Meat from my chics taste terrible

[AstridKT]

I really need your help since my meat is almost uneatable.
I've slaughtered and eviscerating many of our chickens by know, maybe around 50. But sometimes, unfortunately quite often, the meat tastes terribly. I've been studying how to eviscerate and cut chickens and I never make a hole in gut or gallbladder.
I've searched the internet and I seem to be the only one who has this problem. So what's I'm I doing wrong? I am tired of having to use excessively lot af spices in order to eat my chickens.
Thank you in advance.

 

[Kiki]

HI there!
What breed are you eating and how old are they?

 

[AstridKT]

Thank you for your reply.
We have or have had lots of different breeds fx brahma, barnewelder, hybrids (the ones who lay blue eggs), sumatra, mechelender, wyandot and more. They been between four months and three years.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are you just eating the males or are you eating males and females? We all have different tastes, the older they get the stronger the flavor. The chicken you buy at the store is from the broilers probably butchered at 6 to 8 weeks of age. They are extremely tender and pretty bland. If that is the taste you are after, that's not going to happen with older chickens.

Males especially release hormones at puberty that flavors the meat, gives it a gamey taste. Females do too but not nearly as much. The texture also changes dramatically as they age.

How are you managing the meat after you butcher? Do you age it in brine? Do you let it age in the fridge or in an ice chest without brine? Do you cook it immediately or freeze it immediately? How do you cook it? Some info might help, but I think the issue is that it just won't taste like the store bought chicken that you are used to. Some of that is a developed taste.

 

[rjohns39]

Here's a youtube video of how to process.

You want to be sure to cool the birds quickly after they've been cleaned and rinsed. Like ridgerunner said, the older the bird the stronger the flavor and especially true in roos. Anything over 12 weeks get's cooked low and slow or finds its way into chicken and dumplings. If you're free ranging, grass fed chicken taste way different (better in my opinion than anything from the store). When I raise CX, they are 3 weeks in the brooder with feed and greens, and 35 days on grass with supplemental feed.

 

[AstridKT]

Thank you for your reply.

It is not that it tastes different than the ones you buy. I really appreciate homegrown chicken meat. Both the old ones that I have to boil for a long time, the young ones which is oh so tender and the roosters with very dark meat.

But this... I can't describe the taste. It's like... not rotten. But as bad as rotten.

I guess I most be doing something wrong somewhere in the proces, which goes like this:

1. butchered by an axe
2. hanged up side down to let the blood run out
3. I tried different resting time from none till one day
4. Eviscerating closely following instructions from knowledgeable people
5. I don't cut them into smaller pieces (unless it is a large rooster which cannot fit in to the freezer)
6. Sometimes they stay in the fridge for a day before I freeze them and sometimes i freeze them right away. (Havn't tried to brine them).
7. prepared according to race, gender and age.

I think the cause is the eviscarating; I think the meat gets contaminated but I'm really doing my best and following instructions very closely.

 

[AstridKT]

The one I was suppose to serve today was butchered yesterday and has been in the fridge since then. When I took it out of the fridge I could smell it...

 

[MillersFarm]

it could be the slaughtering part which tainted the meat. i've heard that if the bird is stressed out when killing it that can taint the meat, how do you kill the bird when the axe?

 

[AstridKT]

I've watches the vidoe you (rjhons) posted. I can't see any difference in the way he does it and the way I do it, except that he is of course much more experienced. accurate and quick.

 

[AstridKT]

it could be the slaughtering part which tainted the meat. i've heard that if the bird is stressed out when killing it that can taint the meat, how do you kill the bird when the axe?

We have a close relationship to the chicken and they feel very safe with us. I take them from the house at night, talk to them while we work the 10 meters to the slaughter bench. I put the backside up (they are still calm) and hit them in the head with the back of the axe so the pass out and quickly here after I cut of their head. I really don't think they are stressed.