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Starting Member
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Last Login: 11/2/2008 8:33:59 PM
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How will I know when the Cornish rocks are Done growing?
Do people do this some place? or must I (ick) butcher them just before they to in the pot to be organic?
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 6/3/2010 5:57:24 PM
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| There are several variables, depending on how and what you feed, and the strain of birds which you have, but most are at the optimal slaughter weight at between 6 and 8 weeks. They will still continue to grow after that age, but after that point, feed to meat conversion slows considerably, and you are feeding much more feed to produce much less a percentage of meat, so it's not worth it, economically. There are also other considerations about keeping them after that time, which are not in the bird's best interests. As a terminal cross, they are not intended to live much past that age. There are many places which do offer custom slaughter, if you don't want to do it yourself. Without stating your location, it's impossible to give you any suggestions on where to go. You'd have to check the organic "regulations" of whichever organization you choose to follow, to determine if custom slaughter and freezing is still within the realm of what they consider acceptable, but neither will change the quality of the meat much. That is mostly determined by what you feed and how you raise them.
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 11/2/2008 8:33:59 PM
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Upstate NY Plattsburg, Cornish x Broilers
What is your Method?
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Junior Member
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Upstate NY Plattsburg, Cornish x BroilersWhat is your Method? Not in my area, so I don't know any slaughter facilties near you. They shouldn't be too difficult to find, if you put in some effort. There are many strains of Cornish X. You'd have to ask the people you get yours from what their average slaughter age is. The 6 to 8 weeks is still a general all around average for most strains. What is my method of what? Slaughter? I have most of mine done for me, but when I do it, I use the ax. Some like the knife through the brain. Others, the simple neck wringing works for them.
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Starting Member
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wringing the neck? so you just shake the bird realy hard?????
I've never had birds before. New at this. Do they run around like they say or is that a story?
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 5/16/2009 11:15:30 AM
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| My prefered method of dispatching chickens is easy on you and the bird. Go out very early before they get up and moving. Have a length of rope draped over something with loops in the two dangling ends.. Go get the bird while it is aleep and slip the feel into those loops. Now with the bird hanging up side down cut its head completely off with a sharp knife. If your quiet and easy up till the cutting sometimes the bird doesnt even wake up enough to know whats happening till its over. If you try wringing the neck and dont know how you may not get the job done, those necks are tougher than they look. I like my method because in my expirence it is the fastest and most humane method I have tried. Oh..and they cant run around if you hang em up first.
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Average Member
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| Like James, I hang my birds by their feet. However, I cage up the birds I am going to butcher the night before. So I hang the birds for about 10 minutes, which in effect gets them pretty tranquilized. I cut their throats, rather than cut off the entire head as they hang. I was originally taught to chop off a chicken's head, and place the bird in a bucket, but found that they battered around so much that they ended up getting bruised in the process and some even broke wings/legs. I buy the Cornish cross roasters from McMurray. I butcher my fryers at 10 weeks, and my roasters from 12 - 16 weeks, as I get around to it and as they get large enough to be nice roasting birds. And when I get tired of shovelling feed into them!
Karen
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 12/9/2008 7:44:39 AM
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| been killing them each friday morning before work. Get 2 at dawn for weekend meals...don't need to freeze them if you don't kill them all at once. Use Ax, CHOP, then just hold them around the body for a few moments and when they stop, go get another one. Thye will spazz out if you let them go. Don't realy care if they go nutts, but it can spurt blood all over the driveway For turkey (thinking holidays) we put them into a feed sack with a hole cut in the bottom for the head to go through. Then tie up the end of the sack. CHOP and the bird, who is to strong to hold onto once he thrashes....can be let go to do whatever he/she will do. The bird can't get his wings up to realy thrash in the bag and won't dammage the meat.
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 12/4/2008 9:20:39 AM
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| We began raising broilers this year. We butchered our first group at 7 weeks and they were all 6# or more. Our second group was 9 weeks and the third group was 12 weeks. We chose the largest birds each time, except the last batch when we butchered the remaining. Some birds are just slower growing but finally reach a nice size. The last batch had some that had put on quite a bit of fat and should have been butchered sooner but due to weather and my husband's work schedule we were unable to butcher when we wanted. All the chickens were 5# or more and they looked beautiful in their shrink bags! We pasture our poultry Joel Salatin style and use killing cones to restrain the birds and slit the throat avoiding the windpipe and they bleed out very nicely. It took a bit of practice to get the throat slitting down and it's certainly not a pleasant task but the end result is delicious! We found that the larger all round cones were more difficult for the birds to back out of than the flat back cones and prevented injury from a bird flopping out onto the ground after the throat was slit.
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 12/19/2008 8:59:17 AM
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We have raised the CornishX from McMurtrys too. With the good Purina feed we had to cut back on feed to have them not get too big for the fair. That was 8 weeks which is what we had planned. With the proper nutrition they are ready in 6 weeks and to me that seems more profitable. Looking forward to getting started again this year but learned some big lessons in our first attempt to raise birds for the fair.
Patty
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