How an animal lover raises chickens for the table

I have to admit I really love animals! I’ve always been drawn to them most of my life.  Chickens are no different.  I’ve spent time watching them interact with each other.  I’ve nurtured them, cared for them and laughed at their shenanigans! With the food industry becoming more corrupt and GMO’s becoming so prevalent in our country I decided I was going to make every attempt possible to remove those things from my diet and that of my families’ diet.  Since I  have the Alpha Gal Allergy poultry is one of the few meats I can consume so I wanted to make sure it was the best! In the area I live in good clean pastured chicken is no easy task to find so since I was already raising chickens for eggs I thought I would try raising my own broilers. By raising my own, I would have NO DOUBT what these animals were being fed and how they were treated! I could make sure their lives were spent in the sunshine, on the grass and not crammed in a filthy barn sitting on top of each other and never seeing the blue sky.  If you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of seeing a huge caged truck going down the road with poor sparsely feathered unhealthy looking birds in it going off to slaughter you know this can really pull on your heart-strings.  Aside from turning into a full vegetarian I felt like this was my most humane option if I’m going to consume meat.

Which breeds to pick

There are a few good options to start with and these are my experiences with them.

Cornish Cross Broilers

These are the typical large white birds that we’ve all seen.  They are generally the ones that you would find at the grocery store.  They are bred to have a large wide breast on them.  They mature very quickly and usually in about 8 weeks time they are ready for processing.  This was my first batch of meat birds.  The trick for me not getting to attached was not spending a lot of time watching them interact.  I would go out and feed and water them and move them onto new grass and that was it.  They don’t tend to be as personable as the other birds.  They are constantly eating and that seems to be all they really care about.  I took this first batch over to a friend’s house that had a chicken plucker and received my first patient lesson in chicken processing. I have to admit here I was not up to the task of actually taking their life and was thankful to have my son-in-law there for that,  but as soon as that was over I was totally fine.  It is very humane and very quick with no suffering.  I tried to focus on the fact that they did have a good life as far as the life of a meat bird and if I were to allow them to live many years they more than likely wouldn’t do well as they are not a very hardy bird and would probably have health problems due to their heavy body. The meat was wonderful and it gave me so much pleasure knowing that I raised those birds myself and now they had come full circle and were providing sustenance for my family! These are the birds that I go to when I need a good large batch of chickens done fairly quickly.  They are probably the chicken that gives you the most bang for your buck financially.

Freedom Rangers

These beauties are bred to be meat birds as well but they are slower growing and will forage like other chickens.  I must admit I had a harder time when it came time to process them. Because they are more personable and have more “chicken characteristics” and are less like little “eating machines” like the Cornish cross it was more difficult.  These I took to a local USDA certified processing facility and had them processed.  I was able to watch the process if I wanted and it was very humane and quick just as the process I used.  These birds are not as meaty as the crosses and took much longer to mature so the feed to growth rate was not as good as the Cornish cross.  I didn’t choose to get anymore of these due to that reason.  But I have to say it could be a bit because they are such a beautiful bird to me that I found it harder to process them. I know many people really like them for their meat birds.

Heritage breeds

After I did my first two batches of meat birds I dove into hatching out  my own egg layers.  My father blessed me with a wonderful commercial sized incubator.  I absolutely LOVE to incubate my own eggs and watch the hatching process.  It amazes me though how the sex of the chicken never seems to be anywhere near even and so my next batch of meat “roosters” were born! I took all of the roosters from the batch and decided to try them as my next meat birds.  They took about as long as the freedom rangers to reach a good size and off to the processing house they went.  Wow were they good! I found that the heritage breed birds seem to be a darker meat and are moist as well.  I do use these for crock pot birds but they are by far my favorite for taste and texture.  I guess everyone has their own preference but this one is mine.  The varieties that I had at the time were Buff Orpington and Rhode Island Reds and they reached about a 3 to 5 lb bird. Roosters tend to fight among themselves and can sometimes be untrustworthy around people so once again I didn’t spend a lot of time watching them and instead set out to accomplish my work when I was with them and that was it! They were well cared for but I just didn’t linger to long.  I know my own soft heart and everyone has their own threshold for how easily attached they can grow to an animal.

Even animal lovers can raise their own meat birds as long as they keep the proper perspective.  If they are treated as beloved pets it will be tougher but you can still give them very good care while guarding your emotions.  I have not chosen to give up eating meat because I feel it is better for me, but all I have to do is remember the poor neglected animals on that chicken truck and I am thankful that I’m not contributing to that problem!