Butchering Our Cornish-Cross Meat Birds

Today we butchered 7 of our Cornish Cross meat birds.  Nick timed me on how long it took for each one, and I skinned them at 5 minutes a piece.  It never fails, I also cut my thumb pretty badly on the last bird.  We don't usually pluck them because we will usually get 40 to 60 birds.  Because this variety of meat bird grows so large, it is better for us time wise just to skin them.  The breasts, thighs, and drumsticks are big and we get a lot of meat from them.  The 7 chickens gave us 22 pounds of meat.  This is a little light, per-bird-weight, but we will let the rest grow a bit more.  The pictures below show one of the breasts and the container of meat.  We put it in the refrigerator to age for three days otherwise it will be tough.  We forgot to do this one year and couldn't figure out why the chicken in every other meal was tough.  We discuss how we raise and butcher them in great detail in our e-book 'Food Self-Sufficiency: How We Do It In A Severe Climate.'

A Chicken Breast

22 Pounds of Chicken Meat

     

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