Comments on: First, Catch Your Rooster

By: AZ-Nuts

AZ-Nuts — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:26:41 +0000

Buy sexed eggs and chicks. Unsexed are nearly all roosters. Don’t buy Leghorns for free ranging – they’re STUPID and eat nails and get run over by plows and…. Don’t buy Banties for free ranging – they’re SMART and will roost in trees and bushes where you can’t catch them. They will also take over the entire neighbourhood because they will mate with anything including cats. If you want eggs, buy geese. Geese and ducks are tons cheaper to feed.

Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.

By: Karl O'Melay

Karl O'Melay — Sun, 17 May 2009 00:55:25 +0000

nice blog, i found you once removed from an award my wife won. sadly our roosters are usually wasted. this summer will be the first time we have our automatic chicken plucker. we hope to not waste the roosters anymore.

karl

By: Cate

Cate — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:00:50 +0000

Love your blog! Another cooking option may be the pressure cooker – no long simmer/braise. We just dispatched a who-knows-how-old rooster for our Easter dinner. My husband wanted me to try frying it instead of the chicken-N-dumplins I usually do and boy was that a mistake. As you said, the meat looks beautiful going into the pan but it comes out like rubber. Ive never thought about chicken/rooster sausage before. I’ll have to try that. Thanks for the idea and the recipe.

By: bbum

bbum — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:43:59 +0000

Nice post and weblog. Our farmer’s market has an egg vendor that has started selling slaughtered laying hens. Cook ‘em long enough and they are just ridiculously yummy and tender. Don’t cook ‘em long enough and they are chicken bubblegum!

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine and I took it upon ourselves to go harvest a turkey for Thanksgiving.

http://www.friday.com/bbum/2008/03/03/how-to-harvest-a-turkey-2/

By: Annie

Annie — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:51:31 +0000

Great post!!! We killed, plucked, butchered and cooked & ate our first home-grown rooster back in November. We have hens for eggs, but due to rules where we live, roosters are forbidden– more due to the potential for feral chicken populations than the noise of crowing, since we’re very rural. We too had help: our friend & neighbor did the killing as this was a first for me & my family, but we all helped with the capturing and witnessed the act, so to speak. My * year old and I did the plucking, and our experienced hunter friend helped with the butchering.

Like you said, we were all “glad” to have been a part of it. Not happy, but grateful for the experience and understanding. And grateful for that wonderful tasting, healthy bird! He was about 12 weeks old and already getting tough, so I can only imagine how tough your roosters were!

By: Lang

Lang — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:42:19 +0000

Wonderful story, Hank! Your comment about the normal age of roosters makes me think about one particular guy we have running around our neighborhood. It’s an escapee obviously and has been haunting the lower reaches of a city park near or home for a few years at least. His stomping ground is in view of Lake Washington and takes in a rather pastoral setting despite the urbanity all around. He must be one tough sumbeech to weather the coyotes, stray dogs, great horned owls, and other potential foes, not to mention bored teenagers. Probably has spurs of steel!

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:46:41 +0000

I raise 300 to 400 meat birds a year, Gary is right about bleeding them out. It makes a big difference. Also, catch them the night before and put them in small cages and withold food from them, it’s much easier and cleaner processing them when their crops and intestines are empty.

You also want to keep everything as calm as possible, chasing them around will only cause bruises, broken legs and wings, and tough birds. We live about 30 miles outside Detroit, anyone is welcome to visit our disassembly line and watch or participate. We process 3-4 times each summer, doing 100 birds each time, it takes 4-5 people about 5 hours including cleanup.

I also have a really neat little design for a small backyard layer pen that moves around the yard (to give the birds access to fresh pasture and spread the manure around). It’s perfect for 3-5 hens, easy to build, easy to move and access, and attractive. I can try to explain it or send a sketch if anyone is interested.

Our spent hens we roast in big batches, cut up the breast meat and freeze for quick additions to winter recipes, then blacken the rest of the carcass in the broiler with carrots, onions, and celery. We then make huge batches of roasted chicken stock which we freeze in one cup freezer bags. We also freeze a bunch in the ice cube trays, then transfer the cubes to bags for using smaller amounts in recipes.

By: Sporting Days

Sporting Days — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:15:08 +0000

Does anybody else find the city of Sacramento’s aversion to its agricultural heritage and Central Valley roots so tiring? I mean, c’mon … Embrace your inner ‘Cow Town.’ The city should celebrate its rich cultural heritage and agricultural past and allow a few backyard hens. Sophisticated cities such as New York have no problem with this and no inferiority complex, certainly. Good luck with the campaign, Katie.

By: hank

hank — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:38:51 +0000

Gary: If I raised chickens, I would do the same thing. This rooster killing happens so infrequently it is not worth it to set up a “kill cone.”

NTSC: You are very correct that coq au vin is made with a rooster, but trust me when I say that if you made it with these birds you would need to simmer it for 8-10 hours. It would prolly still be good, but just very time-consuming.