Because I am seriously considering this for next year. And frankly I want to know how to pluck them. I just saw some DIY chicken pluckers in action and it was funny in a sick comical way.

And, if you raise chickens for meat I assume you also get eggs. Dumb question maybe but I am not a big egg eating fan (has to do with what an egg actually is and I got turned off while pregnant with Lily who strangely enough could eat eggs for every meal).

If you raise chickens for meat then you will be processing them before they start laying eggs.

We've used a chicken plucker on chickens, ducks, geese and wild turkeys. It worked really well.

Rhea

Yes on raising for meat. No, we don't get eggs from them.

A chicken only lives 6-8 weeks before being processed for meat, and they don't start laying till they're 5 or 6 months old.

Traditionally, this is how it was done: you got a bunch of chicks, mixed male and female, from somewhere/someone. As they matured at around 3-5 months, the half that are roosters-to-be start fighting for dominance. Depending on the flock size you'd kill off most of the roos and eat them, and keep 1 or 2 to mate with the hens. Then, a hen would go broody and sit on some eggs, so some of your eggs would hatch into more chicks. Females = eggs and males = meat except if you got a good roo or needed another, then you'd keep him. And when layers were "spent," ie. done laying, they'd go into the stewpot too.

Because you're killing older hens in this model, they would need to be stewed in some way to lessen the toughness of the meat.

Nowadays modern breeding has created the "meat chicken" - usually a Cornish hen crossed with a White Rock, although there are some more "normal" looking breeds. You buy Cornish x Rocks and raise them just till 6-8 weeks old (could be a little longer depending on the breed, and for example ours are taking longer on organic grain and pasture than if they were confined with super-grower-feed).

We are not sure what we'll do for plucking. Probably by hand, although we're hoping to borrow our friend's mechanical plucker. I also have seen it done where you skin the chicken, feathers on, and end up with skinless parts.

So umm, in my brilliance and excitement I kind of forgot I'd have to kill said chickens. So, how do you do that? Cut the heads off or do people really snap their necks?

I am going to look at some of the DIY pluckers and see what would be possible. We eat a lot of chicken. Lily eats it but Maya eats no meat. If she does eat meat i'd like for it to come from us where we know what went into it.

The most humane way is to use a killing cone, a cone of metal that you stick them in. Their neck and head stick out and you slit the side of their throat. They don't have much blood so they die instantly and painlessly. The cone keeps them from flapping around before or after. And you get them early in the morning when they're still sleepy.

I know, it probably sounds very macabre, especially if you're veg. And I'm still speaking from the "before" side of things. I'll give an update in a month after we've put some in the freezer. ;)

The most humane way is to use a killing cone, a cone of metal that you stick them in. Their neck and head stick out and you slit the side of their throat. They don't have much blood so they die instantly and painlessly. The cone keeps them from flapping around before or after. And you get them early in the morning when they're still sleepy.

I know, it probably sounds very macabre, especially if you're veg. And I'm still speaking from the "before" side of things. I'll give an update in a month after we've put some in the freezer. ;)

My Mom said they used to snap the necks (sorry). When we were young I rememeber getting my Dad chickens as a gift and him eventually cutting the heads off. Very odd sight. So I couldn't imagine doing a bunch of chickens like that.

But, in my other post you saw about my husband LOL. I think it boils down to all animals here are pets for him regardless of the fact that he supposedly doesn't want anything to do with the goats or potential chickens or ducks and we just don't eat our pets.

Storey's guide to chickens has a very good section on home butchering. The author and ultimately the chicken "processor" is a woman. She talks about her own limits about the kill and how many birds she can clean at once. Also about keeping her flock settled and quiet while she butchers. Chopping off heads is so far away from how she does things.

I don't but my grandma (born in 1884, mind you and gone before I was born in 1960) used to wring their necks by swinging them.

Ick.

That, along with plucking them spoiled my mom's appetite for meat.

I do think for people who eat meat, doing the task themselves is honorable.

:)

No, we don't, but you can buy lots of roosters CHEAP from hatcheries if you just want some for meat birds. OR you can get the ones that mature to eating size in a matter of weeks. IMO, that's the way to go for financial reasons, rather than feeding roosters for months until they're ready to go.

Some places will have processing plants where they will butcher them for you, but I'm not sure it'd be cost effective.