Well we butchered our chickens. I will spare you the pictures I will only write about the gory details. I hated looking at them. I did not like feeding them, and watching as I let them out of their pen and instead of eating free-range like normal chickens they would just leave their pen to go to the other feeding trough, or worse just sit and rest until their next meal came to them. It was very different then our other birds, but when all was said and done and our first meal was served it was all worth it. It was 12 pounds of organic-I-know-where-you-came-from-I-know-what-you-did meat. When the butchering started, having done this all before, I thought it would go off without a hitch. It did for the most part, though my oldest son and husband were both busy when one of the birds decided not to die. So my son asked me to hold it while he went to get a hatchet, because the beast refused to die. So here I am holding its feet while it flapped out of the cone and into the yard. I knew better then to let it go, so I proceeded to yell "I shouldn't be doing this!" while my husband tried not to laugh. I did start to cry though and then they sprang into action, and got the bird from me and killed it thoroughly. It took me a moment to compose myself and my daughter asked later "Why did you cry, mommy?" and I simply said"Because no matter how old I get I will always still be a girl." She understood that and went about her way. I must add she was the first to rush to my aid and hold me until I felt better. She is quite the "girl" herself.
We made it through though. Butchered nine birds by noon. And I must say, they were between 8-12 pounds and had a lot of fat, which is great when you roast one because they are so tender and delicious. All-in-all I am glad we did this, I might even do it again now that I am looking at the meat in my freezer. One thing I would change: Do it in the fall. Other than that, if you can overlook the way the birds look, which is not like any other chicken(quite disturbing in the way they eat), but they do produce good meat. The cost: about .50 cents per pound. We fed them only organic,non-medicated feed and payed about .99 cents per bird. The cost of feed being about $14.00 a bag because of it being organic/non-medicated. It was worth the extra cost. I am happy with the results. We will try butchering some of our excess laying birds in the fall and compare the quality of meat before we embark on the cornish/barred rock meat birds again. But there is always Rabbits.....
We made it through though. Butchered nine birds by noon. And I must say, they were between 8-12 pounds and had a lot of fat, which is great when you roast one because they are so tender and delicious. All-in-all I am glad we did this, I might even do it again now that I am looking at the meat in my freezer. One thing I would change: Do it in the fall. Other than that, if you can overlook the way the birds look, which is not like any other chicken(quite disturbing in the way they eat), but they do produce good meat. The cost: about .50 cents per pound. We fed them only organic,non-medicated feed and payed about .99 cents per bird. The cost of feed being about $14.00 a bag because of it being organic/non-medicated. It was worth the extra cost. I am happy with the results. We will try butchering some of our excess laying birds in the fall and compare the quality of meat before we embark on the cornish/barred rock meat birds again. But there is always Rabbits.....
I am both laughing and feeling your pain at the same time! I would have cried too. We have butchered a few times and I still cannot bear to watch them die. We did the meat chickens and found the same, they were kinda ucky, weird birds but great meat. We have butchered excess layers and they are stiff and stringy in comparison sadly... and cost much more to have raised.
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