Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => Chicken Chat => Topic started by: billathome65 on April 04, 2011, 15:52
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Ok now I got my chickens I could not bring myself to dispatch them to the pot it wouldn't feel right.
How many of you here have been able to bring yourself to dispatching a chicken or chickens to the pot???
Bill
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I dispatch spare cockerels which me and the dogs will eat but my oh won't (I have to tell him they are from Grannie Annie and he will then eat them ::)) and I will dispatch a poorly chicken if there is no hope rather than let it suffer.
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Its my understanding that plucking a chicken is way to much effort.
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you get quicker with practise, but you can always skin the bird and use the legs and breast instead for speed.
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I find it very difficult to cull my laying hens (e.g. due to injur or illness) but it is something that has to be done.
the birds I rear for meat, on the other hand... I view them differently, so I don't have any issues with culling them.
However I do see hens as livestock more than as pets, and I don't have the same emotional attachment to them as I do my cats, for example. Not that I don't get upset/angry/frustrated when they are ill or injured, and I nurse them when they are sick ;)
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I dispatch my own cockerals and they are quite tasty!
I do give them a sporting chance and ask if anyone wants them first :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Has anyone worked out the economics of meat birds?
Even if they kill at 30 days, they must be expensive, even compared to free range tesco?
I suppose if you hatch your own, thats a big expense sort of gone.
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It's cheaper to buy in meat birds as day olds. I pay between 95c and 1.05€ each for day old hybrids. They would cost much more than that to buy in eggs, then run the incy for 21 days ;)
Certainly it is cheaper to buy chicken from the supermarket, but even free range chicken tastes nothing like home grown chicken. I always run my chickens on for between 12 and 14 weeks (so 98 days +) but I buy medium growth hybrids, not fast growing commercial strains.
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I was thinking all natural broody hen, so then its just food.
Having just checked food prices, I'm just overpaying by more than I thought.
And probably wastwe a lot more than a semi-pro would.
Hmmm....
Nar, other half would never go for it, probably not....
Hmm...
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My two cost £12 each and £15 delivery so dispatching them would not be viable.
The other option would be to buy some Ex-batery but are they any good to eat? They cost £5 but I still have a £15 delivery charge on them.
I'm thinking supermarket.
Bill
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Bill
Day old meat birds that kill at 30-40 days were £1.50 each at the first place I found online, googling "day old meat chicken".
Fully grown egg hens are a different thing to buy.
Although will eventualy stop laying, at which point, some owners prepare them for sunday lunch.
Ex bats usualy end up in dog food and chicken pies, I doubt they would make a good sunday roast.
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when you get ex batts you undertake to give them a home for life in retirement (even eggs are a bonus) not to cull for food (otherwise there is no point in rescuing them).
Also as they are hybrids raised specifically for mass egg production there would be no meat on them plus the fact at that age they would not be suitable for roasting (unless of course you try steaming them first).
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No egg laying hybrid is really much good for eating, although like Joy and Min, some of our members do cull and eat their cockerals.
But although meat chickens aren't as cheap as supermarket stuff, (mind you saying that, we can make a little profit on selling a few of ours,) yes they do taste far superior to the watery tasteless stuff you buy anywhere, even the so called free range and organic chickens.
Also if you think about it. Brian culls ours dry, they are plucked dry and gutted dry. commercial chickens are culled in water, plucked wet and gutted wet AND have water and polyphosphates injected into them. And what happens when a chicken is killed? A lot of the time it poos itself. poo drops into the stunning water and contaminates all the other chickens that go into the same water.
In fact there was an article in the Poultry World magazine about the amount of campylobactor that was found not only on the chickens they tested, but on the packaging too!
So as long as I can eat something I've raised myself, I will carry on enjoying it! ;)
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That makes sobering reading GA. I didn't know about any of that. Thanks for enlightening me/us
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when you get ex batts you undertake to give them a home for life in retirement (even eggs are a bonus) not to cull for food (otherwise there is no point in rescuing them).
Thought I'd responded to this. I wasn't thinking about potting ex bats was just making a comparison which still works out dearer than the supermarket with transport and food etc.
Bill
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That makes sobering reading GA. I didn't know about any of that. Thanks for enlightening me/us
yes, thankyou GA. I didnt know that either. I am even more determined to raise my own if I can. I currently buy organic chickens from a friend who raises his own & they are beautiful tasting & very well cared for. My husband would rather buy iceland muck as he wont eat the real thing. It's too down to earth for him.
I had to dispatch a hen myself that was really poorly & I found it very traumatic as it didnt quite go to plan but I couldnt let her suffer.
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I am doing my first meat hens so for example here are the costs. And took my costings from her
http://www.lowcostliving.co.uk/chickens/chickens-table-cost.php
It depends on how far you are away from the local tescos. Mine is 20 miles so even with a diesel I am looking at £3.00 for delivery its £5.
feed one bag of crumbs 7.50
1.5 bags growers 7.65
11.475
0.5 bag finishers 4.00
total feed costs 30.625
I had ten chicks one had to be culled but i have added that in 8.00
I cant work out the electric so have left that out.
totall cos 38.63 plus electric for 9 chicks the first of which weighed in at 6.5 lbs
so if they all work out at this before electric they have cost me £3.40
course as its the first time i have done this I had to buy a heat lamp £30, brooder £5
Wall hanging dispatcher £26. I also gave them chicken scraps and i get mixed corn for £5 for 20kgs and they have a bowl of that each day once they turned 8 weeks.
This is a rough guide as i said
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dont forget to include shavings/hemcore into the equation. However the taste of home grown far outweighs the cost :D
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yes and the hours it takes to pluck gut and get ready for the oven. The cleaning out the looking after and making sure no ailments. The grey hairs when the get lost and you find them hidden in the dog kennel??????
But i am waiting to try the taste as my mum is coming over and i have not seen her for a year so a big roast is planned.
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the plucking and gutting does get quicker once you get used to it, and you will enjoy it in the end so will your mum :)
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dont forget to include shavings/hemcore into the equation. However the taste of home grown far outweighs the cost :D
And they go further as they don't shrink as much as the waterlogged supermarket stuff because of the added water!
Rachel, I do hope you enjoy your frist home reared chickens!!!
And wild witchy, if you do decide to rear your own meat birds, a wall dispatcher like the one Rachel bought is a good idea! Much better than trying to 'neck' them!
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see there are so many more pros to rearing your own.
many thanks for all your help GA
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You're very welcome Rachel. Something else the supermarkets have missed out on!! lol
My new motto is not just BUY British, but REAR British!! :D :D
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And wild witchy, if you do decide to rear your own meat birds, a wall dispatcher like the one Rachel bought is a good idea! Much better than trying to 'neck' them!
I was unsure about the wall dispatcher-id read that they wasn't humane. My attempts at necking went wrong (I don't think i'd done it correctly) which upset me such alot so I ended up having to decapitate her which was awful. I really cried. :( :(
I might pay my friend to do the job for me; the cowards way out. I don't mind the plucking & drawing etc, that kind of thing doesn't bother me as they are dead by then.
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why did you feel you had done it wrong? The first one i did was not nice and ithought i had done it wrong but in hind site I now know i did it right I was just not ready for the flapping and twitching that occured.
the wall dispatcher is recommended as a humane culler. I have yet to use mine as my first meat chick for the pot flew and hit a wall and broke its leg so i needed to dispatch immediatly.
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why did you feel you had done it wrong? The first one i did was not nice and ithought i had done it wrong but in hind site I now know i did it right I was just not ready for the flapping and twitching that occured.
the wall dispatcher is recommended as a humane culler. I have yet to use mine as my first meat chick for the pot flew and hit a wall and broke its leg so i needed to dispatch immediatly.
I was prepared for the flapping, I thought i'd broke the neck (like my friend had told me etc) but she was still breathing on the floor & flapping her wings. I think I panicked, felt bit sick, so I just rushed & got my husbands chef's knife & quickly did the deed as I didn't want her to linger as I thought I hadn't culled her properly. It has put me off dispatching & I thought I was very courageous getting this far!! :ohmy:
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Some people do think that when the birds flap they are still alive, although it is only the nerves. oh just read your last reply. That must have been vey upsetting, its why I prefer the wall dispatcher. Of course my Brian has his electric stunner!
Sorry Bill, we are hijacking your thread here!
The wall dispatcher is very quick, and if it does worry you at all, you can contact the humane slaughterer's association and ask them about it.
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yes, sorry Bill, was a dispatching theme :( I will ask about the wall device. Thank you GA. x
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No problems GA It's interesting reading
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Add the cost of shavings and hemcore????????
If you can do what I do and find a local wood merchant who is happy to give away shavings for free (of course eggs help!)