[Bodger]

This summer, one of my projects is going to be to try and reproduce some traditional table fowl. In using the word traditional, I'm not thinking of birds from fifty years ago but more like one hundred and fifty years or before.
Let me give you a little background information on the project. Its going to have its origins in cockfighting.   :shock:   The pastime was banned in 1848 but prior to that, the 'sport' was looked upon in the same way as horse racing or boxing. It was just something that was accepted as being done by the majority of the populace! In those black days of massive inequality and privilege, it was one of the few areas of social life  that the gentry and the labourer could compete on something like an even playing field. So the cream mingled freely with the scum.
 That's in theory, because even that's not quite entirely true. Let's get back to my attempt at reproducing my traditonal table fowl. The noble familles of England used their privileged position to steal a march on their lowlier opposition and would employ  their own people right around the year to produce large numbers of cocks from the egg to the pit.
 In researching this project, I've discovered  that the various Lords Derby in the 17th and 18th centuries would produce upto three thousand cocks every year to choose the best for the fights. The Derby's were just one of  the present day noble famillies that have this skeleton in their cupboard, but in their ancestors defence, we must remember that the era we are  talking about is a few centuries before electronic entertainment.
This is where the traditional table fowl comes back into this article. The gentry would at a certain stage of the young birds lives send out their cock feeders to visit their numerous tennant farmers. These minions would set off in horse and cart and drop the birds one by one at each farm. The farmers wouldn't have a choice as to whether  or not they accepted the birds but in all honesty, the arrangement was a two way deal that suited both partys. After a few months of exercise and fresh air on the farm, the Lords man would return to pick up a mature well grown cock that was ready to do what it was bred for and in return, the farmer would have had the stud use of a fine meaty cock to run with his farmyard fowl.
It was the offspring of this arrangement that the old time farmers would fatten up to sell at the markets as the old fashioned versions of our modern day oven ready chicken. The resulting article would have course been vastly different from what most of us eat today and this would have been for a number of reasons.
Moder day chickens  are hatched and in the oven in the space of quite literally a few weeks. The 'old fashioned chickens' of which I speak, would not have been ready for the oven for five or six months. Instead of being kept in factory farms and fed on pellets or mash, they would probably have been kept in barns or simply been given free range of the farm, where they would have picked up a lot of natural food and basicaly been fed on the various grain and other produce that the mixed farms grew.
I wonder which of the two methods of production produced the tastiest chicken? Well I fully intend to find out.
 Through the generosity of a good friend, I'm going to put some eggs under a broody and attempt to reproduce old fashioned chicken. He's bringing me some eggs that will have a gamecock for a dad and a Light Sussex for a mum. Keep your fingers crossed and hopefully I'll have some old time chicken to report on.

Just to add a little colour to this piece  (I love pictures  :-) ) here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what the parent birds look like.


The dad.





The mum





Yes I know the one in the foreground is a cock, but I hope you get the gist.  

[Aunt Sally]

Fascinating information ans what a handsome father Bodger.  Good luck with the project and I'll send you my address if you want a second opinion on the progeny's eating qualities  

[Vember]

Wow All the best,

Will look forward to reading your updates

[Leapyear]

What a wonderful thread and good luck with your project Bodger.
As a direct decendant (not of gentry   ) but of good Norfolk farm labourers I can see where you are coming from, My father as a farm labourer always had game foul both for eggs and the pot,  

Good luck,and kep us informed,my monies on the latter.

[bedifferent]

looking forward to the results of this one. The very best of luck. It will be nice to know that chicken - as it was originally intended to be is still alive and well - until cooking that is  

[hazelize_uk]

Sorry if this is not the right place to put it, but its sort of similar -ish as its a bit of historical fact that i'm after!

A friend at work remembers his father keeping chickens when  he was a child and during a chicken conversation (as all my conversations are these days!) he retold a tale something along the lines of:-

His father used to keep a cock bird every year that was 'shot' in the head he thinks with lead.  this did not kill the bird, but took away its desire to do anything other than eat and eat and eat.  It was kept on its own in a smallish cage and fed as much as it would eat until Christmas when it was the family meal!  He remembers it being better than any turkey he has ever had since.

I'm certainly not planning to do anything similar to this as it sounds quite cruel to me, but I just wondered if anyone had heard of this shot in the head thing?  it sounded very odd to me! :shock:

[Bodger]

No. You're getting slightly confused with caponising here. A pellet of a different nature would have been placed under the skin to basially chemically castrate the bird .

[woodburner]

Never heard of the pellet/lead thing, but it was common practice to keep a bird/birds confined for a few weeks before slaughter and fed corn ad lib. There's an old boy in the village whose dad used to do this. I'll ask him at the garden show this weekend. It doesn't sound like something a home chicken keeper could do, though.