Table birds

[chicken slave]

I have another point as well, if you're dispatching your own birds you get to check there health on the inside, this makes for better husbandry and catching anything nasty in it's early stages which prevents spread to the flock. I know this is not easy to think of but it is even more horrifying to think if you didn't have this knowledge you could loose your whole flock.
I thankfully have never found anything but was advised to always look really well at the removed parts for anything out of the ordinary.

[kiwirach]

a really interesting thread....thanks, i've found it really informative.

i plan to one day keep chickens and that would include raising some for the pot, as i want to become as self sufficient as possible. i know i will struggle with the dispatch...infact the dispatch of any animal i keep, but i will learn to deal with it as it is all part keeping your animal.

[Eyren]

I'd like to do this in the long run, but we just don't have enough space. Maybe in a few years' time (OH hates moving, and the economy isn't exactly ideal at the moment!)...

In the meantime, we'll carry on buying free-range chicken whenever we can get hold of it. We particularly like the Label Anglaise birds - expensive, but enough meat to feed us for half a week. The size of the drumsticks has to be seen to be believed!

[OverWyreGrower]

Our next door neighbour has some Indian Game X Light Sussex in his incubator and has offered me some when they hatch, as last time he had a 100% hatch rate and ended up with loads of birds...

He says that they are very good meat birds, and now I have ideas about a secondary chook pen, just for edibles, so I can feed growers not layers and then a freezer full of chicken - yum!!

[davefromthechipie]

Not looking forward to the( THE) day, but Its got to be better bringing up a baby chicks cock ,giving them a good life and eating them ,Then killing a new born that worked so hard to live and get out of its shell only to be killed within 12 hours of life

[KimT]

We have thirty day old chicks arriving tomorrow morning. They will be under the heat lamp for a few weeks then it's free range time!

[Snadger]

I have another point as well, if you're dispatching your own birds you get to check there health on the inside, this makes for better husbandry and catching anything nasty in it's early stages which prevents spread to the flock. I know this is not easy to think of but it is even more horrifying to think if you didn't have this knowledge you could loose your whole flock.
I thankfully have never found anything but was advised to always look really well at the removed parts for anything out of the ordinary.

Chicken autopsy it is then CS!

[chicken slave]

Never hurts to be aware of there health inside as well does it snadger

[RichmondHens]

I agree Dave, I couldn't kill cock chicks after watching them hatch and looking so sweet. Don't think my children would forgive me either! OK, it costs a bit more to raise them but it's great to put a meal on the table (roast chicken and veg) where everything on the plate you have produced at home.

[KimT]

I can't seem to get the pix loaded?

[Snadger]

I agree Dave, I couldn't kill cock chicks after watching them hatch and looking so sweet. Don't think my children would forgive me either! OK, it costs a bit more to raise them but it's great to put a meal on the table (roast chicken and veg) where everything on the plate you have produced at home.

The thing is............is it not a case of the longer you have associated with an animal and learned it's little quirks.....the harder it will be to'do the deed'?
One of my chicks which are one month old is a fiesty little git who attacks me all the time.........I keep telling him HE will be the first on the Sunday Lunch menue but inwardly I admire his fiestiness!

[raine]

I would like to rear my own but the practicalites put me off. We live in a suburban cottage and although the neighbours are happy with our chickens I don't think there is enough room in the garden to do the deadly deed without anyone seeing! Can't imagine next-doors kids being too impressed with a headless chook, especially when they have been so interested in the hens.

[Hilary B]

The thing is............is it not a case of the longer you have associated with an animal and learned it's little quirks.....the harder it will be to'do the deed'?
One of my chicks which are one month old is a fiesty little git who attacks me all the time.........I keep telling him HE will be the first on the Sunday Lunch menue but inwardly I admire his fiestiness!

Baby chooks acre seriously cute. By 'dinner time' the cuteness has largely worn off (and they may well have turned into juvenile delinquents). Much the same applies to lambs. Once they reach 'selling age' they are no longer cute and appealing (unless deliberately encouraged to be tame, not always then), and you are quite glad to see the last of them! If you have been hit in the chest by a wooly living medicine ball, the term 'spring lamb' develops very different connotations!

[Snadger]

.........................................If you have been hit in the chest by a wooly living medicine ball, the term 'spring lamb' develops very different connotations!

As kids when we were driven past a field of lambs we used to take great pleasure in winding the window down and shouting "MINT SAUCE" at them!

[flowerofshona]

We are going to try to eat our own birds, i have eggs in the incubator now and hubby used to kill and pluck turkeys so he is ok for doing that side its just getting my head around eating something i know i struggle eating eggs from my girls !