Butchering the Roosters

If reading about raising and using animals for meat bothers you don’t read any further. I’m not planning to be too graphic or anything, but I don’t want anyone to get upset.

This spring we bought a handful of little Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens. This is a dual purpose breed meaning that the birds are useful as both egg producers and as meat producers.  We went with a dual purpose breed as we couldn’t be sure at one day old if we were getting males or females and we figured that those who wouldn’t be earning their keep with eggs would at least be able to provide us with a nice dinner. Out of the 5 chicks we got, 3 were roosters. Greatttt.

We have known since the beginning that any roosters would be headed for the freezer as our neighbors are absolutely 100% not down with cocka-doodle-doos in the morning. We had angry neighbors pounding on the door back in July over our handsome French Copper Maran rooster, Cogburn, demanding we get rid of him by the end of the week. I’m sure they are probably ready to lynch us with the whole 3 part harmony we have going on in the mornings these days.

The roosters would have been fine to butcher a whole month ago, but we have been so busy with getting married, our honeymoon, and winter prep that it just keeps getting pushed back. Matt and I decided that it needed to become a priority for the weekend. The worst part is getting everything set up and cleaning it all up when we’re done.

Some people will cut the head off completely on a block but we choose to use the “killing cone” method. We made our own cones from old plastic jugs, but there are special stainless steel ones you can buy as well. We prefer the cones because the chicken is put to sleep being upside down and is restrained by the walls of the cone. This eliminates the flapping and running around headless. It is easier to watch and much cleaner as well.

We have a friend with a homemade chicken plucker that we borrowed for the 10 Cornish x birds, but we decided to pluck these three by hand. It wasn’t too bad and went very quickly.

Usually Matt does the killing and most of the plucking and I am in charge of eviscerating. It is hard to do the first time, but gets easier the more times you do it. The first chicken we ever butchered took almost an hour before it went in the cooler, but I can clean one now in well under 10 minutes. Learning where all the inards are and how they are attached makes a huge difference.

We choose to let the birds chill/rest for 24 hours before freezing them. This allows them to be more tender than they would be otherwise. I then wrap them and vacuum seal them with my food saver to help them to keep as long as possible. With a total of 13 birds in the freezer we try to eat about 1 per month to ration them out.

The wyandottes weighed out at an average of 2 lbs and 10 oz (dressed) at about 18 weeks. The cornish x birds were at least double that at only 8 or so weeks. Needless to say, it is much more efficent to raise meat breed birds for meat. (Go figure)