A recent conversation

[Granny Heeney]

You have more patience tban I would. Id of shot him by now. Will NOT keep a mean rooster. Went thru about six before the k e I have nkw. Hes my avatar. Never has even thought about attacking me. Thats why hes not gone to freezer camp.......yet.

I love his speckles, Rammy

 

[Granny Heeney]

Jimi is beautiful! I hate mean roosters, have one now I keep a shovel handle for and have knocked him flat with it. One of these days I'll snatch him up and that will be the end of him. Our son likes real fried chicken, guess Mr. Meanie needs to be the star attraction.

Ooooh, if you serve him up, give a holler about how you did it. Home-grown roo has got to be the best fried chicken on the planet. Nobody around here is old enough/big enough yet!

 

[Granny Heeney]

Both are good looking, I don't think I'd want to deal with feather footed birds with the mud that you have though.

Yah, the feather feets are currently a pain in the neck--y'alls coops are so pretty and mine is 4 inches of mud right now.

 

[Granny Heeney]

What in the----!!! ROFL!!!

 

[Sheepshape]

Ooooh, if you serve him up, give a holler about how you did it. Home-grown roo has got to be the best fried chicken on the planet. Nobody around here is old enough/big enough yet!

Now here's the thing......I'm one of those vegetarian whimps who has now clue about the taste. OH dispatches them......I have to be well away, and then I pluck them and gut them. Once they are dead I can proceed like a surgeon.

So...plucking. Do it straightway, while the bird is warm as the feathers come out really easily then. If you can't pluck them straight away pour boiling water over them and the feathers will come out easily.

Gut them.Strong advice...wear disposable gloves....it stinks. Open up with a cut big enough to get your hand in running parallel to the abdomen side and starting with the vent. The smell will be bad. Take everything you find out. Throw away the intestines. You'll find a thick-walled purplish thing attached to the intestines...this is the stomach/gizzard. Open it and peel off the stomach lining and half-digested stuff and retain for making stock. Take out the liver and cut off the small bottle green thing (gall bladder) and do the same. Take out the heart...stock. If you like (or for animal food)you can add the lungs, the testicles...light pink, squidgy, about 2 cm long and lying along the back. If, for any reason, you kill a hen, the developing eggs can be taken out too. Then move to the neck. The crop will be a softish swelling in the neck to the right of the midline. Open the neck and remove it and the trachea (windpipe)....has rings of cartilage in it. Apologies if this sounds too gross for the uninitiated....but most of you guys are used to grossnessss in all of it's forms.

Then cook it. Here I'm very short on detail. As you may imagine, 'Meat Cooking for Vegetarians" is not on the list of bestsellers. As my roosters end up in my lovely Border Collie's belly all I do is place the bird in a large pot and cook until he's fairly soft. As bactericidal kill isn't necessary for my dog, and as roosters who have run around the farmyard are as tough as old boots with bones like iron, 'when they are cooked' can be anyones' guess. Ah....and I hack the meat off the bones as I don't want my lovely old dog to eat the bones and get splinters in his gut.

Granny Heeney, my plucking and gutting instructions are worth listening to, my cooking instructions are total pants.

We have an utter sea of mud at the moment due to what seems to have been constant rain since September. My 'Feather Foot' birds just take themselves off into the sheep shed where they can strut and eat all day.

 

[Rammy]

Eeewwwwww!

 

[Granny Heeney]

I bred New Zealands and Californians for the freezer during my teens (also lots of hunting/trapping) so I don't figure the general cleaning will be too difficult, but the feathers will be interesting. I keep remembering those old movies with Granny out on the back porch, fluff flying like a little wind storm as she plucked. Thanks for the tips on what to stash and what to trash!

 

[Baymule]

We fry the liver and gizzards of YOUNG birds, but not OLD birds. We with hold feed the day before slaughter, so I don't have to deal with a full crop or intestines. I flip the guts to the dogs, they love them. I don't let them have the heads and if I give them the feet, I cut the toenails off first.

After they are dead, I will turn the hose nozzle on their vent, washing out what poo remains, to help keep the meat clean. Then I proceed with plucking or skinning.

I put mine in a rolled up, duct taped cardboard cone, pulling their head out the bottom. I cut their throat and let them bleed out. DH will hold their legs so they don't kick out of the cone.

I don't think they stink that bad. I've cleaned gut shot deer. If I can do that, I can do anything.

 

[Latestarter]

Why the "Eeewwwww" Rammy? Thought you were a farm girl? Haven't you butchered any animals? I mean I know you've got a bunch of chickens, and you have the cows which will become meals for someone. My chickens never seem to grow and breast meat on them... They get plenty of good stuff to eat, and are happy hunt and peck'ers. They just never develop breasts. Can feel their keel bone and nothing to either side.

 

[Sheepshape]

I autopsied a couple of sheep to find out the cause od death.....and they were really whiffy.......also had to make a puncture wound to let out the evil gasses before opening the belly.