The meaties are here!
- Thread starter HotPepperQueen
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Wishin'
Deeply Rooted
Good for you. 
Do you slaughter yourself?
Do you slaughter yourself?
baymule
Garden Master
Haha! I have a BBD on "duty" too!! (BBD is BIG BLACK DOG!!) 
I change my ducks cage twice a day, fresh water and feed. My black Lab/Great Dane cross licks every duckling as I put them in a box so I can change everything out, and he licks each one as I put them back in their cage. I don't know if he is loving them or tasting them!! He is really excited about them and is very good with the poultry, so I want to believe he is concerned about them. Right.
good luck with your meaties and keep us posted!
I change my ducks cage twice a day, fresh water and feed. My black Lab/Great Dane cross licks every duckling as I put them in a box so I can change everything out, and he licks each one as I put them back in their cage. I don't know if he is loving them or tasting them!! He is really excited about them and is very good with the poultry, so I want to believe he is concerned about them. Right.good luck with your meaties and keep us posted!
Ridgerunner
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Just how big is your freezer? 
ninnymary
Garden Master
HPQ, that's a lot of chicken. I'm assuming some of them are for extended family? With all of them the same age, I take it you will have to process a lot of them at once? Will it take all day to do it?
Mary
Mary
- Thread starter
- #6
HotPepperQueen
Deeply Rooted
Yes we slaughter ourselves. We keep about 30 of them (whole, halved, pieced out) and sell the rest. That usually pays for ours and for the chicks the next time we order. It depends on when they are ready and what we have going on, but usually we do them all in a day. We have one person dispatching, two people operating the plucker, 3 people eviscerating, and 4 people looking things over, getting out any pin feathers, packaging, and labeling. The birds that are supposed to be pieced out or halved are saved for the next morning and I do that myself. I don't really trust anyone else to make clean cuts and keep most of the skin in tact 
If it were up to me, I would eviscerate them all myself too but time doesn't allow for that. I am very OCD when it comes to processing time because these birds are being raised and giving their lives for my family and I and I want to give them the respect they deserve.
If it were up to me, I would eviscerate them all myself too but time doesn't allow for that. I am very OCD when it comes to processing time because these birds are being raised and giving their lives for my family and I and I want to give them the respect they deserve.
journey11
Garden Master
I like your brooder set up. I need to build something like that. How many do you do each year?
They sure are cute little fuzz-balls, at least for the first week.
Is the doggie the same one in your avatar?
They sure are cute little fuzz-balls, at least for the first week.
Is the doggie the same one in your avatar?
lesa
Garden Master
Wow! I guess we know what's for dinner! Will you tractor them outside? Good luck!
- Thread starter
- #9
HotPepperQueen
Deeply Rooted
I do about 200 birds a year. And yes, that is Maizy in my avatar as well. She's a good chicken herding egg sucking dog! I do not tractor my birds. They have a huge coop with a large enclosed run. It's a lot easier for me to raise them this way.
ducks4you
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I don't have your operation, but I know what you mean about respect. I do it all myself, I can manage 6 at one time, but I make sure to clean cut and bleed them out fast, so that they don't suffer.
Man, if you HAVEN'T had chicken raised in the back yard, you don't know what it's supposed to taste like. That silly phrase, "everything tastes like chicken" is new bc it was after the big operations started to tiny cage birds from egg to death. Personally, I do NOT think either of us feeds commercial feed. I'm betting that what the commercial birds eat is some combination of sawdust and other animal by products, NOT grain based. I just brought out strawberry tops to my birds this morning. They get all stale bread, potato and carrot scrapings, old lettuce and cabbage--this is just during the winter. In the spring, summer and fall I feed my birds grass and non toxic weeds, extra tomatoes, spinach and peas, the t-bones with leftover meat, pork steak bones with meat, leftover lunchmeat--any kind of meat BUT chicken! They even eat mice. As long as they have free choice grit, they get loads of stuff that most people throw in the trash.
Their meat is, to me, very much like turkey, very mild and VERY tasty.
Good luck with your Cornish X's!
Man, if you HAVEN'T had chicken raised in the back yard, you don't know what it's supposed to taste like. That silly phrase, "everything tastes like chicken" is new bc it was after the big operations started to tiny cage birds from egg to death. Personally, I do NOT think either of us feeds commercial feed. I'm betting that what the commercial birds eat is some combination of sawdust and other animal by products, NOT grain based. I just brought out strawberry tops to my birds this morning. They get all stale bread, potato and carrot scrapings, old lettuce and cabbage--this is just during the winter. In the spring, summer and fall I feed my birds grass and non toxic weeds, extra tomatoes, spinach and peas, the t-bones with leftover meat, pork steak bones with meat, leftover lunchmeat--any kind of meat BUT chicken! They even eat mice. As long as they have free choice grit, they get loads of stuff that most people throw in the trash.
Their meat is, to me, very much like turkey, very mild and VERY tasty.
Good luck with your Cornish X's!
