Just a few short weeks ago, the chickens we raise for meat looked like this…
Seven weeks later, they’re already plump enough to process…
These guys will make some big, juicy broilers. They’ve been raised on a diet of fresh grass, sweet clover, kitchen scraps, cicadas and feed.
Dressed out, they’ll weigh between 5 to 8 pounds each, making them more like turkeys!
The countdown to processing day begins.
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those are friggin’ huge! what kinds of birds do you raise? (i’ve been watching with interest the debates about raising the usual cornish cross birds or freedom rangers.) we’ve just gotten ourselves our first batch of layers — a silver-laced wyandotte, a golden-laced wyandotte (because they’re beautiful and we live on wyandotte street–ha!), and an “easter egger” (mostly for the neighbor kids’ amusement). they’re two weeks old, so still residing in a tub in our master bathtub. rockstar livin’!
do you and jake process your birds yourselves, or take them to a local abattoir? small-scale abattoirs are becoming few and far between in our area, and i hear that the big ones are nearly too expensive for small farmers to use (besides the concern that their animals/meat might get lost in the volume of animals being processed and they won’t get back the meat they worked so hard to produce)… small-scale farming, man…not for the weak-kneed!
*stomach growls hungrily*
Too early to put my order in?
For you?? Never too early! Do you really want one? We’ll freeze it for you and bring it up next trip to Baltimore. Let me know!
How about freezing one and bringing it over to Sydney?
Yeah, we would love one…great to know where our food comes from..
BTW you can dehydrate chicken gizzards and liver. They make good dog treats.
So I’ve heard. Dehydrated organs sell for $3.25 p/lb at farmer’s markets. Though….a pound is a LOT of dehydrated organs.
For sure. It’s enough dog treats for a month or more. At least you know they aren’t recalled dog treats from China. I purchased a dehydrator for $35 and every 5-6 weeks, I get 1lb beef liver for $1.25. Cheap, homemade dog snacks!
Have you tried raising turkeys?
Our Toms dress out at 35 lbs sometimes. Boy are they tender!!!