# Cheap Meats!



## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

I didn't get to do meat birds this year for one reason or another and we finally used the last of those I did last spring...then started to realize that I had no new chicks coming up in the flock for culling of roosters. No chicken soup this winter??? 

Decided to scavenge for DP roosters in the locals and will continue to do so until I have enough in the freezer and jar to suit my soup cravings for the year. First day I found 4 roosters, 6 mo. of age, $1 ea. Three should be meaty enough, if not a true DP by my standards, being a BO, WL, BO/RIR cross and, unfortunately, a Silkie. But..meat for a $1 is nothing to be sneezed at, so Mr. Silkie pants will be coming home for dinner as well. 

Will keep them here on free range and fermented feeds for a couple of weeks until their systems are cleaned up and healthy enough for consumption, then they are freezer fodder. 

Then, got a message from a sister who may have a few here in a couple of months that will be eating age...FREE. Love that word.

So, I will be gaining some very cheap meats from some ladies who just can't bear to kill their own chickens, and their loss will be my gain. It's a win/win! I don't have the expense and trouble of feeding them until they are mature and I can get them free or very cheap. 

Anyone else taking advantage of free or cheap chicken out there?


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## JC17 (Apr 4, 2013)

I'm having my silkie roo processed. He's become too agressive in the past few weeks. Gonna have some yummy chicken soup... I got him for free so I can't complain.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Free is good! I'm going to try and get these roosters in batches of no more than 6 (four is optimal) because of the crowding of my roost space in the coop for the duration of their time here. 

For silkies, I don't have to worry about roost space, so that's a plus.


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## nj2wv (Aug 27, 2013)

i have 3 BAs and 1BR that are 26 weeks old and im only getting 6 eggs a week .. im giving them another 4 weeks then i will be eating some very expensive chicken ! I also have 2 WR and 2 RSL and i get 17 eggs a week from them .. i have a group of 21 roosters that cost about $1 each but they wont be ready till late december .. i may keep a couple to breed to my good layers so i wont have to buy any next year .. i also have 14 4 mth old , 21 3 mth old and 19 9 wk old so i should have plenty of eggs or meat thru the winter ..


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## jennifer (May 14, 2013)

I wish I could. I'm too nervous about contamination in the culling process. Eerg. Gotta get over it. Bee! What's your set up look like?


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

jennifer said:


> I wish I could. I'm too nervous about contamination in the culling process. Eerg. Gotta get over it. Bee! What's your set up look like?


Looks like this...










And about 3 acres of meadow then mixed woodland and then 15 acres of woodland on all sides...










I'm not worried about contamination as each of my birds are protected with a strong immune system that can withstand anything that arrives on this land. Now, I will be treating these birds for external parasites before letting them run with my birds for a few weeks...that's something even a strong immune system won't keep a bird from getting. 

I won't be processing them until I feel they've gotten a good clean system from free ranging, eating good foods and getting on healthy soils~I'll give them 2 wks to get some healthy bowels and healthy meat...if anything bad is still in there, it's in there to stay. These chickens I picked up this evening came from dismal, dirty and downright sad living conditions....but that's what I see on these forums all the time, so it seems to be the norm out there. I'm doing them a big favor by killing them.


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## jennifer (May 14, 2013)

Agreed. Wow look at your trees! That's an amazing place to be..oh and I meant contamination when culling. I'm afraid to do it wrong and make my family sick from bad temps etc. not the birds...just processing. I've read and seen all the videos I need too. It's just culling and getting the bird into the fridge/freezer that I'm worries about.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Oh! That's easy when you have clean birds to begin with and then you maintain a clean processing station. I keep a hose handy and keep a bucket of bleach water and fresh, clean rags handy. Wiping the table down if there are any bowel contents or bile juices is important, sluicing off the blood before it dries...just generally keeping things clean. Also having bleach water handy for rinsing of knives as well. 

Joel Salatin challenged the USDA inspectors to test the contaminants found on the meat done at his outside processing stations and compare it with USDA inspected meats in the store and there was no comparison. I forget the exact numbers but they found a huge germ count on the USDA inspected meats but very little on his home processed chicken. 

It's the same as with any processing...just use good hygiene and common sense and it's all good. That goes with home canning as well.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Change of plans on the roosters! I'm going to pen them in a holding area that is my current animal lounging area and feed them the FF, but forgo the free range. It would have been too difficult to get the FF to these birds if they were in the flock without having to feed WAY too much to my own flock just so these birds can get any. 

Toby would not have let them have any until the whole flock had eaten and right now I'm only feeding my 14 birds a cup and a half of feed for the day. I'm wanting them to get the full benefit of this massive bug plenty that can be found this month and into the next. 

So, the soup roos will be confined to a spacious, open air place in the shade with good bedding, plenty of FF and fresh water and we'll see how it goes.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Bee, 

Do you have issues with these Roos fighting with each other for the time they are kept together before processing? How do you go about putting mature Roos that don't know each other together without them fighting each other to death? Or is that only an issue when there are hens to fight over?


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

kessy09 said:


> Bee,
> 
> Do you have issues with these Roos fighting with each other for the time they are kept together before processing? How do you go about putting mature Roos that don't know each other together without them fighting each other to death? Or is that only an issue when there are hens to fight over?


I've gotten batches of roosters before from family who could not kill their own roosters and those were raised together~they didn't seem to ever fight. I'm sure that would change if there were some hens in the offing.

This batch I just got have all been living together and there is one older, established flock master and no one fights him...but there is a silky in the bunch that seems to get a good peck or two every now and again. Don't know if that one is even worth dulling a knife blade on..can't be much meat at all on him.

I've never placed roosters from two separate sources together in a pen but there would definitely be a showdown at the OK Corral if one were to do so if the roosters were sexually mature. My old rooster and the flock master in this new group were trying to fight through the cage all day...  Needless to say, there was a good bit of crowing and posturing today from my usually quiet rooster.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

These poor roosters were definitely saved from a life of horror...some were so lice eaten they were bleeding, some had scale mites. All were treated for both, placed in a nice, large holding run on green grass...they've never seen any of that before. They have a roost bar big enough for all of them now, which they didn't have before....a few of them have early signs of bumblefoot. 

I hope they gain some good health by the time to process. One of the roosters seems very healthy looking..the best looking of the bunch. One hen got in the batch by mistake..she is huge! She has so little feathering that we couldn't tell if she was a rooster or not in the dark of that coop. She had huge feet and legs, was as big as most of the roosters and had a large comb and wattles, so it was a fair mistake. 

These poor birds.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Got some pics of my quickly rigged up rooster pen~don't laugh!~and the $6 worth of meat. These birds came from a pretty bad place but a few are reasonably healthy looking and are heavy birds. The lady didn't advertise them correctly at all but I think it was because she really didn't know what breeds she had nor how hold they were.

We even took home an old hen...  She's pretty heavy built but she is pale and listless. I'm hoping to feed them up on fermented feeds and fresh air for a couple of weeks before processing. I even got guilted into taking a Silkie rooster...a little powder puff of nothing that is hardly worth even killing.

Just a few days here and they are already cleaner, they don't smell like something already long dead any longer, though still pretty ragged looking. I'm glad I got them out of that bad place.

I threw together a quick wooden trough feeder, brought out my nipple water bucket and they learned really quick how to use it, made a roost that fits them perfectly out of an old tomato stake...smaller than I normally use for a roost, but it fit through the wire and was better than sleeping on the ground. They went wild over the leaves I placed in the pen today and I will continue to build on that litter so they have soft and clean footing.

I'll be repeating this experiment all fall until I get some soup meat and stock built up for winter soups.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Looks good! I'm glad they're at your place until they're processed, they deserve that.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Tomorrow night the birds to be processed will be caught off the roost and trussed for processing on Thurs. morn. I'll try to get a good vid of killing the silkie(seems some folks are having trouble cutting through the hair on the neck) and also of one of the larger roosters. 

I'll be doing 3 roosters and 3 hens that morning and will be cutting one of the older hens on the half shell, so to speak, and getting pics of her organs and how they are lying in her body cavity. I want to see if her older, prolapsed abdomen shows a prolapsed oviduct as well. She is 6 yrs old and hasn't laid all summer, so it should be interesting what we find inside of her. She is my favorite hen, so this one is not without some sentimentality attached to it. 

I'll be doing a meat comparison pic of the silkie carcass and the LF birds, as well as pics of the organs in this silkie...seems they have some black organs folks are wanting to see. This bird doesn't seem to be a good representative of the breed, so not sure how well that black will play out in this bird's carcass.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Very interesting, will be happy to see it. I have a few mixed breed Roos to do this year and a couple of Wyandottes. They're only 10 weeks old but I have too many Roos and not enough ample space. I considered selling them but what I would get for them I'd end up paying double that for a free range frozen chicken at the farmers market. I don't want to be one of those ladies you mentioned whose inability to kill their chickens is someone else's gain. Since I've never processed my own before, do I need to do anything differently as far as feed for these boys? Like put them on a meat bird finisher or anything? And I wonder what age should I do them at? My breeding Wyandotte roo is 17 weeks old and he's just a giant already.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

No need to change anything on feeding, as they aren't like a meaty bird that will gain wt quickly and become this plump, chunk of meat. Your birds are probably about as big as they are going to get for eating purposes and most will process a regular DP bird at 3-5 mo. but I've had them clear up to 6 mo. and be just as tender and I feel they get their full size then as well, with more breast development. 

You are right...you have already invested the feed money and time in those birds and if you sold them, someone else is getting the benefit from it all. If you have difficulty processing your own birds, some folks will swap processing so they are killing each other's birds but not their own. To me that's the long way around it but if it works for people, it's better than not doing it at all. 

I've got a few in this batch that look to be about 2-3 mo. old that I will not be processing because they are just too small, so they will join my free range flock until they gain some size on them. From now on, in this type of experiment, I will only be buying birds that are already big enough to process as I am losing out by having to feed them up to their full size. 

I fed this group a couple of weeks on FF just to clean out their bowels and give them a better overall health before consuming them. They have no bad smells now and are looking very perky, so I'm sure they are just about as good as I can get them in this short of time. 

I'm thinking of building myself a rabbit tractor/hutch and start taking advantage of all the free rabbits in the paper as well. Many who got them as pets for Easter are looking for a way out of them when winter approaches, so they give away the rabbits, cage and all. I've seen that over and over, so if it's even vaguely a meaty breed, I'll see if I can't pick it up and capitalize on the free meat.


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## Tara80 (Sep 26, 2012)

Bee said:


> I've never placed roosters from two separate sources together in a pen but there would definitely be a showdown at the OK Corral if one were to do so if the roosters were sexually mature. My old rooster and the flock master in this new group were trying to fight through the cage all day...  Needless to say, there was a good bit of crowing and posturing today from my usually quiet rooster.


I've had mixed experiences with this, I have some roosters that grew up together but will beat the living daylights out of each other. When I took the most aggressive one out of the group and put him in with our main free range flock - him and the gang leader rooster (he's head honcho on the entire farm) got along immediately and famously even though they had never spent any time together in the past. It surprised me a lot.
They even strut around and chat together, sharing the females and the food without any disagreements. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me!


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

That's neat! I've never had trouble with introducing roosters into a free range flock, though I did have an EE rooster kind of dumped off on me last spring that had to get his tail feathers dusted before he understood the hens were for top rooster only.

Mostly my roosters interact like you describe..just like respectful old pals that have settled all the differences and know where they each stand. 

The cocks in this pen don't actually fight but the younger birds do get a good peck now and again and one of them got "bred" by a mature rooster the other day...guy on guy action, which is a new one on me though I've heard of it happening in bachelor pens of birds.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Here's the pics of the boys that I'll need to process: a couple Wyandottes, two cream Legbars, a couple mixed breeds that I don't know what they are and a wheaten Marans,


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

I few of them have got a ways to go yet, don't they? A few look like they have some good size on them already. I think you will really enjoy the flavor of DP birds compared to store bought chickens...they have a better texture, flavor profile and color, if not the huge muscling.


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## chickett (Sep 29, 2013)

Bee said:


> No need to change anything on feeding, as they aren't like a meaty bird that will gain wt quickly and become this plump, chunk of meat. Your birds are probably about as big as they are going to get for eating purposes and most will process a regular DP bird at 3-5 mo. but I've had them clear up to 6 mo. and be just as tender and I feel they get their full size then as well, with more breast development.
> 
> You are right...you have already invested the feed money and time in those birds and if you sold them, someone else is getting the benefit from it all. If you have difficulty processing your own birds, some folks will swap processing so they are killing each other's birds but not their own. To me that's the long way around it but if it works for people, it's better than not doing it at all.
> 
> ...


Wow, never had rabbit meat before! Have you?


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Caught four of the cheap meat pen of birds off the roost tonight and trussed their feet, laid them in the deep bedding of the coop to await early morning processing. Also caught two of my own old hens for the same fate. 

The only one to make a fuss over it all was the silkie and he is still making a fuss over it an hour later.  I'll have every predator for miles circling this clearing tonight because of his loud mouth.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Yes, some of the boys are still quite small-they're just babies yet. Probably won't be doing until the beginning of December. 

How come you catch them the night before and truss their feet? Is it just easier and less stress on them/you than doing it at the crack of dawn when they're up yodeling? Or is there a reason behind it that I just don't know about? Do you take away their feed before processing? I've read some do this and some don't.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

Finished the initial processing and have only to do the final cleaning of the carcasses before placing in the fridge for cool down and relaxing. 

Took two vids of the cutting of the throat and the dying process so folks can get an idea where and how this all goes down. One was a silkie and the other a LF rooster. The rest I did not video, as I just wanted to show where to cut and what the dying process looked like. 

No internal parasites were noted in the small intestines, organs on the younger birds all healthy, one 6 yr old hen's liver was pretty old and fragile, which was fed to her flock mates. 

Will post vids and pics of the carcass differences, some of the organs, Bertha on the half shell so you can get an idea what the inside of a bird looks like while the organs are still intact, etc.


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## hildar (Oct 3, 2013)

My dad use to go to a place years ago in Maine where they raised chickens just for eggs, when the hens got to old to lay an egg every day they would give them away. Occasionally my dad would find one or even two hens in the bunch that would give him some eggs, however he would butcher them after about 3 weeks and we ate good all winter long. Anything that was still laying though after that 3 weeks he would keep. Normally when he would go, he would come home with about 50 to 100 chickens.

Us kids would be busy feeding and tending to them for the next 3 weeks, and would have to put ties on the feet of any hens we found laying. When it came time for the slaughter all of us were busy. How we ever did all of that in one day I do not know. The biggest batch my dad ever brought home, he had over 200 hens. My job was always holding them while my dad cut their heads off. My brothers job was catching them all.

I may try next year to get some free roosters, and stock my freezer full who knows maybe I will find a few good roosters I can add to my breeding flock.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Bee! Where's the pics! I'm anxious to see everything. I keep coming on to check and hoping you posted.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

The vids didn't turn out right..something not right with my old camera, but I have a few pics to show carcass differences and just how fat some of these birds were! The fattest being my 6 yr old WR hen, Big Bertha...I did a pic of her on the half shell so folks could see the inside of a chicken with the organs all in their natural order.

Here's some of the pics:

First, the silkie rooster...black meat, black bones and some dark pigmentation on the trachea(shown in this pic), a little darker testes and some pigmentation on the gizzard. All other organs look much like any other chicken except the kidneys, which were a little dark as well.



















Carcass comparison shot between this little silkie rooster and a LF rooster:



















My fat Big Bertha...past her prime and unable to shed wt., no matter how much I cut rations here she stayed huge. Her heart and liver showed age and obesity related changes and her fat layers were enormous as you can see in the pics below:























































Her fat encased gizzard!!!!










Pic of her ovary, eggs and oviduct below:










Half of Bertha beside a whole LF rooster...her breast filets were larger and she was the same processed wt. as this mature rooster. This is why the Plymouth White Rock is, for me, one true dual purpose breed, with excellent laying and a great carcass at the finish.



















The oldest rooster awaiting his processing...he crowed right up to the last moment, being all the roo he could be!


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## MamaHen (Apr 15, 2013)

Awesome, thanks for sharing!


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Thats awesome Bee. Those are great pics. I cant remember if you said you chop heads or if you slit throats and bleed out? My boss is Hindu and he said slitting the throats is the Halal way to kill an animal (removes all blood and is painless). They have very, very strict rules for animal slaughter. I guess everyone has their own preferences. Do you use all the chicken fat? I keep a jar of chicken fat in my fridge and use it for various things.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

I put them in a cone and slit their throats...it's all very quiet and calm, the bleed out is good and then the heads come off. We don't use the fat as we don't cook or bake much around here and we don't like a lot of fattiness, though I do leave much of it on the bird when I process the meat so that it provides some fat to the soups I make. 

The rest of that fat is fed back to the flock and the dog and cat. This time of year is a time for eating of fats, as we process deer and chickens, the other animals get the fat in their diets for winter wear. 

I seriously don't need anymore fat...I'm insulated for a thousand winters to come!


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## hildar (Oct 3, 2013)

I don't eat the fat, normally I pull any fat off chicken, boil it up and feed it to our dog. Like you said Bee this time of the year the fat is needed to keep them warm. My dogs have always gotten fat before the winter snows came, so they would be warm in the winter.


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## evergreen (Dec 25, 2013)

You did a very nice and clean job, Bee. How are you able to get cheap rooster? Next time can you post some closeup view pics so we can see how deep the cuts need to be? Can you do kosher slaughter, holding the rooster over a bowl to drain the blood? Thanks.


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## HodgesParadise (Jan 25, 2014)

Bee, my hubby cleans the fat and any meat that would normally go to waste from deer we harvest. We run it through the meat grinder and feed the dogs with their regular dry food. They LOVE it. He spends some extra time cutting the meat between the ribs and neck but it makes for a good treat for the dogs!


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

evergreen said:


> You did a very nice and clean job, Bee. How are you able to get cheap rooster? Next time can you post some closeup view pics so we can see how deep the cuts need to be? Can you do kosher slaughter, holding the rooster over a bowl to drain the blood? Thanks.


Bee is no longer on this site. She found the roosters by searching the newspaper classified for "free roosters." A lot of people get chicks straightrun but can't bring themselves to slaughter the Roos so they offer them for free so they don't have to. If you check on kijiji or Craig's list there's always lots of ads for free or cheap roosters.


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