although it was our first year raising meat chickens, we learned a lot from the experience. Here are some tips to help make the process easier.
buy enough chicks to make it worth your time. You’re already doing all the work, so you might as well get enough chicks for you for the year, and even some extra to sell.
find a local place to order your chicks. We ordered ours from a local elevator. They were a lot cheaper than chain farm stores. We also got a deal on their feed, which lasted until the last few days before we butchered them.
have a good coop or chicken tractor. We let ours free range once they were a couple weeks old. That wasn’t a great idea with where we live. Our other roosters injured a few of the meat birds. We also had a few get killed by raccoons, and eagles/hawks got a couple also. Next year we are going to build a chicken tractor so the chickens are safe, and we can move them every day.
be sure to have all of your supplies for butchering ahead of time. I would recommend a place to hang the chickens for the blood to drain or a cone. Then we used a turkey fryer filled with water to do a hot water dip.
we borrowed a plucker, but we plan on buying one in the next few years. Pluckers save a ton of time! Also, I found these easy vacuum sealing bags that worked great. You’ll want a couple coolers filled with ice to cool the chickens after processing before packaging.
start finding all the chicken recipes! We kept all of our chickens while this year. Our typical way to cook one is in the crockpot, covered with filtered water, and add carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. You then have a few jars of nutritious broth, and enough chicken for about 2 meals. I use the chicken for all sorts of things from chicken Alfredo to chicken enchiladas.
there’s nothing like chicken you raised yourself, and knowing how it was treated and fed.