dinner ages ago. They did start crowing LOUDLY weeks ago and I really should have done it then, but convinced myself they needed to put on some weight before the day. This afternoon came and we needed the eglu for the dinosaurs tonight, so it was really now or... It was actually harder to do than i remembered and expected. I was really nervous, the ponyos looked so very beautiful, I was tense and i had 3 birds to do and pluck tonight. My OH was very consoling and encouraging and held down one side of the broomstick for me. I did the first one and it wasn't quite as 'smooth' as i hoped as I'd hadn't stretched his neck quite long enough to make it easy for us both. The next two were much easier and I was more confident (although I managed to convince myself that the 2nd one hadn't quite 'gone' and i took the spasms for life and panicked a bit, for a few minutes until it all became clear). I didn't do a terrible job for the first one, just not great, if you see what i mean. The plucking was as easy as i remember it, at least in this i am confident! I'm so glad I helped out on Alison's course at Cotswold Chickens. The ponyos didn't have as much 'meat' to them plucked as I expected: decent size but we'll need to do 2 for xmas dinner for the 6 of us. Would i do it again? Yessssss, but I think it's not good if it's too pretty for me! I do want to try Ixworths because I keep hearing about the delicious taste, and as they're white I think it would be easier... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwing Posted December 23, 2009 Author Share Posted December 23, 2009 Its a good point about pretty hens We have three Cuckoo Marans cockerels and they are stunning boys, while I was feeding them the other day one looked right in to my eyes and I felt decidedly uneasy about his fate Stan is a Welsummer and his wives are a marans, a wyandotte and a plain white table bird (long story) and I just know the chicks will be lovely I was thinking of selling the spare girls as layers so they have a chance of a good life laying pretty eggs rather than the fate that the boys will face Part of me wishes we had just stuck to brown and white birds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffin Posted December 23, 2009 Share Posted December 23, 2009 I'm finding it alot easier now. I started off with two white Leghorns that I'd hatched at the end of February. It then seems like forever until the Dorking boys were ready just a few weeks ago. Killing, plucking & gutting them was fine but I didn't enjoy eating them because we ate them just a day after I'd killed them and throughout the meal all I could see was their faces so next time they're going in the freezer for a while until I lose that association. In the past couple of weeks I've despatched a Silkie, two Polands and a bantam Brahma and those bodies have all been disposed of because they're too small to even bother with. I hate that, but with bantams I guess there really is no alternative. The downside of hatching pretty little things but I think in a way I appreciate the girls left behind even more. In the garden I'm now left with a massive Speckled Sussex cockerel and two even bigger Orpingtons. I'm in no hurry so they can live until they crow. I thought the Speckled Sussex would be Christmas dinner but I'm happy to leave him to grow a while longer. 3 of the 4 chicks I hatched recently are boys, one Cream Legbar and two Marans. They'll be ready next summer I've learnt that it doesn't matter if they're pretty birds or not, when the time comes I can be fairly matter of fact about it and get on with the job. As long as I don't eat them soon after I think I'll enjoy eating them more. I'm hoping to just use broodys next year and as far as I'm concerned they can all hatch out as many Sussexes as they want. Easy to sex, easy to sell the girls I don't keep, and the boys slowly mature to a decent size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted December 24, 2009 Share Posted December 24, 2009 We've had to despatch some really beautiful cockerels, Cream Legbars and Cuckoo Marans mostly Once they are dead then the rest just follows......and Cream Legbars need some serious fattening - we put ours onto half pellets/half corn, otherwise there isn't much meat on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 Was thinking about this earlier ... as you do If we do, do it I think freezing is a good idea but how do people freeze them? Whole (gutted in a bag?), jointed or boned? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 We freeze most of ours whole but some are jointed. We use large freezer bags for a whole chicken - Lakeland size 8s If we joint them we usually bag the different joints separately as I use the breast meat in different recipes to the legs......I usually make some sort of Coq au Vin for the legs. The dogs get the wings! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
missuscluck Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 I have got 3 large rhode island red cockerels to dispatch after christmas is over as our last hatch turned out to be all boys Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted December 31, 2009 Share Posted December 31, 2009 We freeze most of ours whole but some are jointed. We use large freezer bags for a whole chicken - Lakeland size 8s Ta Will tell the mother, I think it would make everything easier to deal with, especially for the first couple Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 The hatching eggs we got from Poulet Anglaise in September are now almost 14 weeks old (should be ready at 12-14 weeks). This winter we have had 11 all at once - last winter we did 5, then 6. We have 5 girls and 6 boys in separate pens - the first crowing started last week, so the offending boy was done on Saturday - making a dressed weight of 6lbs 10oz - a fine feast for 5 of us Sunday and plenty left over for at least one more meal. A great bird and very tasty. ..so 24hrs without crowing and now another has started - from 7am this morning when it is still dark - so he is self selected as next to go! Personally I only get 'meat birds' as I couldn't copy with pretty hens. As these were a mix even some of the brown ones are starting to look too pretty - plain white meat birds are the easiest to dispatch we find. We only do 1-2 at a time, thinning out the bigger ones first, or those that crow first currently! It will be at least a month or two before the last one gets the chop I think, but they are all looking a good size already. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WitchHazel Posted January 4, 2010 Share Posted January 4, 2010 We dispatched all the bought-in chicks (which were a ross cob type) last year. We then hatched a range of fertile eggs. Our first hatch was 3 Sassos and 2 Ixworths. The idea behind these were that they would "keep us going" while we waited for our new Dorkings to do things naturally and provide us with offspring. However, the three Sassos (two girls and a boy) are just gorgeous and friendly birds, so we've decided to breed from them. They live in an area along with the two Ixworths. The Ixys are a bit thuggish, and have been right from hatching in fact. It's very strange, as they were all hatched together and were reared together in the same brooder, in the same way. All of them were handled the same. Of the Ixys, one is definitely a boy, the other we aren't sure about. We will be dispatching both of them in the next week or two. The Dorkings turned out to be not so great mothers, and we ended up incubating the eggs of one of them and rearing the chick of the other, ourselves. We also bought some fertile eggs of a different Dorking strain, and we ended up with 4 chicks from that. These 7 chooks live in a separate area and will, as soon as we can, be integrated with the original Dorkings. From there, we'll be keeping the girls to breed from, and the boys will be dispatched at 22-26 weeks. We've found it much harder to contemplate dispatching the ones we hatched ourselves, compared to the ones that we bought in as chicks. I'm OK thinking about the Ixys, because they are are bullies anyway. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about the Dorkings - reasonably OK if they are boys, I think. We had not intended to keep two table flocks (one Dorking and one Sasso) but we will continue to do so while we have a Dorking Cockerel and a Sasso Cockerel. My DH (and his friend) does the dispatching. I find it very sad when the dead bird is on the table, before it's plucked and gutted. Once it's been in dressed and its in the freezer, it's reasonably OK though. We usually have one whole bird for a roast, and the rest are jointed. Liek Lesley, we bag up the differet cuts separately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 ..so 24hrs without crowing and now another has started - from 7am this morning when it is still dark - so he is self selected as next to go! Tracy At 7.30 before work this morning the 2nd crower got it - it was a full loud crow despite me locking them up at night. Within an hour of this one going another has started the crow! I think all the boys have now had it - they will be going ASAP as we live very close to other people. The big fat broilers we had last year couldn't walk by 8-9 weeks as they were so fat and were dispatched young, so this is the first time my meat birds have got to the crowing stage. I saw in last year a way of skinning a bird to get the meat/joints without the trouble of having to pluck or gut - has anyone done this? It seems to look very time saving for a skinned jointed bird. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laurmurf Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 i've spoken to quite a few people who skin rather than pluck. I think it's very straight forward from what they've said. You only need to pluck if you plan to roast really. Even with good plucking they stay a bit 'hairy', don't they? I read about reusable chook-waxing kits.... chicken brazil, anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 i've spoken to quite a few people who skin rather than pluck. I think it's very straight forward from what they've said. You only need to pluck if you plan to roast really. Even with good plucking they stay a bit 'hairy', don't they? I read about reusable chook-waxing kits.... chicken brazil, anyone? I have had a go at the jointing thng without plucking - pretty succesful I think and no gutting which is a real bonus (I got the liver out from under the breast after removing the meat). It was another big one - the breast meat weighed almost 1lb each! and the joints will make coc-au-vin (homemade wine as wel!) for tonight. As to the 'hairy bits' when plucking a kitchen blow torch does the trick - we did that with the one we plucked at the weekend and they just dissolve. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lewis Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 .......Even with good plucking they stay a bit 'hairy', don't they? I read about reusable chook-waxing kits.... chicken brazil, anyone? ....... As to the 'hairy bits' when plucking a kitchen blow torch does the trick - we did that with the one we plucked at the weekend and they just dissolve. I've heard about using a blow torch but never done it, with the turkeys we just use tweezers . The waxing, if its the same as I'm thinking ... the farm have a big metal tank which you pump hot water through the outside, you buy big blocks of wax which melt inside it then you dip the bird in, leave it to cool and peel it off with the stubs and feathers coming away in the wax, then that wax is re-heated and strained/sieved before using again. They've only used it a couple of times with the turkeys because its expensive and time consuming if you're only doing a few birds ... its better used for the geese they have and apparently works well Apparently Kelly's (the big turkey farmers) are starting to use it more, recently. We were talking about it at Christmas, only how I know about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 You have to use wax for ducks but with the chickens we use a barbecue lighter or a cigarette lighter if my son is here helping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted January 5, 2010 Share Posted January 5, 2010 You have to use wax for ducks but with the chickens we use a barbecue lighter or a cigarette lighter if my son is here helping. Kil it, Cook it, Eat it (BBC3) showed the wax system - they didn't use it on the turkey, but did on the goose. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Speckled Hen Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 I can still smell the scorched feathers as my mother rotated a plucked bird over the gas hob when I was a child. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 So the latest noise maker (5.15 am!) was dispatched yesterday - and yes by mid-morning today another 2 at it! We only have 3 cockerals left in this batch now (plus 5 girls), so I think the boys will all be going in the next week. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 I'm glad we have no neighbours - our 5 were crowing at 4.30! - I think the fox was patrolling as Jazz kept barking as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laurmurf Posted January 10, 2010 Share Posted January 10, 2010 our silkie started crowing today - he's for it but there won't be much on him... and what there is will be black meat ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 our silkie started crowing today - he's for it but there won't be much on him... and what there is will be black meat ! Is it black meat? I knew they were black skinned and the colour makes them a delicacy in some parts of the would - I would be interested to know when you have done it. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted January 11, 2010 Share Posted January 11, 2010 I'm interested in what happens once you've done the deed as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
