When do you butcher your chickens?

[Gearhead846]

Hello everyone, I am trying to find out when is the best time to butcher my chickens for the best meat, and most flavorful bird all together.


TIA

 

[Molpet]

I butcher heritage chickens at 16 weeks

 

[Gearhead846]

I butcher heritage chickens at 16 weeks

Well, we have some of our older hens that need to become dinner because they are slowing down in egg production so I was just wondering what the best time to butcher them would be

 

[Molpet]

Well, we have some of our older hens that need to become dinner because they are slowing down in egg production so I was just wondering what the best time to butcher them would be

I haven't heard of a good time of year for spent hens.
Mainly to cook low and slow...or pressure cook.

 

[Battlepants]

Haven't actually butchered any birds yet, but I plan on doing a yearly spring routine. The reason for this is two parts:
-spring is hopefully not too hot, so standing outside butchering all day should be nice
-spring is also when the seeds will be going into the ground, so the refuse from the butchering will be put to good use in the next harvest

There is also the slight advantage of birds that spend less energy staying warm will instead spend that energy bulking up. So slight cost offset compared to winter.

 

[CNJ]

Hello everyone, I am trying to find out when is the best time to butcher my chickens for the best meat, and most flavorful bird all together.


TIA

Most heritage breeds mature at 5 months old, and some mature earlier like Breese, New Hamsters and Plymouth Rocks.
I notice that roosters are tougher than hens at maturity, unless they are capon. https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-a-capon-995596

 

[Gearhead846]

Most heritage breeds mature at 5 months old, and some mature earlier like Breese, New Hamsters and Plymouth Rocks.
I notice that roosters are tougher than hens at maturity, unless they are capon. https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-a-capon-995596

Ok, thank you!

 

[CNJ]

I kept thinking to myself that my Breese rooster tasted like chicken and it was not as delicate as a Cornish X and I really couldn't understand why the French placed such a high price tag on it.

I think the high priced Breese are Capons or hens because the Breese rooster's meat aren't as marbleized as they say they can be........................The testosterone in the rooster down grades the meat, unless its turned into a Capon.

I know they process the Breese roosters at 16 weeks and the hens a month later.

I have only one pure Breese hen and many Breese crosses, so I haven't tasted a pure Breese hen yet. I tried making a few more pure Breese hens, but I have gotten all roosters on my last attempt.

 

[gatrapper]

We do spring and fall batches. Get chicks in march to butcher in May. Get chicks again in End of July to beginning of Aug to butcher towards the end of Sept. Like to have June and July off to travel.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hello everyone, I am trying to find out when is the best time to butcher my chickens for the best meat, and most flavorful bird all together.

Are you talking about Cornish X, a Ranger type, or a dual purpose chicken? Do you only butcher the boys or do you also eat the girls? How do you like them cooked? Your criteria are "best" meat and "most" flavorful. I still can't answer those questions because I don't know what you consider "best" and what kind of flavors you like.

Is size a criteria? For some people on this forum it is very important, for others not so much. How important is cost to feed them, if you are buying all or most of what they eat it might be very important, if they forage for a lot of their food, less important. All kinds of different things that could go into best.

Flavorful is just as ambiguous. The older they are the more flavor and texture they develop. When cockerels hit puberty this really accelerates because of their hormones. The pullets go through the same process but much slower. Some of us like the extra flavor a cockerel gets during puberty, some consider it horrible. Some consider a young chicken to be bland. I don't know how you and your family feel about that. You can handle changes in texture by how you cook them but the older they are the more limited your cooking options are. How you cook them can affect flavor too.

None of this is about time of the year unless they forge for their food. Their age when you butcher them is going to have magnitudes more effect on flavor and most of the
potential "best" criteria than time of the year.

Your poll is about the time of year, not age. To me the time of the year doesn't have much if anything to do with "best meat" or "flavor". It could have a lot to do with how you raise them. You are in the Rockies, your elevation can have an effect on that. At high elevations your nights may get pretty cold with pretty nice days. At lower elevations high heat may be more of an issue. As far as I'm concerned how your local conditions affect the logistics of how you raise them should be your top criteria.