[langdon]

just cooked a cockerel for tonight and as the title says it wasnt that nice at all.
it was a cross betweem a wellsummer cockerel/ lohman brown hen.
i know that these two are not a table bird, so is this the reason behing lack of taste?
also he was about 30 wks, is this too old and are cockerels really good for the pan?
any remarks appreciated

[Helencus]

I had the same experience with a light Sussex nearly 27 weeks old. Not very nice I'm afraid. I think it's because he free ranged and was fed on layers same as the girls. From what ive read you're meant to reduce area they roam in and corn feed for a few weeks

[kingnigel]

youve got me worried now, weve just killed one of our cock birds ready for next weekend so we will have to see how it turns out
kn

[CameronS]

it could be to do with the length of time left hanging, i have never reared meat birds, but have eaten any leftover cockerels, mostly light sussex and crosses,

i find that the longer they are hung the better they taste, also lots of greens help improve taste

[daddymatty82]

how long do people hang there chooks for? i got two legbar cockerals at about 5 weeks old ish so groing to eat so how long till you would kill what feed would you feed

[CameronS]

unless i can find homes i dispatch them around 30weeks, mine are fed on a mix of growers.layers and mixed cord and freerange. i usually hang mine for about 1/2 days

[shrekfeet]

Personally I don't bother eating them these days. They are so leggy and short of breast meat and not really worth the effory to lucking and drawing. I'd rather skip meat for a meal!

[Helencus]

I feel duty bound to use the meat so the 2 earmarked for culling soon will be boiled up and fed to the dogs. At least that way I feel less guilty.

[Eve]

Is there anybody who feeds the chickens just (mainly) leftovers rather than (mainly) bought-in food? We have so many peelings and bread etc which surely must be what chickens used to eat (pellets not being the kind of thing that grows on a plant, I mean).
Our pigs taste great and they eat hundreds of kilo's of fruit & veg & bread products.

I just wonder if chicken would taste better if they ate 'normal' (so to speak) food.


Eve 

[Anke]

WE normally just kill and skin the excess males after about 25 weeks (ours are crosses bewteen Maran and either RIR or t Ssx), take off the legs and the breast meat (there is usually not much of it), then marinate the meat for at least 24 hours in fridge using either a bottle of the cheapest Bulgarian Red that I can find or put it into Tikka marinade (homemade). The red wine marinated one is cooked v slowly like Coq au vin. Both produce great results, nice gamey meat falling off the bone. I wouldn't roast these birds though, we rear meat chicks for that and they are fed on grower pellets and killed after 12 weeks but before 16, or they grow too big for my liking.

[morri2]

Eve, my Dad swears that all his family fed chickens on when he was small ( and my Mum for that matter too) were kitchen scraps and grit - they boiled up the kitchen scraps into a 'meal' and fed it to the chickens.  Not sure what was used for grit but I did hear that you can grind up the used egg shells and use that.  They are mainly grain eaters though, so I think you'd have to make sure they were getting enough grains such as corn and wheat (leftover bread, sweetcorn!) so they'll produce decent eggs.  I have been thinking about trying to source some different food for my chickens as I really don't like feeding them soya based, mass produced food (been reading  about the ecological effects and corruption involved in the soya industry) so am considering alternatives myself.  Also as vegetarians, it would be good to source some food containing Omega 3 which can be passed into their eggs - such as flax seed.  Have to do a bit of research on that.

[benkt]

We get through a fair amount of cockerels, mainly light sussex, marans or crosses between the two. Usual tactic is kill in the morning and leave to hang till evening when I process them. Then throw them whole into a casserole dish, add onion, leek, assorted veg and a some wine + water and let them stew for three-four hours. The meat then just falls of the bones (which we remove) and serve directly. Our family love it!

[Eve]

Thanks, Morri, friends of ours do the same with their laying hens (feeding kitchen leftovers) and they do really well on it. I have the same thoughts re the soya, btw, it's a bit perverse to have feed for our animals made on the other side of the world, anyway.

Eve 

[Helencus]

Thanks Benkt will try that with my latest cockerels.

[egglady]

We get through a fair amount of cockerels, mainly light sussex, marans or crosses between the two. Usual tactic is kill in the morning and leave to hang till evening when I process them. Then throw them whole into a casserole dish, add onion, leek, assorted veg and a some wine + water and let them stew for three-four hours. The meat then just falls of the bones (which we remove) and serve directly. Our family love it!

when you say 'process' , do you mean the plucking and removal of the innards?  is it not harder to do if they've gone cold?  i thought it was easier when they were just killed