Chicken from Scratch (for real!)

rf1170
rf1170 Posts: 180 Member
edited October 3 in Recipes
On June 29th I brought home some peepers, wondering whether they'd ever be big enough to make a meal out of. Even a week or so later, they were still shorter than the grass:

group%2525202.jpg

Today, I moved their coop, and some escaped. I picked them up to put them back in the run, and two of the roosters have to weigh at least six or eight pounds. Combine that with their aggressiveness, and the coop just isn't big enough for all of them anymore. Tomorrow's the day of reckoning for the big boys - I'll spare you pics of the process, but just know that roast chicken is gonna be on my menu soon! I'll post a forum-friendly picture so you can see how much they've grown, and then a photo of a dressed carcass with the weight. This is chicken from scratch, friends!

And if this little experiment ends well, I think I'm going to try raising some ducks sometime soon... mmm... homemade confit de canard...

Replies

  • rockylucas
    rockylucas Posts: 343 Member
    ur gonna kill the chickens! :( Hurry someone convert her to vegan quick!!! LOL
  • colex97
    colex97 Posts: 12
    I'm working on my green thumb and I would love to have chickens too but good ole army housing doesn't like the idea as much as i do...i even have to do my veggie garden in the flower bed...0_o Is this your first batch of chickens from scratch??
  • ratsyroo
    ratsyroo Posts: 103 Member
    Awww, I'm all about eating some chicken...but not if I raised them. All my animals become pets, even the chickens! LOL Hard to eat a 'friend". :noway: But enjoy your roast chicken. You didn't name them, right?? Once something has a name, you just can't kill and eat it. (I bet some vegans are having a fit and reporting your post right this moment! ) :wink:
  • j_courter
    j_courter Posts: 999 Member
    are YOU going to do the deed?

    i don't think i could....

    eat them, yes. tie the clucks to a clothesline, give a whack, watch heads fly and bodies run around headless... i really don't think i could.

    enjoy your nuggets!
  • wadesha
    wadesha Posts: 351 Member
    Awww, I'm all about eating some chicken...but not if I raised them. All my animals become pets, even the chickens! LOL Hard to eat a 'friend". :noway: But enjoy your roast chicken. You didn't name them, right?? Once something has a name, you just can't kill and eat it. (I bet some vegans are having a fit and reporting your post right this moment! ) :wink:
    Lol i couldn't do it either. We had 3 pet chickens I named the Chicken patty chicken tender and chicken nugget lol but i couldn't eat them :(
  • jolinemariem
    jolinemariem Posts: 462 Member
    great for you:drinker: but i could never do this.:noway:
  • glitterpiss
    glitterpiss Posts: 113
    I don't support eating meat, but raising your own animals or hunting for wild animals is a million times more humane than buying animals raised in factory farms and sold in the grocery store. At least these chickens will get taken good care of while they are alive instead of being in battery cages... If you can bear to eat a dead animal you should be ok with the process that it goes through to get to you.
  • Contrarian
    Contrarian Posts: 8,138 Member
    :frown:
  • MrsCon40
    MrsCon40 Posts: 2,351 Member
    :frown:

    This

    :noway:
  • wbgolden
    wbgolden Posts: 2,066 Member
    I prefer to dehumanize my chickens. If I raise it, it's family.

    That's why I go to costco and stock up on someone else's pet.
  • mousepolice
    mousepolice Posts: 6
    That's great! I would love to have chickens but it would never work where I live right now. I am jealous of your next couple meals!

    Bon Appetite!
  • grassette
    grassette Posts: 976 Member
    Miam, Miam, good eating ahead. My mother in Law used to raise chickens, and would give us at least 20 to bring back with us. The flesh and flavour is completely unlike that of industrial chickens, or concentration camp chickens, as she would call them. I would love to be able to raise some, and get the fresh eggs that would come with them. Those have got orange yolks, folks, not that yellow that you are used to. I wish people could raise chickens in cities. Things are so much more lively with chickens around.
  • RocketsGirl75
    RocketsGirl75 Posts: 648
    :noway:

    :huh:
  • ktmccorkell
    ktmccorkell Posts: 79 Member
    We raised and butchered our own meat chickens for the first time this summer and had one tonight in the crockpot. They are really good!!!
  • MIMITIME
    MIMITIME Posts: 405 Member
    I know the deed has to be done for me to get chicken at the grocery store. However, if they were in my back yard I would turn them into pets and never be able to do the deed. They would just have to die of old age. HaHa
  • ilookthetype
    ilookthetype Posts: 3,021 Member
    If you have children, don't tell them where dinner came from. My grandfather raised cows, and used to butcher and send them to us, he would write the name of the cow on the package...let's just say I was in therapy for a large part of my life.
  • Umeboshi
    Umeboshi Posts: 1,637 Member
    If I did what you're doing I'd end up going vegetarian. :( The only way I can stand eating meat is when I buy it when it doesn't look like an animal anymore. I can't do whole chickens or turkeys let alone raising them to eat them!
  • knittnponder
    knittnponder Posts: 1,953 Member
    Save the feet!! When DH does the deed he brings me the feet too. I wash them really well and then boil them with the rest of the bird for the most AMAZING chicken stock you've ever had in your life! So good!
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,336 Member
    I don't support eating meat, but raising your own animals or hunting for wild animals is a million times more humane than buying animals raised in factory farms and sold in the grocery store. At least these chickens will get taken good care of while they are alive instead of being in battery cages... If you can bear to eat a dead animal you should be ok with the process that it goes through to get to you.

    Mmmm dead animal meat. I think you made me hungry.
  • Crowhorse
    Crowhorse Posts: 394 Member
    I know the deed has to be done for me to get chicken at the grocery store. However, if they were in my back yard I would turn them into pets and never be able to do the deed. They would just have to die of old age. HaHa

    You think that until one of the nasty buggers starts pecking the crap out of your shins (and that hits like a hammer) or other damage.
  • janetb21
    janetb21 Posts: 182 Member
    Save the feet!! When DH does the deed he brings me the feet too. I wash them really well and then boil them with the rest of the bird for the most AMAZING chicken stock you've ever had in your life! So good!


    I've heard that chicken stock is way better with the feet in.
  • denisegolden
    denisegolden Posts: 206 Member
    i grew up on a dairy, i dont have a problem eating the animals we raised...granted we had a milking dairy, but we knocked off several beefers a year. mmmm. but we also had chickens. mmmm. and we had pork...i mean pigs and they were especially tasty!
  • skinnnyxoxo
    skinnnyxoxo Posts: 210 Member
    They are very cute.
    I would love eating fresh farm eggs :happy:
  • gingerb85
    gingerb85 Posts: 357 Member
    I don't support eating meat, but raising your own animals or hunting for wild animals is a million times more humane than buying animals raised in factory farms and sold in the grocery store. At least these chickens will get taken good care of while they are alive instead of being in battery cages... If you can bear to eat a dead animal you should be ok with the process that it goes through to get to you.

    I agree! I am vegan, initially for health reasons, but now also for ethical reasons. I definitely agree that these chickies are better off (and will be better for you) than the factory farmed ones that are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics.

    We did have chickens at one time and we did eat the roosters. Tough old birds (even though they were fairly young when slaughtered). We had so many eggs we were giving them away left and right from our over-exuberant hens. :^)
  • grassette
    grassette Posts: 976 Member
    We did have chickens at one time and we did eat the roosters. Tough old birds (even though they were fairly young when slaughtered). We had so many eggs we were giving them away left and right from our over-exuberant hens. :^)
    ***************
    Isn't life great! A toast to the lovely fertility that surrounds us!
  • Bucky2BeBetty
    Bucky2BeBetty Posts: 79 Member
    I have always lived on a farm so this is all just "circle of life" stuff to me. I don't mind doing the head chopping, either. But a couple of years ago, I took my daughters with me to my mom's to help her dress chickens and they were very upset by the whole process and did not eat chicken for a long time. They were 10 and 14 at the time but I guess I didn't realize how removed from the reality of where meat comes from they apparently were.
  • rf1170
    rf1170 Posts: 180 Member
    It's been interesting reading everyone's replies to this thread! Thank you for weighing in. It seems like people have one of two reactions, huh?

    For those who would like to try raising their own meat, I have to say, it's not that bad. A bit shocking if you've never done it before, but pretty much what you'd expect.

    For those who eat chicken but don't want to kill their own - thank a farmer for doing it for you! It's messy work. And if you don't know the farmer who raised your chickens, you don't even want to know what they went through to get to your plate. I guarantee you'd rather have the ones that died on my stump.

    There are still three birds left, but they'll be dispatched another day. The two I took today were enormous - dressed out at more than seven pounds, which is all that my mother's kitchen scale registered. I'll weigh the birds on my digital scale before I cook them and get a more accurate measurement.

    As for the process? Messy! Glad we had a long hose:

    washing.jpg

    My father showed me the ropes (his family raised all their own food, but it's been quite a while since he slaughtered any chickens). I'll share dinner photos when I have them!
  • rf1170
    rf1170 Posts: 180 Member
    Save the feet!! When DH does the deed he brings me the feet too. I wash them really well and then boil them with the rest of the bird for the most AMAZING chicken stock you've ever had in your life! So good!

    Oh, the feet are well washed and ready to go in the stock pot along with the necks and gizzards! Feet make good soup - chicken feet, pig feet, cow feet - if you get your butcher to cut the bigger ones up for you, you can freeze them individually and unwrap one package at a time to add to a pot of soup. Easy peasy!
  • Peque1130deleted
    Peque1130deleted Posts: 309
    If you have children, don't tell them where dinner came from. My grandfather raised cows, and used to butcher and send them to us, he would write the name of the cow on the package...let's just say I was in therapy for a large part of my life.

    My mom killed a chicken once, in front of my then 7yr old brother (now 25). He saw her twist the head and pull and the body run around ...literally like a chicken without a head!!! Needless to say, he didnt want to hold her hand afterwards...or have any chicken soup...:laugh:
  • ReginaB13
    ReginaB13 Posts: 87 Member
    Good for you-- I'd rather eat a home bred chicken than a factory farmed chicken any day. At least it has a good life before its demise :)

    I live with landlords who raise chickens, turkeys, etc. and I don't hesitate to eat anything she gives us! I could never do the killng part, though. But I sure enjoy the food!
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