Butchering a silkie cross! (pics)

[Kiraeh]

So my cockerel heavy silkiexpolish hatches are finally getting big enough to butcher. The oldest are about five months and some have turned into right jerks so I've been butchering them one by one. Today's unlucky lad was my favourite, but had come somehow to absolutely hate my mother, who never did anything but bring him treats, so it was time to go. This is the first to have melanistic traits so I thought you might like to see it.

I've been skinning them as it seems easy and my mom has a friend who's expressed some interest in feathers for fly tying, if anyone has experience with that I'd love to hear about it!

This will be the only non-butchery pic, if you don't want to see that stuff turn back now:

All the rude boys get to live in the greenhouse, where they have a nice relaxing time until I have a day off and their number comes up. Now that Nine's out of the way I can repopulate with some of the younger troublemakers.

Here's the pics!

Interesting what gets the colouring and what doesn't. My understanding is that purebred melanistic birds have everything black, including skiing and flesh? Nine only had grey ish skin, but some parts are really black! Look at that trachea! And bones are proper black too.

About 2.5lbs skinned,mostly leg.

 

[Pullet Press]

So my cockerel heavy silkiexpolish hatches are finally getting big enough to butcher. The oldest are about five months and some have turned into right jerks so I've been butchering them one by one. Today's unlucky lad was my favourite, but had come somehow to absolutely hate my mother, who never did anything but bring him treats, so it was time to go. This is the first to have melanistic traits so I thought you might like to see it.

I've been skinning them as it seems easy and my mom has a friend who's expressed some interest in feathers for fly tying, if anyone has experience with that I'd love to hear about it!

This will be the only non-butchery pic, if you don't want to see that stuff turn back now:
View attachment 2413665
All the rude boys get to live in the greenhouse, where they have a nice relaxing time until I have a day off and their number comes up. Now that Nine's out of the way I can repopulate with some of the younger troublemakers.

Here's the pics!
View attachment 2413899
View attachment 2413982
Interesting what gets the colouring and what doesn't. My understanding is that purebred melanistic birds have everything black, including skiing and flesh? Nine only had grey ish skin, but some parts are really black! Look at that trachea! And bones are proper black too.
View attachment 2414001
View attachment 2414061
About 2.5lbs skinned,mostly leg.

The coloring is so much more different than most other chickens, so unique!

 

[NatJ]

Interesting what gets the colouring and what doesn't. My understanding is that purebred melanistic birds have everything black, including skiing and flesh? Nine only had grey ish skin, but some parts are really black! Look at that trachea! And bones are proper black too.

That is very interesting. Thank you for posting it!

 

[MysteryChicken]

I eat silkies sometimes, & seen lots of black skin, greyish/black meat, bones, & organs.

 

[Kiraeh]

So they do get darker than this? I have some coming up with more/pure silkie traits, neat.

 

[iwltfum]

So they do get darker than this? I have some coming up with more/pure silkie traits, neat.

Check out @Compost King's avatar. One of the chickens is nearly black!

Such interesting colors in the bird you butchered. For some reason the black windpipe caught my attention. And that bright yellow fat! Yum.

 

[3KillerBs]

Today's unlucky lad was my favourite, but had come somehow to absolutely hate my mother, who never did anything but bring him treats, so it was time to go.

What a handsome fellow. Too bad a beauty like that turned aggressive.

The butchering pictures were very interesting.

 

[Kiraeh]

Check out @Compost King's avatar. One of the chickens is nearly black!

Such interesting colors in the bird you butchered. For some reason the black windpipe caught my attention. And that bright yellow fat! Yum.

Yeah, it was interesting, trachea completely black, esophagus no black. Liver regular colour, testicles mottled grey.
That is really dark! I wonder if my silkie-er chickens will be like that.

What a handsome fellow. Too bad a beauty like that turned aggressive.

The butchering pictures were very interesting.

Right? The worst part is he was always lovely and sweet with me, and he was the biggest and handsomest of his hatch mates. I was hoping to keep him around long enough to get a few babies in the spring, but the way he was was just not safe. :/

 

[Kiraeh]

He was tasty!

I did two of the others today, I have so many cockerels I'll be eating one every couple weeks all winter haha.
I tried plucking them which was not too bad, almost no pin feathers on either, they ended up about a kilo/2lbs each. Big enough for my family

Did not do a great job bleeding these guys, I'm getting the hang of it for some reason there two both had more blood left in them. Hopefully they still taste fine.