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annie1992_gw

Chickens. Lots of chickens.

annie1992
9 years ago

You know, chickens are a lot of work before they hit the freezer. 14 young roosters took us 4 hours to pluck and clean. We decided against storing them as whole roasters because that takes so much freezer room, and instead removed the back bone and cut them into halves, packed them into coolers with ice and called it a day.

Yesterday I hauled out that device of Satan, the Food Saver. (sigh) Elery bought me a new one, which does work, fortunately. Of course, the chicken was too "wet" and it wouldn't seal so I hauled out the plastic produce bags I'd been saving. They must be really cheap here, because I'd put a chicken half into one, stick it into a Food Saver bag and the cheap bag would split, allowing all the liquid to escape and the bag wouldn't seal. There's no where near enough freezer space to freeze 28 chicken halves before packaging, so that's not an option. Ugh.

Off to the grocery store for gallon storage bags. Double the trouble and double the cost. Each half went into a storage bag and then into a Food Saver bag. That worked, mostly.

Like a good farmer, I have to know the amount of product produced to determine cost per unit, so I put 4 halves onto my bargain $16 used butcher's scale.

Wanna guess? No? OK, I'll tell you. 4 halves (minus back and neck, which was reserved for stock) weighed 10 pounds and 9 ounces. That was about the average, although one batch of 4 halves did weigh over 11 pounds.

Total weight from 14 chickens was 77 pounds of halves, 7 pounds of backs and necks and about a pound and a half each of livers and gizzards/hearts. I didn't bother to weigh the feet, those are "bonus" parts for stock, LOL. Final cost was about $1.06 per pound plus an awful lot of time and labor, but they are all organic, free of additives and antibiotics and other chemicals and they lived happy chicken lives, safe and comfortable and well fed, until Thursday.

We thought a half would fit on the grill nicely, and at about 2 1/2 to 3 pounds would feed both of us and Molly, with some leftovers. It would also make just enough ground chicken for a batch of breakfast sausage or such.

So, who has great chicken recipes? (grin)

John, time to start that thread on offal and cheap cuts!

Annie

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